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Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.
The US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garland as attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection while presiding over a justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.
With just more than three weeks of his single-term presidency remaining, Biden’s reported rueful reflections are revealed in a Washington Post profile that contains the clearest signs yet that he thinks he erred in withdrawing his candidacy in July after a woeful debate performance against his rival for the White House, Trump, the previous month.
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You can go back and look at Pew polling or Gallup polling. The top concern for people who voted Trump was the economy. Within that, the aspect that they were most concerned about was prices. That is, people were very unhappy about inflation. There was a lot of inflation relative to normal US levels under Biden.
The Trump administration also adopted inflationary policy. And doing so was generally considered desirable by economists; having inflation is preferable to recession in terms of the impact on a country, and COVID-19 was going to produce some level of economic disruption. But that doesn’t change the fact that the public doesn’t view inflation in that way; it’s very unpopular with the public, and past polling has shown that the public, in the US and elsewhere, is more upset about having inflation than a recession.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c8881/c8881.pdf
The results show that most people in all countries would choose low inflation even if it meant that millions more people would be unemployed.
In general, the American public also attributes short-term aspects of the economy directly to the President.
The Trump campaign also worked to drive those concerns and associate them with the Biden administration.
Benefitting from mis-attribution of economic behavior and policy is not unique to the Republicans. Clinton benefited from it; the “it’s the economy, stupid” slogan played off public concern about economic policy where there probably wasn’t much to blame Bush for, but the public was still upset about it. To some extent, it winds up being luck of the draw; if the economy is growing when you’re President, people tend to credit you for it, whether you really deserve credit or not, and if it’s contracting, people tend to blame you for it, again whether you really deserve blame or not. They don’t go digging through data or reading much about where policy originated.
That’s been a property of American elections for some time.
If you want to change that, you have a hard communications problem.
My guess is that neither Biden nor Harris was going to solve that communication problem, fundamentally change that aspect of electoral politics, and I think that unless they managed to pull some very large rabbit out of the hat, that was going to dominate the election.
No Democrat will in our lifetime. It’s to late for that. The wealthy own all major social media outlets, all major traditional media outlets, and are turning them to disinformation and AI slop. Even as they spin up thousands of AI slop and misinformation farms masquerading as small independent outlets to keep the fools that stray corralled.
Liberal or economic liberal politics will never solve it either. As this is a feature of them. It’s working as intended, in the interests of the worst possible people.
Technically, Inflation peaked in Biden’s first year. That means it rose under Trump and declined under Biden. I’m sure people really did think what you said, but I think it needs to be clarified that the economy actually did improve, from how it was in the Covid 2020 Era, after Biden took office.
To me, there are a couple problems of perception that gave Biden/Harris a huge uphill battle in the election that they didn’t need to have.
Biden actually did a ton to address problems of inequality and income in America. He worked harder on it than any president since Johnson at least, and scored some huge successes driving up low-income wages and strengthening unions. But, he didn’t do it in ways that were visible to the average American, I think because he’s so far removed from the present-day average American that he genuinely didn’t realize how invisible a lot of his reforms would turn out to be.
His two huge mistakes were:
- Talking about, and letting people in his adminstration talk about, inflation, in terms of “how much have prices gone up this year?” He bragged about getting inflation back down, which speaking from an economist’s point of view is accurate. But things are still expensive. To the average American, “getting inflation back down” would have meant that eggs go back down to costing what they used to cost. He could have gotten away with half as much gains on wages, but taking strong action to bring down grocery prices and rent prices. People respond to how much stuff costs, even if they’re making 20% more than they used to a year before.
- Focusing all his wage efforts on people who are in the “W-2 economy,” even at a low level. The biggest economic victims in the country are undocumented people, people driving Uber, people working at Wal-mart being kept just barely under full-time employment, all of whose rent goes up every year to match anything they’re gaining. People are being squeezed out of the full-time-job-having economy steadily more and more every year and into the desperation economy. I know he did the Climate Corps, but something more like the CCC or WPA, giving real full-time working jobs that can pay a decent income on a massive scale, would have been better than looking out for people who already have a W-2 union job having their union more effectively able to fight for them.
