America would be better off now if Trump had won in 2020

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It is New Year’s Eve, 2024. Donald Trump, 78, is just wrapping up his eighth year in power with vice-president Mike Pence at his side. They will soon be retiring as a new name prepares to enter the White House on 20 January 2025. It could be a Republican or a Democrat ascending to the highest office. Either way, the Trump era would be drawing to a close and the Biden era would never have begun. What a relief!

Half of America and most of the West celebrated when Trump was cast from power. But would the US have been better off if Joe Biden had lost in 2020? It is a tempting fantasy.

Picture this. There would have been no January 6 riot at the Capitol, forever a stain on America’s history; no pointless lawfare or “weaponisation” of justice by the Democrats, giving Trump ample cover to go after his political enemies.

Whoever was in power, there would have been the same high inflation triggered by Covid-19 and trillions of dollars of US debt. We would not have had to eyeball Hunter Biden’s private parts. And the Democrats would have had to rethink their electoral strategy years ago, instead of humouring a vain, stubborn and doddery Biden.

Trump has never been a conventional politician. He might have sought to change the constitution and stand for a third term in 2024. More likely, though, America would have grown exhausted by him and he would have suffered the backlash he experienced as an incumbent in 2020 – but with twice the force.

Instead, the brazen tactic of pretending he won kept him in the public eye, spared him the taint of being a loser and allowed Trump to re-emerge, older, more vengeful but definitely not wiser in 2024.

By the time Trump finishes his second term in 2028, he will have dominated US politics for 12 years. The Biden interregnum will appear as no more than a blip, a fruitless effort by an enfeebled president to stave off the march of Trumpism. We saw for ourselves Biden’s verbal gaffes and physical stumbles. But according to a damning report in the Wall Street Journal, the efforts to cover up Biden’s dotage began as soon as he entered office.

Covid-era restrictions on face-to-face meetings carried on long after the pandemic was over. Although the economy and defence presented Biden with his biggest headaches, he rarely met Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, or Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, in person. Senators and congressmen found their access limited by a tight-knit group of advisers who had been with him for decades.

“Over four years, Biden held nine full cabinet meetings – three in 2021, two in 2022, three in 2023 and just one this year,” the newspaper reported. Important meetings would be cancelled because he was having a “bad day”. Just how bad became clear when Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating Biden’s retention of classified documents in his garage, found that he was “an elderly man with a poor memory” who was not fit to appear in court.

All pretence that Biden was capable of being president (he is still in office, though barely noticeably) collapsed last July in a debate against Trump.

Would Kamala Harris have been the 2024 Democratic nominee had Trump beaten Biden in 2020? Probably not. But if she were, she would have had more than 100 days to run.

Trump has only grown more angry and bitter over time. Covering up Biden’s diminishing mental faculties has given fuel to his argument that the “fake news” media cannot be trusted. Trump’s enemies list has grown to include the former Republican representative Liz Cheney, who is being threatened with prosecution for investigating Trump’s role during the Capitol riot. Kash Patel, Trump’s designated instrument of vengeance as head of the FBI, would not now be reaping the rewards of supporting Trump’s bogus “stolen” election claims.

A crank like Robert F Kennedy Jr would probably not be nominated as health and human services secretary. More responsible politicians such as Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the UN, and Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state, would not be banned from Trumpworld for running against Trump in 2024 (or flirting with the idea, in Pompeo’s case).

However, it is possible that Haley and Pompeo would still be out in the cold for refusing to bow to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. On Ukraine’s account, I am relieved Trump lost.

“This is genius,” Trump congratulated the “savvy” Russian president at the time. As Trump toys with annexing Canada, Mexico, Greenland and the Panama Canal, you can see how Trump 2024-28 is inspired by Putin’s expansionism.

Perhaps, as Trump has claimed, the war would not have happened on his watch. More likely, a Russian puppet would now be sitting in Kyiv.

But by most other measures, the America Trump would be leaving behind after eight years in charge would be very different to the one he will lead from January – and in preventing those back-to-back wins, the Democrats have inadvertently made things even more dangerous.

Sarah Baxter is director of the Marie Colvin Center

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America would be better off now if Trump had won in 2020

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