Is This Why Biden Failed?
Matt Vespa
| February 15, 2025 6:00 AM
Nate Silver has been a thorn in the side of both Republicans and Democrats. The former didn’t appreciate his liberal bias, while the latter was incensed that his projections were mostly bearish on Democratic chances of victory in 2024. What united both sides was Silver’s lengthy and, at times, elliptical language when describing why he came to his decisions, especially when it showed Trump was going to lose the popular vote but clinch the Electoral College. Many saw this as a cop-out.
With the 2024 election over, Silver listed a few reasons why Joe Biden lost, most of which you already know. Yes, he sprinkled in his leftish commentary, but Silver has been a vocal critic of Biden for being too old, too ineffective, and waiting too long to drop out of the race. Overall, his lengthy post on Biden’s failed presidency is mainly on the money, except for a few paragraphs here and there, which we can agree to disagree:
First, there were the supply chain backlogs and rising inflation. This was right when it became hard to claim that the early spring uptick in prices had been “transient.” In fact, things were rapidly getting worse:
Second, there was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, including Kabul falling to the Taliban in mid-August.
Third, there was immigration, which was surging to record levels on the southern border after changes to asylum policy and an increase in demand for labor…
Fourth, there was a spike in crime, with the homicide rate surging to its highest levels since 1996…
Fifth, there was increasing fatigue with the racial reckoning, with perceptions of Black Lives Matter turning negative at about the same time that Biden’s approval ratings did…
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there was still COVID — plenty of it…
Though the case fatality rate was lower than in 2020 because of immune protection from vaccines and previous infections, the number of new cases rose sharply from June through September 2021 due to the Delta variant — and then reached nearly three times their previous peak in January 2022 amid Omicron. Moreover, there were the cultural battles over COVID, which were more contentious than ever since Americans had long ago lost their patience. Battles over airplane mask mandates, vaccine passports, constantly changing CDC guidance, vaccines that weren’t as effective at stopping transmission as those studies had initially promised, and especially over school closures. Last, there’s a lengthy bit about Joe Biden’s age and how it handicapped him from governing, but there's no shocker there. Yet, as a leader, Silver noted from Vox, no less, that Biden was incapable of keeping the ship of state on a coherent course since he was often paralyzed, thanks to the policy demands of the party’s far-left flanks. Also, the Delaware liberal likely misread his mandate.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/02/15/n2650823-n2650823
