© Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden • Campaign Event • Detroit, Michigan • July 12, 2024
Donald Trump has predicted that Joe Biden will be remembered as the worst US president ever. History will decide on that, but most likely he's a contender for the top spot in one category - as the most tragic figure to lead the United States, up there alongside those who have been killed in office.
Even leaving aside the personal traumas Biden has endured (the death of his first wife and his daughter, the death of his favorite son and the disgrace of another), his political biography is all about an ongoing quest for the highest position, in which he often seemed to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, he cannot be called a failure, but the end of his career is so depressing that one wonders whether it would have been better if he'd never reached the summit in the first place.
If Biden had been able to challenge Trump in 2016, when he was still quite alert and energetic, a lot of things might have turned out differently. For him, at least. The established narrative is that he withdrew from the race because of the death of his eldest son, Beau. The unofficial feeling is that he lost out to an internal lobby promoting Hillary Clinton. Whatever the case, he missed his chance for an 'active presidency.' Four years later, all impartial observers (and they were few and far between, it must be said) realised that Biden's age and condition had rendered him far from fully fit. However, Covid came to the rescue, derailing Trump's already rollercoaster presidency. By 2020, Biden was adamant that he would serve a single term. By 2024, he had managed to change his mind, but age had taken its toll.
Comment: A careful take by the Russians. Unaddressed: Biden's corruption that pervades and overrides any significant contributions he might have but didn't make to America's legacy.