America’s Progressive Era Comes Crashing Down – Who’s to Blame?

In their search for culprits, will the left look in the mirror?

(Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

The recriminations and finger-pointing by those on the progressive left began shortly after Georgia and North Carolina showed durable and ultimately irreversible leads for Donald Trump. And when the “blue wall” states began falling like dominoes, and Trump was on his way to a resounding victory in the Electoral College and becoming the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, their exhaustion was accompanied by deep depression. There was no litigating their way out of this one.

Both sides agreed on one thing about this election: It promised existential consequences, a winner-take-all race like few contests in presidential history. If Kamala Harris had prevailed, officials on the right would be engaged in fear and trembling just as much as so many on the left are now. And as is usually the case on the losing side, a circular firing squad quickly formed. Who is to blame for this disastrous outcome? Harris, Joe Biden, campaign strategists, DEI, defund the police, border policies, all of the above?

But before the inevitably long and painful internal discussions among Democrats commence in the days and weeks ahead, stricken progressives in legacy media put the bull’s eye on – who else? – the voters. On MSNBC, famed race hustler Al Sharpton, ignoring the two election victories of Barack Obama, blamed systemic racism and then, for good measure, asserted that many black and Hispanic men are misogynists. His colleagues nodded in agreement, discussing how voters ignored their “better angels” and surrendered to panic ginned up by the soon-to-be 47th president.

The Ultimate Culprit for Ending the Progressive Era

When political analysts and historians reflect on the 2024 election, they will – or should – ultimately pin the blame for the crash and burn of progressive politics on one person. It is not Harris, who raised a billion dollars and did the best she could in a severely truncated campaign given her stunning lack of political skill. It is not those who managed her campaign, who recognized their candidate’s inability to articulate anything beyond confusing word salads and vague policy prescriptions and ability to dodge serious inquiry. And it is not the celebrity surrogates, from Beyoncé to Oprah Winfrey, who raised her flag as high as they could.

No, the blame falls squarely on the 46th president – and those who surrounded him. When Joe Biden managed to eke out a narrow victory in 2020, he did so by promising to be a trantional figure who would lower the political temperature, bring the country together, and return it to a state of “normalcy.” He invoked the words “unity” or “unify” more than a dozen times in his inaugural speech. And then he proceeded to demonize not only his predecessor but also the 74 million voters who supported the 45th president. His speech before a haunting, blood-red background warned of the dangers of MAGA Republicans, which he then repeated frequently, culminating in his characterization of Trump supporters as garbage.

Despite his narrow win – by about 50,000 votes in three states – he developed visions of grandeur, intent on governing as if he had scored a gigantic mandate for radical change. His agenda made Obama look like a conservative. No radical cultural policies in response to the cataclysmic George Floyd affair were off the table. The gates to the southern border were flung wide open, and millions of illegals flooded the zone. A massive and unnecessary recovery bill was signed, triggering the worst inflation in 40 years. Efforts to grant statehood to liberal DC and Puerto Rico and attempts to pack the Supreme Court to assure near-permanent Democratic control of the Senate and the high court came frighteningly close to reality.

Biden’s Justice Department and like-minded blue state prosecutors launched arguably the most ill-conceived political strategy in memory, indicting Trump on a total of 91 felony counts in four venues. Instead of burying their mortal enemy, it actually vaulted Trump into the lead in a race few thought he had a chance of winning.

The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave

In spite of all that and Biden’s sinking approval, the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade triggered a surprisingly strong showing by the Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. Having defeated Trump, the ultimate feather in his cap, and after seeing his party make unexpected gains in Congress two years later, Biden should have declared victory and called it a day. That was the perfect time to announce he would not seek a second term. It would have opened the floodgates for a competitive primary process, where progressives such as Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom and centrist Democrats such as Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky could battle it out for the cherished presidential nomination.

But Biden was unwilling to part with the perks of the presidency and carried on, believing that since he beat Trump once, he was uniquely qualified to take him down again. He had repeatedly stated that he was going to sit out the 2020 election until Trump uttered the infamous “very fine people” line – allegedly referring to the KKK-style protesters in Charlottesville – which even liberal fact-checkers like Snopes found to be false. Despite missing his moment, Biden would have many months to change his mind and pass the baton. However, as the election moved ever closer and even his most faithful allies realized his cognitive tank was emptying, Biden hung on like a stubborn virus. His wife and close associates witnessed his decline up close and personal but refused to convince him it was time to leave. It all collapsed like a house of cards in the infamous debate in June when Biden’s incapacity was visible for all the world to see.

When he ignored many public hints by Democratic powerbrokers such as Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama to reconsider his stubborn refusal to let go, he was finally threatened with a boycott by big donors and then unwillingly stepped aside with three months to go before Election Day. By then, the damage had been done. The party was forced to pivot on a dime to the vice president, who had demonstrated her lack of electability during the 2020 campaign and now would be forced to renounce the far-left policies she had eagerly supported four years earlier. It proved too high a mountain to climb, culminating in a sweeping victory for Trump.

Bolstered by a once-in-a-century pandemic and raging violence in the streets, Biden managed to land in the Oval Office after seeking that big prize for more than three decades. If he had delivered on his promise to heal a bitterly divided nation and pursued sensible policies that would have attracted bipartisan support, Democrats just might be celebrating instead of drowning in regret. If he had stepped aside when he should have, his party might have nominated an electable successor. His failure to understand his limited mandate, his embrace of wildly unpopular left-wing policies, and his refusal to step aside before he became an embarrassment to himself and his party will be examined for years to come. Biden disgraced himself and the Democratic Party, becoming the linchpin for both the end of a progressive era and the ascendancy of what he was intent on extinguishing: Trump and the era of America First.

Read More From Tim Donner.