And then, also, letting Merrick Garland twiddle his thumbs for four years like the cowardly lump that he is. I think history will look back on this past few years of slow-walking the Trump prosecutions as a massive error that led to untold misery and bloodshed. Honestly, even if he fucked up everything else and lost the 2024 election, if he had simply taken the fire on the roof as an urgent problem that needs all hands on deck, instead of one more renovation project that needs to wait its turn until it comes up in the agenda, it would have been better.
Garland is easily this day and age’s Chamberlain. Except Chamberlain sacrificed the Sudetenland to buy time for rearmament, what’s Garland’s excuse?
Yeah. Chamberlain came in with effectively no military at all, saw that a war with Germany would be like a child trying to fight an adult, oversaw a lot of rearmament, and then declared war on Germany when the situation became more clear, at a point when they still barely had a functional military. He gets a lot of heat for appeasement but the situation he came into was totally hopeless, and he was taking concrete steps to get things moved in the right direction.
Biden and Garland did fuck-all for 4 years, and then when the situation started showing signs of genuine threat, started talking about pardons for them and their friends as the solution.
Focusing all his wage efforts on people who are in the “W-2 economy,” even at a low level.
Do people not in the W-2 economy turn out to vote? (Undocumented people clearly don’t.) This isn’t a rhetorical question.
Edit: a quick search found this from 2016, but it would need to adjusted by the number of people in each segment. (And “W-2 economy” isn’t synonymous with income, but they are correlated.)
Now how do those income blocks compare as proportions of the total voting-eligible population?
If people not in the W-2 economy had gotten jobs working in the modern-day WPA, paying $75k a year, they sure as fuck would have started turning out to vote. Probably forever, as long as it kept going. There’s a reason FDR won 4 terms.
Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.
Him and his staff misled and dragged their feet about his intentions early in then he went full out with ‘no I’m gonna run fuck you all’ and it turned into a disaster.
This is just one of the problems with the current Democratic Party. No one will work with and groom the upcoming young members to take control. The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.
I wish this comment was higher. Biden betrayed the party and its chances of defeating Trump the moment he won the 2020 election and chose to not start preparing the nation on Jan 20th 2021 for a younger generation to lead. Merrick fucking Garland was the other, related, and just as large mistake. That one is totally on him.
And Kamala has just never been a great candidate, but he could have taken actions to try to boost her prominence. Instead he saddled her with no-win issues throughout and jealously guarded any successes for himself. And the one big bad issue I remember that he didn’t dump on her (the rail strike), he farmed out to Pete Buttigieg to be the face of the administration (even though it wasn’t a DOT issue). It was almost like the goal was to sabotage any potential locus of political power that wasn’t Biden and his inner circle.
I don’t think a better grooming would have helped Harris when she wasn’t willing to be not-Biden in any way other than being coherent, but it certainly didn’t help and seems indicative of their lack of intention to ever transfer power.
An open primary would have helped.
A massive look back (Whenever we have the ability for free press again after Trump) on the consistent self sabotage of Clinton-Biden-Harris would become a new The Prince for future generations of leaders.
“It’s better to be feared as a leader than to be loved as one.”
“It’s better to not shoot yourself in the foot and then declare you’re good for a 10K, after saying the last 4K was your last.”
The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.
“They young care too much about disrupting our economy (making it more fair which means less for my
ownersdonors) we can’t have that.”I have a fun test for you, it will inform you if your information ecosystem is informing you or misinforming you
Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.
You clearly remember this as a big promise during Biden’s 2020 campaign - but can you actually find evidence of him saying this, ever?
Can you find anything official - with a name attached to it - of the Biden campaign saying anything about only serving for one term?
His campaign unofficially put that out in 2020, since he was near the bottom of the primary rankings. Campaigns that desperate start to float ideas as a trial balloon, to see if it would help or not. That’s how this works; a suggestion given by campaign staff that he can formally deny if it hurts his campaign or embrace if it’s helping. Once he started to gain ground in the primaries he backed off of the idea. He did many of these trial ideas.
Google gives a bunch of examples. Did he actually say it to the press? Perhaps not. Was it discussed and was his age recognized as a liability within his campaign in 2020? Absolutely yes.
They all, all reference the exact same quote each article.
