Link: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/politics/joe-biden-post-presidency-donald-trump-south-carolina?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc&recs_exp=most-popular-article-end&tenant_id=popular.en

The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.

These days, multiple people who’ve spoken to him over the last year say, Biden often punctuates conversations with: “You think we can actually come back from this?”

The 83-year-old Biden continues to feel out a post-presidency that may prove to be one of the shortest in history and is already one of the most complicated.

There are days when Biden is heartbroken, indignant or in disbelief about what is happening as President Donald Trump — the man he defeated in 2020 — returned and moved not just to tear down his accomplishments, but to dig in with petty insults like the autopen photograph he put in Biden’s spot in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed at the White House.

Then why didnt he do more to prevent it?

Yes it's definitely Biden's fault that Americans gave the republicans the house, senate and presidency.

Finally, you get it.

Then why didnt he do more anything to prevent it?

ftfy.

IF we can, it won’t be easy and will take generations.

Yes it’s definitely not the people who voted for Trump or that decided not to vote at all.

Dude sat on the Trump/Epstein files for 4 years and did nothing about it because it would have hurt the donor class and Israel.

Trump won on a (false) pledge to release the files.

Who deserves the blame for this situation in your mind?

You gave them the option between genocide and genocide. We told you that this would lose the election for the Democrats. You got the outcome you advocated for.

If the establishment democrats will get the fuck out of the way and stop letting corporations run the country, then yes, we can come back from this. Listen to progressives like AOC and Mamdani, stop blocking them.

To some degree, we shouldn’t come back from this. We now know the corruption in the government runs deep. Go back to our politicians being possibly blackmailed by the Mossad? Would it be better if nothing happened on the surface but still no one truly believed the baby eating cabal of elites existed?

I don’t want suffering. I wish this could have been avoided. But we cannot ignore the existential threat the elites have thrust upon us.

Genocides are horrible things that should never happen but too many people are using the word as critical-thought terminating cliches.

It's like trying to talk to an anti-abortionist and the only thing they can do is call you a baby killer.

The USA is a democracy; every one of us is responsible individually for what we do with our votes.

You, I infer, decided that the best thing to do with your vote was endorse the rapist who promised to do absolutely nothing to stop the genocide in Gaza over the candidate who at the least would have protested.

Which sure as fuck was your right, but it's kinda weird that you're trying to argue that this isn't exactly what you voted for.

In a single-ballot plurality-wins-all election anything but a vote for the runner up is an endorsement of the eventual winner.

I guess letting Trump run out the clock on justice was the voters fault too, then, eh? Even when Biden was literally handed a way to prevent Trump from running on a silver platter by the Supreme Court that basically ruled that anything a President does is part of Presidential Duties. He and the entire apparatus around him including twerps like Merrick Garland has so many fucking options to stop this. The courts, the department of justice, the President, all of them had taken an oath to protect democracy and that oath doesn't disappear because the voters are stupid. They all bend over like grass under a push-me-pull-you lawnmower going "oh for fucks sake" and deciding that fighting corruption was too hard and too risky for themselves personally. People whined about judges getting death threats and that's why they were hesitant to play hardball... Are you fucking kidding me? Like they thought that would protect them or anyone else? Now fascism is boldly kicking the fucking doors in and those people and their families are in more danger than they were back then, except now the whole country is in just as much danger. They bent over because their pussy asses thought they could and should save themselves instead of fight fascism and asshats are all like "it's the voters fault!" when Trump legally shouldn't have been allowed to run for the Presidency at all for a litany of reasons and nobody with any real power did anything to stop it! Sure, it's our fault, not a system that allowed it to happen, fuck me, give me a break! The people in charge abdicated their responsibility to justice and then said it's the voters fault, get the fuck out of here.

Stop rewriting history. In a country where laws actually meant something and mattered he would have been in prison for 34 felonies and not allowed to run due to being an insurrectionist and guilty of treason for stealing and selling state secrets. How the living fuck is that the voters fault? The system failed the voters before the voters failed the system.

We told you that this would...

Who's "we"?

You're trying to place blame on an individual instead of a party that encourages policies that creates voter disenfranchisement.

Why is critical analysis attacked?

God that argument is so disengenuous. It basically comes to "cater to us a vocal minority or we won't play."

You leftists scream about the genocide but what exactly did you accomish? Smugness? Superiority? I haven't heard a single leftist give a shit about South Sudan or Myanmar. Leftists are quiet when it comes to Ukraine. But you're incredibly loud about Gaza... you know, the crater where a people used to live because the crap candidate didn't capitulate to your demands.

Well now everything is fucked, the US has zero creditability, our allies hate us, ICE is officially the Gestapo, and concentration camps are being built.

