Polls showed Joe Biden in the lead over Donald Trump from start to finish. And then he won bigly. In fact, they showed just about anyone the Democrats might nominate defeating Trump. Therefore, we might conclude that no surprises occurred. Everyone expected Biden to beat Trump, and he did*. A tidy election.
As it turns out, not exactly. For one, that’s not quite a valid argument. Perhaps more relevant to readers’ purposes, its conclusion is also false. But we’re not here to nitpick at logic. The point is that plenty of people expected Trump to win. Mostly liberals and left-leaners concerned about a second Trump term and prone to fret about electoral fraud. But the sentiment took in many analysts and pundits, too.
So why did that happen? And why did Biden win, anyway?
The short answer: Trump blew it. Bigly.
Trump and COVID-19
Wait, Trump blew it? Hasn’t his approval rating been in the dumps since he took office? Shouldn’t we have expected him to lose due to that?
Well, sort of. Specifically, ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ respectively, to those last two questions.
Prior to COVID-19, I expected Trump to lose to any plausible Democratic nominee. But the U.S. public typically defers to its leaders during times of crisis. Lincoln easily won re-election during the Civil War. FDR easily won re-election during World War II. And even JFK got a huge boost from the Cuban Missile Crisis, despite the fact that he largely caused the crisis in the first place. 9/11 turned a previously doomed George W. Bush Administration into a two-term national ordeal. And so on.
And so, politically, Trump caught a huge break with COVID-19. Trump didn’t cause the pandemic to happen. Americans weren’t going to blame him for it. In the end, all he needed to do was defer to public health experts, offer some encouraging words to Americans, and let his White House officials take the lead on shutdown recommendations, mask recommendations, et al. State and local officials would take any flak in the event results weren’t optimal.
Trump hardly needed to do anything at all except shut his mouth for 5 minutes and let public officials do the rest. But he couldn’t handle that. Instead, he dominated each news cycle with denialism and conspiracy theories. He ‘flooded the zone‘ with every dipshit thought that popped into his head. He failed in every way possible, and most Americans hated him for it.
Trump Blew It, Now What Comes Next?
Yes, Biden won. But, overall, Democrats didn’t do well. They’ll end up losing House seats, and they’ll probably fail to regain the Senate. They would’ve had trouble passing legislation and appointing judges even with a big win. But now they’ll struggle even more. Many Biden voters just wanted Trump gone. They don’t really know what Biden stands for, and they don’t especially like what they’ve heard.
Biden’s base isn’t inclined to push him to do much, either. I expect massive gridlock and a largely caretaker presidency.
*N.B.
Technically, as of this writing, Biden hasn’t officially won. But it’s overwhelmingly likely. Even if he manages to come from behind and win, Trump still blew it by cutting it so close.
