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Will Biden’s Ego Bring Trump Back to the White House?

January 2, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 8 Comments

biden ego
He likes the show. (White House)

By Ronald W. Pruessen

Even President Joe Biden’s admirers are worrying about polls showing a close 2024 election, with one party insider fearing a “five-alarm fire.”

While Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina, has urged calm, telling party leaders to stop “bed-wetting,” Democrat old pro James Carville has said his Republican wife has already changed his bedding to rubber sheets.




Is Biden’s evergreen ego — his scrappy Scranton Joe determination — outpacing his ability to win a tough election, much less govern a bitterly divided country until 2029?

Will there be dire consequences because the man who had been yearning to be president since he was 46 resists giving up the job at 81? Should he have stepped aside for someone younger?

Biden’s impressive record

Given Biden’s legislative achievements over just three years, these are difficult questions to answer.

Condemnation of new eruptions of egomania in leaders with limited accomplishments — or malignant damage (does the aggrieved 45th president come to mind?) — makes sense.

But Biden’s situation is more complex, especially since his high levels of self-confidence have undoubtedly contributed to his strong performance on social, economic and foreign policy.




The president has had enough ego to dream big — and enough stamina to achieve legislation pouring trillions of dollars into major initiatives. High points: 2021’s American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

He also announced measures aimed at helping or protecting those seeking better jobs, students, veterans and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

He even reached out to those who disagreed with him, allowing him to forge deals with obstreperous Republicans and prickly Democrats.

But his self-confidence has also had guardrails. He’s taken flak in stride as an inevitable consequence of democratic leadership. He didn’t let denunciations prevent the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan or stop him from taking on a tortuous tightrope walk through the Gaza cataclysm’s horrors.

Ego or hubris?

High-achieving leaders are always at risk of crossing a line that separates self-confidence from over-confidence, ego from hubris. Has Biden crossed this line as he hungers for a second term, leading him to potentially disastrous decisions?




If so, critics — sympathetic or otherwise — should note two important qualifiers.

First, even great leaders are inevitably subject to emotions and appetites that can veer in problematic as well as positive directions. Plato once examined the competing impulses of human nature — reason, spirit and appetite — echoed later in Sigmund Freud’s id and superego theories.

William James, a pioneering analyst of rationality and pragmatism, insisted that sentiment and emotions were also in “the very flour of which our mental bread is kneaded.”
None of them would have been surprised if a 21st century president resisted cool calculations based on the arithmetic of polling numbers — and age.

Egos in the White House

Biden is far from the first American president whose great achievements could be tarnished with hubris.

George Washington combined sterling leadership qualities with the elitism of a slave-owning aristocrat (including the institution of exclusive presidential levees). Theodore Roosevelt’s “progressive” activism went hand in hand with a desire “to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening,” according to his daughter.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s self-confidence was as crucial to his success as it’s been to Biden. FDR’s 12 years in the White House saw monumental results, especially the New Deal’s transformation of the federal government’s social welfare responsibilities.




The 32nd president radiated assurance, even after the onset of polio in 1921. Like the 46th president, FDR was confident enough to think big, to focus emphatically on “the forgotten man” and to pursue results that would be beneficial, even if they weren’t always perfect.

FDR burnished his reputation by successfully leading the United States during the Second World War, building a powerful wartime coalition with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union that ultimately defeated Nazi Germany.

Roosevelt marshalled the strengths of millions of Americans in the military, industry and agriculture sectors, inspiring the citizenry with a vision of a “Four Freedoms” post-war world that would hopefully avoid the mistakes made after the First World War. He forged the triumphant “Big Three” grand alliance that recognized the limits of U.S. power and compromised with the different priorities of British and Soviet partners.

FDR/Biden similarities?

Ironically, it was during those years that FDR experienced his own most problematic encounter with an outsized ego. In 1944-45 — as both the war and his own life were nearing their end — Roosevelt undercut his own successes by sliding into hubris.

Increasing strains on his health created tensions between ego and pragmatism. Roosevelt imagined he could remain a national and global leader in Olympian fashion, even undertaking a debilitating journey in 1945 to the Yalta conference, the meeting of the heads of government of the U.S., the U.K. and the Soviet Union to discuss the post-war reorganization of Germany and Europe. He died a few weeks later.

Roosevelt seemingly began to believe that only he could make many moving parts proceed in the desired direction. Long-time colleague and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes once grumbled: “You won’t talk frankly even with people who are loyal to you … you keep your cards closely up against your belly.”

