What is going on?
I am starting to see editorials and analyses that are blaming the second coming of the convicted felon on Joseph Robinette Biden. It seems like there is a determined campaign to trash his legacy. I could believe the idea is to not just overturn everything he accomplished, but to erase his presidency entirely, as though it never happened. You’d think someone is trying to make it seem like there is an unbroken reign from the felon’s first term to his second.
We haven’t reached the point yet, like that seen under Stalin, where history would be rewritten and photos edited to remove unpersons who had fallen out of favor and been purged.
Not yet.
I keep seeing the same talking points — Biden is unpopular. Biden wrecked the economy — or people think he did. Biden should have stepped down earlier, or never run for a second term in the first place. Biden’s policies were unpopular. He should have pursued a more progressive agenda. He should have moved more to the right. Harris didn’t do enough to distance herself from him. Etc. etc.
You name it — he can be blamed for it, both sins of omission and commission.
Never mind that his administration has been largely scandal free. Never mind that he surrounded himself with some really competent people. Never mind that he took an economy in shambles and turned it around. Never mind that he restored international relations that had been crippled and turned them around, including NATO expansion. Never mind that the infrastructure bill was an incredible accomplishment given the Congress he had to work with. Never mind that he was the most pro-union president we’ve ever had. Never mind he is a fundamentally decent man; his character is not in question.
It wasn’t enough apparently.
Did Biden get everything right? Of course not — who does? Might he have done better? Who can say? If there is one fatal flaw Biden has, it might be that he thinks better of America than we deserve. There can be no greater repudiation of everything he stands for than the victory of the man who will succeed him in office. Biden has overcome so many tragedies in his life — he does not deserve this one.
Biden didn’t fail America — America failed him.
ADDENDUM: When I wrote this up last night, I didn’t expect the response it would get. Comments are posting faster than I can keep up. Someone asked where I was seeing Biden being trashed; there are a few comments and stuff elsewhere at KOS where people are indulging, but I was thinking more of things like this from The NY Times: This Is All Biden’s Fault.
It never ceases to amaze me the way the media dunks on Democrats for not being able to beat truly awful Republicans and their policies — but Republicans get no heat for running those awful people and their really bad ideas. IOKIYAR.
Democrats need to get over the self-loathing impulses and dig deep. What’s coming will not be pretty; we need to be ready. Biden is still president, even if Trump and the MSM seem to be acting like he’s already gone. How will he and Democrats in Congress use the time they have left?
Never give up, never surrender.
