By Philip Klein
Thursday, August 26, 2021
In the early days of any administration, there is a
tendency for new presidents to blame their predecessors for problems they claim
to have inherited — and there is a window during which the public is willing to
accept such arguments. But for President Biden, the window on blaming Donald
Trump has now closed. As Americans process the tragic news of double-digit
deaths of U.S. service members in twin terrorist attacks in the midst of a
botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, it will be hard for Biden to dodge
responsibility.
When Biden took office, COVID-19 was two weeks past its
winter peak, the U.S. was administering over a million vaccine doses a day, and
the economy had bounced back. Biden nonetheless falsely said that he had inherited the
“worst crisis since the Great Depression” and claimed that the administration
was launching a vaccination campaign from scratch, and he told Americans to “mask up” for just 100 days in keeping with his campaign vow
to “shut down the virus.” Yet we’re now in the midst of a COVID-19 surge, and
more than a hundred days since his first hundred days, the CDC still maintains masking
guidance — even for the fully vaccinated.
Biden similarly has attempted to blame Trump for the
mounting fiasco in Afghanistan. And while it’s true that Trump made the initial
agreement to withdraw and wind down the troop presence, it was Biden’s role as
commander in chief to oversee that withdrawal. It’s true that the baseline
assumption on both sides of the “stay” vs. “leave” debate was that leaving
Afghanistan would be chaotic in the short term. That events have unfolded in a
way that’s significantly worse than even these low baseline expectations is
quite the testament to Biden’s incompetence. Biden cannot blame Trump for, say,
abandoning Bagram Air Base. Leaving was never going to be smooth, but it could
have been done in a way that would ensure that Americans and our allies were
out before the withdrawal. And it could have been done without today’s bloody catastrophe.
At this point, Americans are unlikely to accept “blame
Trump” excuses. Per CNBC:
A recent NBC News poll found that approval of Biden’s Covid
handling fell from 69% in April to 53% in August, a 13-point drop.
Meanwhile, just 25% of voters said
they approved of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.
“The promise of April has led to
the peril of August,” Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the NBC News poll, told the network.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll released today found that more
than two-thirds of Americans, and even 55 percent of Democrats, agree that the
Afghanistan withdrawal has been handled “badly.” And he is underwater in his overall approval rating.
Keep in mind, all these polls were taken before today’s
terrorist attacks.
Biden owes his political success entirely to the fact
that he has had Trump as a foil. It’s why Democrats were willing to nominate an
elderly, shaky, and twice-defeated presidential candidate. It’s the reason he
was elected. And the contrast with Trump was the reason why he enjoyed generally
positive approval ratings during his first six months in office. But now, Biden
is on his own. Because he can no longer use Trump as an excuse for his own
failures.
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