Has Joe Biden already lost? “Have found a foothold”: a Roman is fascinated by the “cannibals” in the Andes

The first signs of panic can already be seen in the venerable ‘Economist’. Joe Biden and the Democrats are about to face a fatal election defeat, the magazine warns in its latest issue and gives reasons for it:

The Economist also complains that the Democrats have no plan B. Currently, only candidates with little chance of running against the president. Even Biden’s resignation would no longer be a solution. He would pave the way for Kamala Harris. This would bring the Democrats from bad to worse. The vice president is even more unpopular than her boss and proved to be a lousy campaigner four years ago.

Biden’s weaknesses are now public knowledge. He’s too old and looks senile. So far he has been unable to get the chaotic situation at the border with Mexico under control. His economic policy, Bidenomics, has not yet penetrated people’s consciousness. Johnny Sixpack still stares at the prices of eggs and gasoline and thinks they are too high.

Meanwhile, Trump seems to be living up to his reputation as a ‘Teflon president’ again. Although there are no fewer than four criminal trials with a total of 91 charges against the ex-president, these have not done him any harm so far. On the contrary: this is precisely why he is actually gaining ground in surveys and is de facto confirmed as the presidential candidate of the Grand Old Party.

Even Trump’s increasingly fascist rhetoric leaves no negative traces. His supporters love it when he insults his opponents as “vermin,” accuses immigrants of “contaminating the blood of the country” and brags that if he wins the election he will become “a dictator for a day.” Independent voters acknowledge these failures with a shrug and dismiss them with a Trump-is-just-that.

Once the year 2024 has begun, is it already well on its way to becoming an annus horribilis, as the late British Queen Elizabeth II would have put it? Is the US inevitably heading towards an authoritarian system and will the liberal world order collapse as a result? Can Putin, Xi and the Iranian ayatollahs chill the champagne yet?

Fortunately, it is not that far yet. There are also good reasons why Biden will still turn the corner. Here are a few:

Yes, the situation is serious, the danger that the “mother of all democracies” will gradually turn into a Christian nationalist monster is real. But let’s not forget: this is not the first time the US has been on the brink of an abyss. They survived an extremely bloody civil war, defeated the Ku Klux Klan, resisted the fascist temptation of the 1930s, defeated the absurd anti-communism of the McCarthy era, and survived the chaos of the Vietnam years.

In crises, the “better angels,” as President Abraham Lincoln once put it, have always had the upper hand. The chances that the better Angels will prevail this time are certainly intact.