Joe Biden won the 2020 election against Donald Trump, when Kamala Harris, also a Democrat, could not in 2024? Why?

Biden in 2020 was only the third person since the Second World War to topple a duly elected president (Trump) after just one term. His win, by a popular vote margin of four million, further accentuates the why behind this question.

Multiple reasons have been put forward This opinion writer thinks there is one overriding reason – we, but in this case Americans, did not have the freedom of choice, the freedom of will to choose. Commentors can agree or disagree, as they see fit.

1. Biden was a male leader. We, the human race, have followed male leaders since we evolved from chimpanzees. It is built into our genetic makeup. There have been dominant female leaders - Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon, who followed her assassinated Prime Ministerial husband, the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, Kim Campbell 19th prime minister of Canada, Julia Gillard of Australia , and an early British tribal leader Boudica. But never has there been a female president in the United States, although over 30 women have run for President.

2. . Biden came through as the stronger, more to-be-followed leader than Trump in 2020. Biden's election took place during the Covid pandemic with unprecedented social unrest. Trump was a conservative, against anti- covid masks and lockdowns. From the outbreak of the coronavirus, the president downplayed the risks of COVID-19 - questioning the effectiveness of masks, touting unproven treatments and criticizing his own health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He initially refused to be photographed with a mask on and mocked former Vice President Biden for wearing one. More than 1 million people, or 1 in every 331 Americans died from the covid pandemic. In short, it was a period of great danger, but Trump did not offer the leadership people sought.

3. But why then was Trump elected this time? This time he was the stronger leader, or at least appeared so. Associated Press reported: "As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has vowed to swiftly enact a radical agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government". That includes plans to launch the largest deportation effort in dthe nation's history, to use the justice Department to punish his enemies, to dramatically expand the use of tariffs and to again pursue a zero-sum approach to foreign policy that threatens to upend longstanding foreign alliances, including the NATO pact.

4. In summary, Americans found Donald Trump an inadequate leader in 2020, Kamala Harris so in 2024. It goes back to our inherited genetic drives. In short, it is a question of whether we have the freedom to make our own choices. This article asserts, and provides considerable evidence to support the concept that our decisions are limited, that we do not have entirely a freedom of choice, a free will, and that inherited genetic behaviour dictated the American elections in 2020 and 2024

There are a multitude of eminent people who have argued whether or not we have free will. This paper sets out the assertions of these writers, both for and against, and then outlines the author's conclusion that we have a guided or influenced decision process. That we do not have a completely free will.

Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author of five New York Times best sellers, in his bookFree Will confidently declares "…we know that determinism, in every sense relevant to human behavior, is true…. In effect, we are nothing more than biochemical robots whose thoughts and actions are dictated by causal forces we don't control."

Determinism is the concept that everything that happens in the world is determined completely by previously existing causes.

Robert M Sapolsky's Determined: Life Without Free Will is a book with a similar theme. Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to answer that question as fully as he could,

Sapolsky also wrote: Behave. The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Sam Harris' Waking Up has also been praised by critics. Frank Bruni of The New York Times wrote, "Harris's book ... caught my eye because it's so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succour they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion." He notes that since publishing The End of Faith in 2004, Harris has shifted focus to some extent from criticizing religion to trying to understand what people seek in religion and arguing these benefits are possible without it.