Why on earth would a political party, supposedly in the business of channeling the views of the people, tack determinedly into the face of such widespread and well-founded opposition? It’s certainly not because Biden is extremely popular. The venerable measure of presidential job approval maintained by the Gallup organization has consistently shown Biden bumping along in the vicinity of 40 percent for most of his term. And it’s not because he is a great campaigner. The election of 2020 was Biden’s third attempt to win the presidency and was no more successful than the first two until he was rescued from defeat by party leaders alarmed at the suicidal prospect of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as nominee.
This is happening for two reasons: the refusal of one man, Biden, to step back (a bewilderingly common affliction among the superannuated politicians shuffling around Washington), and the virtuosity of Democratic thought leaders in telling one another things that are not true. The second of these is the more interesting.
You can trace the Democratic self-delusion to the 2016 election, in which the egregious Donald Trump seized control of a moribund Republican Party and eked out a narrow victory over Hillary Clinton. In a preview of 2020, Democratic leaders had been so alarmed by Sanders running hard to the left that they reached into their vaults to anoint a proven loser, then pretended they had a great candidate. Clinton had the dubious distinction of losing the nomination in 2008 to a freshman senator, yet the party was shocked when she managed to lose to a celebrity from reality TV.
Rather than draw the obvious conclusion that the party needed to strengthen its bench, Democrats instead decided that Trump had some strange political dark magic. No amount of subsequent losing by the burly blowhard has shaken that deep-down dread. At cocktail parties, in caucus rooms and on cable TV, one hears over and over that only Biden can defeat Trump, like an elderly Harry Potter who alone can stop Lord Voldemort.
This is crazy. Any moderately popular person could beat Trump in a general election. The former president has not made the slightest effort since leaving office to win back a single swing vote; indeed, polls suggest that more than half of the electorate is a hard “no” on Trump, and nearly two-thirds are either firmly or leaning against him.
Another mistaken mind-meld among Democrats is the idea that Bidenomics is a winning platform. Here’s the truth: For an incumbent president, the economy is only as good as the public believes it to be. The large U.S. share of the vast global economy is always a mixture of good news and bad. And that will not change in the next six months, during which — political scientists tell us — voter attitudes on the economy will be set.
Yes, unemployment is low; wages at the bottom are rising; inflation is down from its peak. But the deficit is on track to double, interest rates are at 20-year highs and household income has dropped three years in a row. Polls indicate that Americans are less gung-ho about Biden’s economy than Democratic cheerleaders want them to be.
And Democrats are deluding themselves when they tell themselves they have no alternative to Biden. The governors of 24 states are Democrats. Fifty U.S. senators are Democrats. The entire Cabinet comprises Democrats, and Democrats lead some of the world’s most complex corporations. The mayors of many of the nation’s largest cities are Democrats, as are the presidents of many colleges and universities. Many retired military leaders are Democrats. America has done fine for more than two centuries with presidents drawn from these wells.
If Biden were to choose retirement, the field of contenders would fill overnight, and a new generation of leaders would finally emerge in a nation that is hungry for them. The election is more than a year off. There is plenty of time.
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