But hey. Continue the tired ass line about "well we should have had a candidate who was against the genocide."

Fun fact. Historically, when fascists take control, the first ones they try to stamp out is leftists.

But at least you can sleep at night now knowing that because you didn't vote for genocide, you now allowed one to be completed with impunity.

Well done tankies.

Edit: Joe Biden was a fucking pussy who didn't do what needed to be done.

He's not wrong, but he's also partly to blame for this. He did nothing to quell the fissures forming between the two sides. He didn't drop out of the 2024 race like he said he would until it was too late. His stutter and old age contributed greatly to looking weak. His communication of his policies was abysmal. His stance on the Israeli genocide was terrible. He was weak. It took Trump all of a month to destroy everything Biden spent four years building.

He'll be the last liberal I ever vote for. I'd rather sink the ship than have another Liberal as president.

You leftists scream about the genocide but what exactly did you accomish?

What did you reactionary centrists accomplish? You handed us Trump. We gave you the path to winning and you chose not to take it. Its on you.

Well now everything is fucked, the US has zero creditability, our allies hate us, ICE is officially the Gestapo, and concentration camps are being built.

Yeah, your fucking fault dude.

But hey. Continue the tired ass line about “well we should have had a candidate who was against the genocide.”

You couldn't win the election otherwise. Did you actually want to win the election or not? Because it follows that if you defended the candidate while they held an unelectable policy position, you were doing the work to get Trump elected.

But the system we vote for isn't responsible for enforcing laws like... *checks notes... putting 34 time felons in prison, preventing insurrectionists for running for office, and letting people who commit treason of stealing and selling state secrets to the highest bidder run for office? It's all our fault huh? The system didn't fail us first, huh?

If the voters and non-voters hadn't voted him back in the wheels of justice would probably kept turning slowly as they do.

Do you want to establish the precedence of a president demanding the DOJ arrest their opposition?

Because I'm not sure that's a great idea.

Yeah, you need an opposition with teeth.

gestures vaguely at all the independent media coverage from 2023-2024

I'll be voting for the next democrat whether they are a liberal or progressive.

Accelerationism is never the answer it costs way too many lives.

Well, it sure seems to have worked without taking so long that the assholes who already broke the laws came back into power like in South Korea and Brazil. Those systems didn't go "whoopsies we ran out of time, I guess they can take power again!"

A system that allows this to happen and places the blame on the voters instead of fighting for a better world is a system that was always going to end up this way.

A system that can just have the clock run out on justice is always going to be gamed like this, stop lying to yourself.

To be fair the voters and non-voters have a large share of the responsibility for this situation that's how a democracy works.

Leftists rarely show up anyways. But hey. Continue to shift the blame. Whining and doing nothing is what you do best.

And I respect your opinion, but I'm sick of the status quo of liberals capitulating and giving the elites and Zionists everything they want. I'm sick of this lie I've been living my entire life.

You have to decide if you wanted to win the election or not, and its never been clear to me that you ever actually wanted to win. What its always appeared to be, is that you wanted to mantain ideological control of the party (which you did do, and have continued to: the party is still pro-genocide).

But what is clear, is that the party could not win with the general election with a Democratic candidate supporting a genocide.

It seems to me that most people have been deceived to think that Trump is the problem. Meanwhile, if Trump dies tomorrow, the real problem will remain.

Trump being ELECTABLE is the problem. Super PACs are what made Trump electable. When he is gone, those "donators" will immediately do the exact same thing with someone else, and it will work.

Because when you make bribery legal, those who accept the most bribes win. They can find another celebrity to fill his role just as easily. He's not magical. He's not even clever. Who next? That Hercules dimwit? I forget his name, fuck that guy.

Unfortunately, we the people can't donate enough to keep up with billionaires and corporations and even foreign interests like Saudi Arabia and Israel; whoever wins an election is beholden to them before they ever take office.

How do we get representatives to stop taking bribes and profiteering? "You and your entire family can be millionaires" vs. "Do the right thing" isn't ever going to work.

See Citizens United, Super PACs, Heritage Foundation, and the Council on Foreign Relations for further details.

hes the best president of my lifetime and what came out of his administration given the situation in just one term was amazing. I see so much finger pointing. He did not drop off early enough, no kamal did not run a good campaign. He did not single handedly override congress in a trumplike manner to stop isreal. I blame the folks who voted for trump or did not vote to allow his victory pure and simple. Its always easier to destroy than fix or build and its that much easier when you ignore the law. I don't want any democrat to be a trumplike badguy criminal but for us good people and good reasons. That type of figure will destroy us as much as trump does.

Its interesting how "we told you this would lose" equates to "you will lose because you alienate leftists.

