As Democrats struggle to cope with Kamala Harris' landslide loss to President-elect Donald Trump, Joe Biden has quickly become the fall guy for his party's brutal defeat.

According to Biden biographer Franklin Foer, Biden destroyed his own legacy by paving a path for Trump's historic return.

"Joe Biden cannot escape the fact that his four years in office paved the way for the return of Donald Trump. This is his legacy. Everything else is an asterisk," Foer wrote in The Atlantic.

Democrats blame Biden

Even though Biden was not on the ballot, many Democrats are blaming Kamala Harris' resounding loss on Biden's insistence on seeking another term, despite age issues that exploded into public view at an infamous debate over the summer.

Biden initially fought an effort to force him off the ballot led by Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) before relenting and stepping aside. He endorsed Harris after ending his campaign, and the party quickly consolidated behind her.

Throughout Harris' brief campaign, the Biden family set their anger aside to support Harris' bid, sharing the common goal of defeating Trump even as the Harris operation kept Joe Biden off the campaign trail.

Now that Trump has won, tensions between Biden and the party's elites are exploding into a public airing of grievances.

The Biden circle is haunted by the belief that he would have performed better against Trump, Foer noted, and they reject the accusation that Biden is to blame for Harris' defeat.

"Members of Biden’s clan continue to stoke the delusion that its paterfamilias would have won the election, and some of his advisers feared that he might publicly voice that deeply misguided view," Foer wrote.

Biden's pitiful ending

Sources within Biden's circle said Harris mistakenly abandoned Biden's economic "populism" to cozy up with corporate elites like Mark Cuban.

Biden insiders also said Harris came across as too woke, adding Biden "would have clearly rejected the idea of trans women competing in women’s sports."

In reality, Biden was an extremely woke president himself, and it's true that Harris attempted to portray herself as a patriotic moderate to voters.

But those efforts came up short, as Harris struggled to distance herself from Biden's unpopular record and her own liberal "woke" past.

It is likely that the question of "what if" will continue to torment the Bidens for the rest of their natural lives. While few Americans will look back fondly on the Biden era, beating Trump would at least have allowed Biden to go down as the president who "saved democracy."

But now, Biden doesn't even have that. How pitiful.