WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� Sitting in the Oval Office behind the iconic Resolute desk in 2022, an animated described the challenge of leading a psychologically traumatized nation.
The United States had endured a life-altering pandemic. There was a jarring burst of inflation and now global conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, as well as the persistent threat to democracy he felt posed.
How could Biden possibly heal that collective trauma?
鈥淏e confident,鈥� he said emphatically in an . 鈥淏e confident. Because I am confident.鈥�
But in the ensuing two years, the And when the 81-year-old Democratic president showed his age in a against Trump, he lost the benefit of the doubt as well. That triggered a series of events that led him Sunday to step down as his party's nominee for the November's election.
Democrats, who had been united in their resolve to prevent another Trump term, suddenly fractured. And Republicans, beset by chaos in Congress and the former president鈥檚 criminal conviction, improbably coalesced in defiant unity.
Biden never figured out how to inspire the world鈥檚 most powerful country to believe in itself, let alone in him.
He lost the confidence of supporters in the 90-minute debate with Trump, even if pride initially prompted him to override the fears of lawmakers, party elders and donors who were nudging him to drop out. Then Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and, as if on cue, pumped his fist in strength. Biden, while campaigning in Las Vegas, tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday and retreated to his Delaware beach home to recover.
The events over the course of three weeks led to an exit Biden never wanted, but one that Democrats felt they needed to maximize their chance of winning in November鈥檚 elections.
Biden seems to have badly misread the breadth of his support. While many Democrats had deep admiration for the president personally, they did not have the same affection for him politically.
Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said Biden arrived as a reprieve from a nation exhausted by Trump and the pandemic.
鈥淗e was a perfect person for that moment,鈥� said Brinkley, noting Biden proved in era of polarization that bipartisan lawmaking was still possible.
Yet, there was never a 鈥淛oe Biden Democrat鈥� like there was a 鈥淩eagan Republican.鈥� He did not have adoring, movement-style followers as did Barack Obama or John F. Kennedy. He was not a generational candidate like Bill Clinton. The only barrier-breaking dimension to his election was the fact that he was the oldest person ever elected president.
His first run for the White House, in the 1988 cycle, ended with self-inflicted wounds stemming from plagiarism, and he didn鈥檛 make it to the first nominating contest. In 2008, he dropped out after the Iowa caucuses, where he won less than 1% of the vote. In 2016, Obama counseled his vice president not to run. A Biden victory in 2020 seemed implausible, when he finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire before a dramatic rebound in 麻豆传媒AV Carolina that propelled him to the nomination and the White House.
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama who also worked closely with Biden, said that history would treat Biden kinder than voters had, not just because of his legislative achievements but because in 2020 he defeated Trump.
鈥淗is legacy is significant beyond all his many accomplishments,鈥� Axelrod said. 鈥淗e will always be the man who stepped up and defeated a president who placed himself above our democracy."
But Biden could not avoid his age. And when he showed frailty in his steps and his speech, there was no foundation of supporters that could stand by him to stop calls for him to step aside.
It was a humbling end to a half-century career in politics, yet hardly reflective of the full legacy of his time in the White House.
In March of 2021, Biden launched $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid, creating a series of new programs that temporarily halved child poverty, halted evictions and contributed to the addition of 15.7 million jobs. But inflation began to rise shortly thereafter as Biden鈥檚 approval rating as measured by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research fell from 61% to 39% as of June.
He followed up with a series of executive actions to unsnarl global supply chains and a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that not only replaced aging infrastructure but improved internet access and prepared communities to withstand the damages from climate change.
In 2022, Biden and his fellow Democrats followed up with two measures that reinvigorated the future of U.S. manufacturing.
The CHIPS and Science Act provided $52 billion to build factories and create institutions to make computer chips domestically, ensuring that the U.S. would have access to the most advanced semiconductors needed to power economic growth and maintain national security. There was also the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided incentives to shift away from fossil fuels and enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
Biden also sought to compete more aggressively with China, rebuild alliances such as NATO and completed the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the death of 13 U.S. service members.
Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 worsened inflation as Trump and other Republicans questioned the value of military aid to the Ukrainians. Hamas鈥� Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel sparked a war that showed divisions within the Democratic party about whether the United States should continue to support Israel as tens of thousands of Palestinians died in months of counterattacks. The president was also criticized over illegal border crossings at the southern border with Mexico.
Yet it was the size of the stakes and the fear of a Biden loss that prevailed, resulting in a bet by Democrats that the tasks he began could best be completed by a younger generation.
鈥淗istory will be kinder to him than voters were at the end,鈥� Axelrod said.
Josh Boak, The Associated Press