Upon his death, there was no Roosevelt team fully briefed or experienced enough to ensure his vision lived on.

Neither Vice-President Harry Truman nor recently appointed Secretary of State Edward Stettinius had been fully consulted about the atomic bomb, for example, as well as complex plans for post-war Big Three collaboration. This paved the way for shifts to more unilateral policies and style that Roosevelt would almost certainly have bemoaned.

If Biden in 2023 does not precisely echo FDR’s 1944-45 mindset, there is a common denominator: the challenge of shielding bold, even brilliant leadership from the creeping debilitation of hubris.

Voters will do their cost accounting in 2024. Ironically, their calculations will also be subject to the complex tensions between personal emotions and pragmatism.

Ronald W. Pruessen is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Toronto.

The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Larry says

    January 3, 2024 at 3:51 am

    I’m sorry, Joe Biden’s Ego?
    Have you not been keeping track of the largest Ego on the planet? Of course I’m referring to the narcissistic, psychopath trump.
    The question of should Biden run again? That horse is out of the barn. Why waste time speculating on something that’s not going to happen? Unless Joe dies.
    Use your considerable platform for more pertinent issues.

  2. DaleL says

    January 3, 2024 at 12:56 pm

    I don’t think Mr. Trump is ever going to be President again. I just don’t see how the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can decide that Mr. Trump is qualified to hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State. I think SCOTUS will rule against Mr. Trump and he will not even be a candidate. The howling of the MAGA crowd will be enormous. Faux news will be outraged. The language of the 14th Amendment, Section 3 is clear. The alternative would not be democracy. Instead it would be an invitation for even more election fraud, lies and political riots.

    However, polls have indicated that just about any Republican other that Mr. Trump is likely to beat President Biden. Nikki Haley seems to be the strongest, Constitutionally qualified, Republican candidate.

    Perhaps the title of the story should be: “Will Biden’s Ego Bring a Republican Back to the White House?

  3. Pogo says

    January 3, 2024 at 2:39 pm

    @FWIW

    President Biden still has time to change course. Iowa, the courts, etc., will bring additional clarity — soon. In the meantime, five alarm fires occupy President Biden in every direction, i.e., he needs to be the POTUS now, and going forward, in the calculations of friends, and enemies too. The American electorate ought to be paying very close attention to enemies, e.g., Putin, who is nakedly praying for a Republican Party (not just Trump) victory.

    I’ve a question for anyone who cares: have you looked at a map of the western hemisphere? I know where I would build the goddamn wall. It would be in the mutual interest of us — AND — Mexico, and a goddamn bargain if we paid for it. Figure it out.

  4. Laurel says

    January 3, 2024 at 3:48 pm

    Nearly anyone who is in a position of power has an inflated ego, yet this article doesn’t mention the largest ego out there. What I’m seeing now are Republicans not willing to get rid of Trump while they can (and they do want to) because of fear and ego. They are more willing to throw this country away than to jeopardize their own, precious power.

    I can think of a handful of people in power without oversized egos. Such was deceased McCain and is current Ukrainian’s Zelenskyy. Katie Porter, Pete Buttigieg, Adam Kizinger, Jeff Flake, Liz Cheney and David Jolly are also people to admire as they are willing to forgo personal egos in an attempt to save democracy.

    To throw the ego tag on Biden is absurd. Maybe he should shout a little louder, while Trump sucks up all the oxygen in the country. The ego of Biden lowering drug costs for Americans doesn’t bother me. Meanwhile, the ego of Trump campaigning on hate, lies and revenge does. I cannot believe anyone would want that. It’s un-American.

  5. Deborah Coffey says

    January 3, 2024 at 6:24 pm

    Totally agree. This was the hardest read of the month. Ridiculous!

  6. Atwp says

    January 3, 2024 at 8:44 pm

    Will vote for Biden!

  7. jake says

    January 4, 2024 at 6:44 am

    One of the most boot licking articles I’ve ever read regarding Banjo Joe.

  8. Pogo says

    January 5, 2024 at 12:48 pm

    @FWIW

    When dawn arrives on November 6, 2024…

    And the culture warriors, third party spoilers, and the supporters of other causes that were disappointed because Biden didn’t work a miracle when they demanded it, stare dumbly at the news of a Republican Party regime rolling over their future with battle tanks, and see the puerile goons with Trump banners waving triumphantly from the stake pockets of their pickups, guns waving from the cabs — enjoy, you made it happen.

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