Democrats need to realize Biden didn’t hoodwink them – they willingly went along with it. Acknowledging their mishandling of the former president’s decline will be better for them in the long run.
REPORTS: White House altered transcript of Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ call
The White House reportedly edited the official transcript of President Biden’s controversial “garbage” remarks.
On May 13, several anecdotal stories emerged from CNN journalist Jake Tapper’s new book about the “cover-up” of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline.
Those stories and that book are part of a growing call for truth around Biden’s health during the 2024 presidential campaign and his decision to seek reelection before ultimately stepping aside.
That rising tide includes a New Yorker articleabout Biden’s inability to recognize George Clooney, a man he had known for years. This all might shock Democrats, but any Republican in the country won’t be surprised.
While it is welcome to hear media members like Tapper, who participated in the cover-up, finally admit the truth about Biden, the lack of self-reflection among liberals is incredibly frustrating and reveals that they haven’t learned their lesson.
If Democrats continue to lie to themselves about what happened in the 2024 election, they’ll repeat the same cycle of mistakes that helped Donald Trump get reelected.
Biden allies were deceived because they closed their eyes
People can pretend that Biden’s team deceived them if that’s the history that makes them feel better about things, but that is not what happened. Ignoring Biden’s decline required a significant amount of personal complicity.
There were countless instances of Biden’s decline manifesting very publicly, ranging from minor linguistic gaffes to appearing completely lost in public. Republicans covered it relentlessly, and Democrats insisted it was a hoax.
To have believed the lies of the Democrats about Biden’s competence required partisans to jump through hoops to ignore what they were seeing in favor of the preferred Democrat narrative.
Members of the media who were somehow blindsided by Biden’s mental state during his disastrous presidential debate against Trump, especially, need to look in the mirror. Ordinary Democrat-leaning voters have an excuse due to a lack of information reaching them, but those in the media who ignored what they were watching unfold in favor of talking points from the administration’s allies have no explanation beyond willful ignorance.
If it took Democrats six months of Trump to acknowledge this, they’re in trouble
My immediate reaction following Trump’s victory in November was that Biden’s legacy would be handing the presidency back to Trump, and that appears to be exactly what Democrats are just now coming around to admit publicly.
The second Trump presidency is nothing short of a nightmare scenario for Democrats, and they are correct to blame Biden, partly. After moping around in the months following the election, expect Democrats to now gear up for 2026, as Trump’s popularity craters, by bringing their election postmortem to the public.
But instead of admitting they helped cover up for Biden, Democrats will blame him solely for their defeat, even if many privately worried about his mental decline, according to that New Yorker article.
As recently as late April, Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, were still defending Biden’s cognition, testifying that she had not witnessed Biden decline during his presidency. It is hard to believe that is possibly true, and if it is, it says a lot about Warren’s perception skills.
Funny enough, the Democrats’ rehashing of history is taking place at the same time as Biden is on a media tour hoping to defend himself. Acknowledging their mishandling of Biden’s decline would be better for Democrats in the long run.
Sweeping their mistakes to the side means they won’t learn from 2024. They’ll continue to lie when they think they can get away with it, and when their partisans let them get away with it.
For 2024 to be a real lesson for Democrats, they need to realize Biden didn’t hoodwink them and that they willingly went along with it. Any other narrative is a failure to take responsibility.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
