Joe Biden's tragic end

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If the essence of Greek tragedy is that the hero is destroyed by his own flaws, then Joe Biden has achieved stardom. He defeated Donald Trump, stood up to Russia, implemented more reforms than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and left behind a strong economy. That makes Biden a hero to the American left and beyond. Yet most of his achievements will now be erased. His legacy is the return of Trump. Post-Biden, the floods are coming. Much of this is his own fault.

The flaw of the Greek tragic heroes was arrogance. Biden said last week that he would have won the 2024 election if he had stayed in the race. This is despite the fact that last June only 27% of Americans believed he was capable of serving as president again. Trump is more likely to win a bigger victory. Whatever blame Kamala Harris deserves, the difference between her vote and Trump's was only 1.5 percentage points.

Not much has been reported yet about the conspiracy of silence surrounding Biden’s diminished competence. Although he skipped news conferences and other impromptu events, his mental decline was an open secret in Washington. Biden's inner-cabinet family and longtime aides should bear some of the blame. This is also a failure of the media. Rare whistleblower journalists risk losing access and being ostracized on liberal social media.

But the responsibility lies with Biden. If he delivers on his vow to be a “bridge” to a post-Trump era, Democrats have time to find a stronger candidate than Harris — one who can distance himself from unpopular issues in Biden's economy people. Instead, an isolated Biden is cut off from public sentiment. To be sure, the biggest swing for Harris in November will come from the voters who pay the most attention to the news. Meanwhile, Trump swept the low-information vote by huge margins, regardless of race, income and gender. All right-thinking Americans support you, one supporter said to Adlai Stevenson, the twice-defeated Democratic candidate in the 1950s. Yes, but I need a majority, he quipped.

No one says politics is fair. Biden has helped ensure that the U.S. rebound from the coronavirus pandemic will be stronger than that of any other large economy. But a nostalgic nation associates Trump with a pre-COVID era. People blame Biden for inflation — and his stimulus has indeed fueled it. But voters gave him no credit for the rest. A Gallup poll conducted this week showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans say the U.S. has lost ground in six areas during Biden's term. These issues include the economy, federal debt, immigration, income inequality, America's place in the world and crime.

Most said progress had been made in only one area during Biden’s presidency — “the status of lesbian, gay and transgender people.” No data better illustrates the Biden administration’s weaknesses in narrative and leadership. Until he dropped out of the race in July, Biden had been ramping up his efforts to highlight the threat Trump posed to democracy, even though his team had known for months that democracy wasn't among voters' top five concerns.

But it’s the nobility of this flawed hero that gives Biden a Greek ending. Virtue and arrogance exist simultaneously in his personal tragedy. When Biden served as vice president, his net worth was estimated at about $500,000. After nearly half a century in public life, it was almost just a rounding error. No informed American thinks Biden is corrupt. But he turned a blind eye to his son Hunter, who was still trying to cash in on the family's fame even as he struggled with drug addiction. Biden paid a huge price for this indulgence. Like Othello, Biden loves unwisely but loves too deeply.

Ukrainians will remember Biden warmly. Not so for Palestinians. Amid the rubble of the worst civilian death toll in years, Gaza is littered with U.S. munitions supplied by Biden. He believed that his actions were noble in order to prevent the death toll from rising further and to stop the war in the Middle East. By blocking Vladimir Putin’s military resources in Ukraine, Biden may also have contributed to Bashar Assad’s downfall in Syria. But many in the Global South view Biden as someone who has failed to live up to the values he promised. In much of the world, Trump being seen as a version of Biden — rather than a radical departure — may be the toughest verdict.

Biden pledged four years ago to be “an ally of light, not an ally of darkness.” He means it. As Biden bids farewell to the nation Wednesday night, only he knows what it feels like to cede the stage to Trump.

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