“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”
The adviser argued that public acknowledgment of that reality could help Biden mollify younger voters, especially on the left, who are unexcited by his candidacy and fear that his nomination would serve as an eight-year roadblock to the next generation of Democrats.
By signaling that he will serve just one term and choosing a running mate and Cabinet that is young and diverse, Biden could offer himself to the Democratic primary electorate as the candidate best suited to defeat Trump as well as the candidate who can usher into power the party’s fresh faces.
None of that was official, it was all just the campaign’s attempt to shore up an issue they had without an actual commitment and you fell for it.
Well, then they should’ve repudiated it a lot sooner (i.e. during the 2020 campaign), because to allow the misconception to exist is tantamount to confirming it.
None of that was official, it was all just the campaign’s attempt to shore up an issue they had without an actual commitment and you fell for it.
Vote for us! We lied to you!
Yeah, great look.
I am amazed of the mental gymnastics.
“Can you find proof of this?”
“Yes, dozens of reputable sources give proof.”
“Well that’s not good enough, what I meant was you’re a moron for never thinking a 78 year old man with dementia would be great for 8 years as the hardest job in America.”
None of that was official, it was all just the campaign’s attempt to shore up an issue they had without an actual commitment and you fell for it.
That’s not a failure of the media, that’s a deception by the campaign. Unless you think the media lied about a prominent advisor saying that, they did their job.
If they were off the reservation, there should have been a firing, but just because they’re putting out statements through unofficial side channels doesn’t make it not a message from the campaign.
off the reservation
that phrase was used to describe native americans who ventured outside of the confines of the reservations they had been forced into. You can imagine what happened to them if caught. That phrase has a dark, dark, history.
How do you call something a “mistake” when you allowed it to continue for four fucking years?
Every time he remembered it was a mistake he’d forget it before he could do anything about it.
That’s okay Joe, there is a lot of regret about your entire administration, and career, on all sides.
On the bright side, centrists are getting split between Biden and Kamala.
Let them bicker amongst themselves for once. The rest of us can unite for once.
Might’ve, might not’ve. It’s irrelevant now, of course.
What Biden and Harris will be remembered most for, is their peaceful transition of power to a mentally unbalanced fascist tyrant, knowingly, compliantly, without even any public statements of caution.
Biden and Harris are ready to quietly shake hands with Trump and Pence, hand them control of everything, after then retire to a quiet life of luxury and highly-paid speaking engagements, where they’ll continue the Democratic Party’s proud tradition of speaking without really saying anything.
And so the toilet flushes.
There’s nothing wrong with peacefully handing over power to a person that won both the electoral and popular votes this time around.
We get what we fuckin’ deserve.
Without even any public statements of caution.
They’d both been making public statements of caution for months prior to the election. People didn’t listen, so now we’re here. Biden and Harris are not responsible for this. We are.
Was this truly “the last chance to save democracy” or just another election?
The campaign certainly ran and fundraised off the former messaging, but behaved like the latter.
People (including campaigning politicians) can genuinely believe democracy is on the line but refuse to be the one that ends it by refusing to give up power themselves when they fairly lose to their opponent. There is absolutely nothing wrong or illogical about that. If Trump refuses to leave office in four years it will be him ending democracy in the U.S. even though he got there by democratic means. This is usually how dictators get into power; a dumb, frightened populace hands it to them.
The campaign is bigger than one person, as is the party structure though - Pelosi had to be the one to kick out the pillars beneath Biden in order for him to end his run. Nobody in the DNC or the Biden campaign took the keys away from Grandpa until then. Even as an DC outsider who just follows politics, let alone has daily access to Biden, it was apparent that he was mentally declining, and rapidly so in the last two years.
Even before then, it was business as usual. “It’s my turn” got us Trump in 2016 after Hillary stood aside for Obama. “It’s my turn, again” got us Trump in 2024 because Biden/the staff did not court a fresh crop of junior politicians, nor stand aside gracefully in the Primary, nor even permit Harris the conditions to win. She publicly was saddled with no-win scenarios like the border or Gaza, whilst being relied upon to pass legislation in the Senate, becoming the record holder in that role.
And that’s before we even get to how Trump’s court shenanigans were permitted to play out and run down the clock. Biden needs to save his whitewashing of history and self-exoneration for his Presidential Library, his record is clear. Had he actually been a one termed ‘elder statesman’ who passed the torch and prepared the next generation, we wouldn’t be looking at a Republican triple sweep of government.