The reality is voter apathy and a majority of the population choosing not to vote because they see no difference between the outcome regardless of who wins.

Democrats will do the same shit to appease Their donor bosses, they just feel a little bit of shame about the means they think justify those ends. Thats why youll never hear libs talking about somthing like abolishing ice, only better training them so they have less collateral damage.

I'm not shifting the blame. I've always blamed fake "centrists" (read: reactionary rightwing voters who wear a blue hat) for losing the election. Its your fault.

Did you want to win the election or not? Because there was a path to doing so: The candidate needed to change their policy on Gaza.

I'm generally with you, but consider fig 1:

Single issue voters are one of the biggest problems with US politics. They're willing to ignore everything else about reality. Doesn't matter if it's Genocide, LGBTQ issues, or Abortion, it's the same outcome.

The worst option overall becomes the most likely.

How many house and senate democrats support Israel and how many don't?

Fair enough, but I don't think this is the way forward for Democrats and if it's what they choose they'll be leaving folks like me behind. They had better hope there aren't many folks like me.

You're trying to place blame on an individual instead of a party that encourages policies that creates voter disenfranchisement.

No. I'm recognizing the actual system we have pointing out that anti-genocide non-voters made a deliberate choice.

This isn't a disenfeanchisement issue so much as it is a disengagement problem. There citizens had the sane franchise as everyone else, and chose not to go vote against a rapist.

There's plenty of blame to slap on the Democratic party from the former president and candidate all the way down. But Biden not standing by his purported morals and Harris not breaking with him when he didnt compel non-voters not to cast a vote. They're adults and citizens and should either stand by their choice and argure that it was correct or else concede that they made a mistake and would change it if they could

The people who don't see a difference are fucking morons. Biden never invaded any US cities.

I hate that meme is simplifies a complex situation to the point of adding nothing to the conversation.

Remember CNN and CBS are no longer trust worthy.

You don't control the electorate. You don't have to like the way people are to recognize that they are in-fact that way. Stop confusing how you want the world to be with how the world is.

Candidates can either address the issues of those single issue voters or they lose the election.

Actually, I do blame him for overestimating his health, and thinking he had enough in the tank for another run. He clearly did not.

Would Harris have still been the nominee had there been an actual primary? Maybe, maybe not. But whoever won that would have been a better candidate.

I was extremely pissed off after watching that debate. The man I saw that night simply didn't have it anymore, and it was more than just jetlag or a cold. There was nobody close to Biden who could have sat down with him before the election and told him directly that he didn't have it anymore?

We talk about how Trump surrounds himself with yes-men and sycophants. I think Biden didn't do much better.

Two things can be true.

People shouldn't have abstained from voting to protest the DNC's position on a genocide that is still happening under Trump (a guy who wants to turn Gaza into a resort town once the Palestinians have been exterminated) alongside everything else he's doing domestically as well as the trade and diplomatic clusterfucks. They let perfection be the enemy of progress and that was clearly a mistake.

But Biden also should have released the Epstein files, he should've stepped down as a one term president and allowed a primary to decide the next candidate, the DNC and Biden/Harris campaigns should've ran much stronger campaigns rather than assume "we're not Trump" would do enough of the work for them. They did nothing to rally the base and motivate people to go vote.

There's plenty of blame to go around. It's no one group or individuals fault.

Obama was the one who started building some of the camps both biden and trump use to imprison migrants. Tell that to all the people whos relatives they deported.

This is what i mean by no differnce in outcome, because yeah sure the dems are more sly about it, they dont "invade" cities, they let the state governments handle delpoying cops against protests, but they still fund the same agencies with the same agendas, they just have more competency about how to do it without making as much noise.

Yes and we voted in people to represent us by upholding the law and following their oaths to office and they failed at representing our interests, upholding the law, and following their oaths miserably.

Biden was one of the best presidents in my lifetime and he would have been for a second run too.

Being a white male he probably could have pulled off the win again too.

IF you are going to make that argument, you also have to provide a mechanism which can change the minds or engage the millions of voters necessary for Harris to win, otherwise its irrelevant.

Harris could have changed her policy to win the election. She's a single individual, in the exact position of power to do precisely this.

If you can't offer a credible mechanism for changing the minds of 6 million plus voters on the issue of genocide over the course of approximately 4 months (July/August 24 to November 24), you must cede that the only path to Harris winning was to change their policy.

We voted in Trump and his gang with majorities in the house and senate.

Did you want to win the election or not? The only path to winning was to get Harris to change her stance on Gaza.

How many house and senate democrats support Israel and how many don’t?

Are you able to answer the question or are you dodging it because the answer doesn't line up with the narrative you're pushing?