Biden’s legacy: Far-reaching accomplishments that didn’t translate into political support

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting in the Oval Office behind the iconic Resolute desk in 2022, an animated President Joe Biden described the challenge of leading a psychologically traumatized nation.

The United States had endured a life-altering pandemic. There was a jarring burst of inflation and now global conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, as well as the persistent threat to democracy he felt Donald Trump posed.

Follow AP’s live coverage of President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

How could Biden possibly heal that collective trauma?

“Be confident,” he said emphatically in an interview with The Associated Press. “Be confident. Because I am confident.”

But in the ensuing two years, the confidence Biden hoped to instill steadily waned. When the 81-year-old Democratic president showed his age in a disastrous debate against Trump in June, he lost the benefit of the doubt and on Sunday withdrew as his party’s nominee.

In the aftermath of the debate, Democrats who had been united in their resolve to prevent another Trump term suddenly fractured, and Republicans, beset by chaos in Congress and the former president’s criminal conviction, improbably coalesced in defiant unity.

Biden never figured out how to inspire the world’s most powerful country to believe in itself, let alone in him.

He lost the confidence of supporters in the 90-minute debate with Trump, even if pride initially prompted him to override the fears of lawmakers, party elders and donors who were nudging him to drop out. Then Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, and, as if on cue, pumped his fist in strength. Biden, while campaigning in Las Vegas, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday and