Biden’s legacy bookended by two Trump victories
Lloyd Doggett wishes he had called on President Biden to step down sooner.
The Texas native was at the forefront of actions that led to dramatic changes in this year’s presidential election when he urged Mr. Biden to end his reelection bid in July, becoming the first Democrat in Congress to do so. break publicly The meeting with the commander-in-chief comes after a poor summer debate performance with Donald Trump.
over the next few weeks. 30 Democrats Calls for the president to drop out of the race, but Biden’s eventual decision to drop out of the race and back Vice President Kamala Harris failed to prevent Trump from winning back the White House, an outcome many in the party feared would be the outcome if Biden were elected. Reality. Biden remains in the lead.
‘Tis the season of second-guessing on the left, a time of what-ifs and maybes. Doggett, 78, believes nearly everyone who has held elected office in his party bears “some responsibility” for the catastrophic defeat he said was handed to them. In addition to losing the presidency and Senate seats, Democrats also failed to wrest control of the House of Representatives from Republicans.
“President Biden has many successes in terms of legacy,” Doggett said. “But the most important success is that, if he had stepped down a year ago, it gives us a better chance of stopping Trump from coming back and doing all the damage to our country.”
Biden ran for the White House four years ago in an attempt to end Trumpism, pitching himself as a seasoned political figure who had served in the U.S. Senate for decades and served as Vice President under Barack Obama for eight years. Year. He is leaving office at age 82, having served in the White House between Trump’s first and second terms as president and a Republican-led Congress angered by Biden’s tenure leading the country.
“Jimmy Carter would be very happy right now because he’s not the worst president in my lifetime,” gloated Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. “…(Biden’s) policies failed miserably in the last election.”
As Democrats sort out the fallout, among members of parliament Although Biden helped him drop out of the 2024 race, people still respect what he has accomplished.
“He saved our democracy for at least four years in terms of the direction America was going at that time,” said Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley.
But hindsight also lends credence to the belief that taking action sooner might have made a difference.
“(Harris) ran a pretty good campaign, actually a very good campaign, and her downside was that she didn’t have time to distance herself from Biden,” said California Rep. Scott Peters. “Mistakes are made in every campaign. And because her time is so tight, she doesn’t really have time to recover from her mistakes. But I think it’s certainly better than the alternative. I think if the president had been on the ticket, it would have been nothing short of a A massacre.”
Back in 2019, Biden said he believed history would look back on President Trump’s four years “and everything he embraced as an anomalous moment.” His campaign has given Democrats an implicit hope that while Trump may have temporarily transformed politics, defeating him will bring a level of civility to a country that seems to have long outgrown it. polite.
Now, Trump has found his way back to the White House after trying to overturn his 2020 loss and spreading lies that the election was stolen, claims that angered a mob of his supporters who on January 6, 2021 The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol has scarred a normally peaceful transfer of power. He overcame prosecution and a group of young Republican primary challengers. he Survived two assassinations And won a clear victory this fall, becoming the first person to be elected nonconsecutively as president in more than a century.
In the last election, many voters supported a vision for America that was very different from the one espoused by Mr. Biden. Trump has been more combative in his approach, focusing his agenda on undocumented immigrants and vowing to take action mass deportations There are also moves that would appeal to the far right, such as possible amnesty for the Jan. 6 rioters. He also agreed Duty and tax changes Economic concerns for Americans.
By July, Democratic leaders had publicly shrugged off concerns about Biden’s age and ability to win again, opting instead to overhaul the party’s primary process at his own urging, paving the way for his decision to run for reelection until then. after his fateful debate performance.
In his only White House term, Biden led the country out of the coronavirus pandemic and worked with Democrats, who then held a slim majority in Congress, to pass a $1.9 trillion in relief He introduced a proposal in his first 100 days in office and relied on the same power more than a year later to develop a landmark plan to combat climate change, both party-line initiatives criticized by Democrats. praised but faced strong opposition from Republicans.
He signed major bipartisan bills on infrastructure, gun safety and domestic production. Semiconductor computer chip. He helped bolster support for Ukraine as it faces Russia’s brutal invasionthese efforts may soon be undermined, given the notable Trump administration chooses one It does not support continuing to provide assistance to Ukraine, nor does it advocate ending the war through negotiations.
But inflation concerns overshadow other aspects of Biden’s economic record, while borders, immigration and Chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan It’s a key issue that Biden will grapple with during his presidency as he demands Democratic support for his re-election.
“Look, there’s going to be a lot of experts, a lot of election experts offering their opinions, their thoughts, but the president is very, very proud,” White House press secretary Karine Jean said. Pierre told reporters after the election . “Very proud of what he has accomplished and very impressed with what the vice president is doing.”
A source familiar with the president’s stance at the time said internal campaign polling showed the June 27 debate was “a slight hit” and claimed that “until the circular firing squads started operating and there were regular reports of Democratic calls to quit we were really hit.” More damage.”
Yet among Democrats who called for Biden to withdraw from the race before he dropped out on July 21, there was a sense that they were right and that they did what needed to be done, even if it didn’t get them where they wanted to be.
“In retrospect, I’m sure Biden faced certain losses, and we were certainly going to see losses in the House and Senate, and I feel like things were going to be much worse in the House than they are now,” said Rep. Cohen, D-Calif. Mark Takano still thinks Biden “has done a great job as president.”
Others don’t have the same introspection.
Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown lost his own race even after publicly calling on Biden to end his campaign, a defeat that helped Republicans gain Senate seats and unify control of Washington. “I don’t have any thoughts about Biden’s legacy,” Brown said as he hurried through the Capitol and faced reporters with his defeat days after the election.
“I’m just focused on what we need to do here the last few weeks,” Brown said. “I’m not an expert.”
Those who defeated Brown did not hesitate to praise Biden for helping return Trump to power.
“Biden is the greatest thing that has ever happened to President Trump because he shows the country how crazy the left has become,” said Bernie Moreno, the Republican who ousted Brown from his Senate seat.
Mr Biden is hardly an afterthought in Washington – yet the focus, which has been on him for much of the past four years, has now shifted to Mr Trump and his right-wing allies’ disapproval of the president-elect The vision of returning to the White House. strength.
Biden isn’t the only one quietly winding down his term in the final days of his presidency. Political life in the U.S. Capitol rarely ends on a high note, with most leaving the halls of power through retirement or defeat rather than achieving one final victory before calling it a career.
Like Biden, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, is a former party standard-bearer. Like the president, his political career is coming to an end as a man they both oppose prepares to re-enter the White House, which Mr Biden has described as an “extraordinary moment” as a return to the White House.
“President Biden is a good man,” Romney said. “But I think he grossly misread the American public.”
Melissa Quinn and
contributed to this report.