Just a small correction … Trump’s VP is JD Vance this time, not Pence.
Not like it really matters, Trump seems to be VP to Musk now.
I forgot … the next step of late-stage capitalism is to have a billionaire act as proxy for the duly-elected POTUS.
:/
I’m old, sorry, but yeah — gotta remember, Pence wasn’t crazy enough to make the cut this time.
their peaceful transition of power to a mentally unbalanced fascist tyrant
They can either hand over control to someone who might destroy American democracy, or they can destroy American democracy themselves.
I almost believe it, not because he would have done any better but because America is too dumb racist and sexist
Fucking wanker. Let him eat megashitdicks.
no. any idiots that did not vote for kamala to avoid a second trump term would likely not have voted for him. win for gaza or something.
Well, Trump will make sure we don’t have to worry about Palestine anymore-as it will just be more Israel.
That was already the game under Biden. There was zero attempts to actually prevent annexation of Gaza. Just a lot of finger waving while they sent more shit and even US troops.
I’d like to hear from one of those ass-hats that were protesting about Palestine outside Harris rallies.
How dare they be against centrism’s defining policy?
I’ve taken a few weeks away from Lemmy since the election and now apparently the dems are centrist?
You have a 2 party system. Of which one is the most conservative and one is the most progressive. The more often you elect the more progressive party the more progressive both parties will become.
To suggest that both parties are too conservative is patently absurd and speaks of a complete lack of understanding of your political system.
I’ve taken a few weeks away from Lemmy since the election and now apparently the dems are centrist?
Now? They spent the past year supporting genocide. That is not and will never be a progressive policy. Don’t lie about progressives to make genocide supporters look good.
You simply don’t have much of a grasp on American politics if characterizing the Democrats as centrist seems inappropriate. Republicans haven’t been on some long term winning streak to push them right. Power’s been flipping back and forth in roughly equal proportion. Their base has just radicalized and their politicians move with them. The same people who were anti-Trump in 2016 are now MAGA cheerleaders. The party of “compassionate conservatism” (not really compassionate, but wanting to be seen as such) has turned hard right and embraces antagonistic and crude politics.
Only one party has tried to capture the center in the last decade, and they’ve lost 2/3 elections.
You’re not in a position to talk down to anyone, are you. Centrists just lost every single lever of government and their reputation has never been worse. They’ve turned the democratic party into a big joke on their watch.
Every time you guys talk things just get worse. Maybe its time to sit down and take a look at where you’re at instead of talking. At the very least, your talking wont help anything, now will it.
Oh please. There’s some real pot kettle black in this comment.
Besides which, I’m not from the US, and I think the entire developed world is in a position to talk down to anyone from the US, in particular those who acted against their own interests by protesting against their best candidate, and assisting to install a dictator.
Honestly, one of us really does need to engage in some self reflection.
Oh right youre australian. I see that Australia has a center left and a center right party. Nothing but centrists huh, neat.
And you say:
the entire developed world is in a position to talk down to anyone from the US
Well that desire to “talk down to” and the fact that both parties in Australia are centrist certainly explains the tone of your comments. I’ve often decried to my friends, “But who will speak for the political tourists who want to do drive-by pearls-of-knowledge droppings???” Its a big concern thats seldom addressed. Its right up there wih, “But what do the fascists all think? How can we be truly centrist and bipartisan if we dont understand what they want?? who speaks for them? can we get them a seat next to Harris maybe? Maybe they can campaign together even!” I’m super concerned to know the details of the fascist plans so I can set my own agenda to be just to the left of theirs, as is proper. If the fascist dont tell me how to think, then I lack any guideposts at all, right. Centrism aint easy. So much strategery involved.
So you’re just here to (in your words) “talk down to” people in a system you’re not a member of at all, and you bring with you a profoundly inbred sense of centrism. So glad you’re here to school us americans with your keen insights on american culture. Read some blogs about America, did you? cool. So let me guess what your advice would be here, ‘we need a stronger sense of centrism in the US and everything will be OK’, am I right?
Sorry if I stole your thunder, mate.
