It’s fairly clear that Biden’s plan was to withdraw from center stage and let Trump destroy himself in front of the public. Why not? It worked last time, and it isn’t as if Trump has become more rational and disciplined in the last four years.
As of today, the plan isn’t working, for two reasons. First, it was inevitable that the record of Biden the incumbent would get more scrutiny than Biden the challenger. Second, Trump has blundered into an approach in which his extreme opinions simply aren’t getting much public attention. By refusing to debate and spending his time in courtrooms, he escapes any meaningful discussion about his views on Ukraine, Gaza, taxes, climate change, entitlement programs, abortion, and the like.
This is going to start changing soon. The trial should be over sometime this week. The first debate will take place in about a month. The conventions will come next. Supreme Court decisions that will impact the entire country, probably in a negative way, will require comment shortly. The public is going to start paying more attention to Trump’s policy ideas and less to his victimization narrative. That should help.