For 1,333 days, President Biden was the only one, he repeatedly insisted, who could possibly defeat former President Donald J. Trump again. He shrugged off his promise to be a bridge to a new generation. He told anyone who would listen that he was the best choice for Democrats... His faith in himself remained unshaken by the increasingly obvious impact of his age, which left him unable to make an effective case against Mr. Trump.
Among his closest allies, Mr. Biden will be remembered as the person who vanquished Mr. Trump in 2020 and ended his own re-election campaign for the good of the country. But many Democrats are already casting him in a much different, and deeply unflattering, light: as a one-term president who set his party on a path to failure in 2024.
He was supposed to be the bridge, a transition bridge for the next generation of Democrats, said Douglas Brinkley, a veteran presidential historian. Instead, Mr. Brinkley said, he blew up the bridge by not getting out of the 2024 presidential race sooner.
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