This obsession with “centrism” is so tiresome.
Left, right, and centre is subjective. Any country with a two party system is going to have a centre left and centre right.
If you’re a major party in a two party system the only way possible way to attract enough votes to form government is to have policies as close as possible to your opponent whilst simultaneously differentiating yourself so as to be identified as “the best option” to any voters on your side of the political spectrum. This dynamic of political science is well established, and patently obvious to everyone but a handful of 16 year old idiots who think they’re the first generation in the history of the world to want things to be better than they are.
Your big "I see that Australia has… " reveal sadly says more about your very limited understanding of politics in your own country than it does about my perspective.
If you’re a major party in a two party system the only way possible way to attract enough votes to form government is to have policies as close as possible to your opponent whilst simultaneously differentiating yourself so as to be identified as “the best option” to any voters on your side of the political spectrum. This dynamic of political science is well established, and patently obvious to everyone but a handful of 16 year old idiots who think they’re the first generation in the history of the world to want things to be better than they are.
It’s very much not a basic tenet of politics, simply the philosophy that centrists continually push because it’s the philosophy that promotes centrists. This election was the perfect test case. Harris couldn’t be more centrist, even putting a lot of effort into courting actual Republican voters, while Trump leaned into the far right. Your naive political philosophy was soundly disproven.
Elections aren’t a static population of voters on a line, they have diverse opinions and different priorities, and elections are often won or loss on turnout from voters in the party base. Trumps turned his out, Harris didn’t. It had nothing to do with who was best able to represent the center.
If you’re a major party in a two party system the only way possible way to attract enough votes to form government is to have policies as close as possible to your opponent whilst simultaneously differentiating yourself
This is absolutely hilarious stuff, thank you.
Ah yes, hilarity. The classic resort of a child when confronted with a concept beyond their comprehension.
on no fucking planet is this the case. Also, him hanging on as long as he did, didn’t help things. It’s not like the Harris campaign did themselves any favors, but was clear not one person the the management caste of the DNC really gave a fuck about winning.
He should have announced he wasn’t running in 2023 to give dems a chance to run a legit primary.
They don’t care about winning, because it changes nothing for them. If they win, they keep taking kickbacks and bribes. If they lose, they keep taking kickbacks and bribes.
If they win, they wring their hands about how they can’t do what they want, so it’s not even worth trying. If they lose, they wring their hands about things they can’t stop, so it’s not even worth trying.
It’s win-win for them. It’s lose-lose for us.
Money in politics is always the case, and being in the opposition where you can make deals and promises for when you are back in power is big money.
It’s like how the hour of Roe v. Wade being overturned, people got texts wanting money to put it back into place with the next president.
The president can’t just declare abortion legal or illegal, my $5 isn’t going to help a candidate get elected when millions are spent on a press tour in one day. There’s a clear reason why they do it.
Oh, they wanted to win but only on their terms.
They seem to fundamentally believe the electorate are all dumb as fuck and everything would be so much better if they just did as they were told.
They certainly seem to believe that the electorate love voting for the second stinkiest turd.
A fool to the end. A Zionist, genociding, hubristic fool until the end.
I just don’t understand why Biden’s family and those closest to him wouldn’t have taken the time to be like “Joe, just shut your mouth. Cement your legacy as one of the best Presidents the USA has ever had, make some shit for Donald harder on the way out, and enjoy retirement.”
Instead he’s showing his whole ass. And for what? Once real history gets memory-holed by the fascists none of his whining matters anyway. He could have done a lot of good on his way out.
Yeah, why try too hard when everybody is gonna remember sloppy Joe anyways.
I like genocide joe better.
Spineless Joe, anyone?
Fuck’s sake. As deluded as he was when he stayed in despite internal polling showing him losing in a landslide. Fuckwad very well may have handed American democracy over to its execution.
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There was some discussion I saw that alleged those polls never reached him. Instead ended at the inner staffers.
Not excusing his current opinion.
Copium: The Final Frontier
This feckless fuck over here, I am starting to think Ol’Corn Pop beat the dog shit out of him back in the day.
End Citizens United, force retirement at 65, and term limits for all governmental appointments and elected officials.
As my old granddad used to say “If one stinks of shit you best believe they all stink of shit.”
