US President Joe Biden arrives at Wilkes-Barre Scranton Airport (Pennsylvania, east) on November 2, 2024 (AFP / Ting Shen)
No, Donald Trump is not a “temporary aberration”: passing the keys of the White House to the Republican will be an immense humiliation for outgoing President Joe Biden, accused of having, out of pride, facilitated this resounding return.
When the Democrat, now 81 years old, announced the start of his first, victorious, presidential campaign in 2019, he made an analysis of his rival that must haunt him today.
“I think the four years of this president and everything he represents will go down in history as a passing aberration.”
It is now his own mandate which acts as a parenthesis between two Trump presidencies, with the clear victory of the 78-year-old Republican against Vice-President Kamala Harris.
The outgoing president is due to address the country on Thursday.
– Transition –
He called Donald Trump to congratulate him and invite him to the White House, in order to allow a “smooth transition”.
“Take it from Biden,” accuses The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday. “Trump is president again and Democrats can attack Biden’s ego,” reads USA Today.
We are far from “Thank you Joe!” that the Democrats chanted at each public appearance of the aging president since his withdrawal from the race for the White House at the end of July.
“This Democratic disaster is largely attributable to Joe Biden. He should never have tried to run again at the age of 80,” asserts Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia.
In the spring of 2023, the Democratic president, buoyed by better-than-expected results in the legislative elections the previous fall, announced that he was seeking a second term.
Forgotten, his promise to serve as a “bridge” to a new generation.
– “Look at me” –
From the start Joe Biden was weighed down by the question of his age. His only response, for a long time, was to say “Look at me”, to a country which saw him aging live, with his stiffer gait and his more slurred speech.
Alex Keena, professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, points out the “arrogance” of the outgoing president and his entourage, emphasizing that if he had handed over, the Democratic Party could have produced a robust candidacy for the presidency. from a primary. “It was a missed opportunity.”
During her lightning campaign, the Democratic candidate never broke with this very unpopular president, whom Americans blame for the high cost of living.
During an interview, Kamala Harris said there was “nothing” she would have done differently than Joe Biden, a passage that Republicans later circulated on social media.
Deploring her “devastating defeat”, a member of the candidate's team declared on Wednesday on X that her campaign had tried to get the Democrats out of a “deep hole”, without really succeeding.
The Democratic president has undertaken immense economic projects and it is likely that the Republicans will preserve a certain number of them, at a time when factories are being built and bridges are being renovated.
– January 20 –
But these major works left Americans exhausted by inflation indifferent.
And all of Joe Biden's efforts to renew the diplomatic alliances of the United States, damaged by Donald Trump, are now at the mercy of the Republican.
The octogenarian president's aborted campaign had already ended in a particularly pitiful manner. On June 27, he completely lost his footing against Donald Trump during a televised debate.
But Joe Biden, convinced of his chances of victory despite unfavorable polls, still held on for several weeks, under the incredulous eyes of the world and his party.
He then tried to play a role in the vice president's race but was more of a liability than an effective supporter, including publicly calling Donald Trump supporters “trash.”
The final humiliation is coming.
The Democrat has already committed to attending the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump on January 20, who had shunned his in 2020, convinced that the election had been stolen from him.
After half a century of mandates, in the Senate, as vice-president and then in the White House, it will be “a terrible way to leave political life”, notes Alex Keena.
