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.
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.