Four years ago, COVID-19 helped Joe Biden get to the White House.

Until yesterday, it kept him there.

Back then, during the height of the pandemic, the well masked Biden campaigned for president against incumbent Donald Trump from the basement of his home in Wilmington, Del.

It worked. He won. And he didn’t get COVID. Trump did

Biden would have liked  to pull it off again, but his former friends and admirers in the Democrat Party hierarchy, like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, pushed him out the door.

Like Pelosi and Obama, Democrat leaders Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House told Biden the same thing: Get lost.

As Republicans celebrated the dramatic nomination of former President Donald Trump in Milwaukee, Biden was laid low after testing positive for Covid-19 following a shaky appearance before the NAACP in Las Vegas.

News of the development came as Biden then failed to show up at the Las Vegas convention of UnidosUS, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Meanwhile, Pelosi, the Grande dame of Democrat politics, and Obama led the effort to get Biden to drop out of the race because, “it is time to pass the torch” to others, as Pelosi’s acolyte Rep. Adam Schiff proposed.

Barack Obama turning on Biden, his vice president for eight years, had to hurt deeply.

But as the old saying goes, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Were Biden a bookish man of learning, he might have conjured up Shakespeare’s version of Julius Caesar about to be stabbed to death by his good friend and admirer Marcus Brutus.

A wounded Caesar, already knifed by others, utters, “Et tu, (Even you) Brute? Then fall, Caesar.”

Only in this case it was Biden saying to Obama, “You too, Barack? Gee, I thought you were my friend. Not a joke.”

Obama’s reply: “Nothing personal, Joe. It’s just business.”

Bloodshed aside, except for the blood on Trump’s face, Brutus stabbed Caesar to save the Roman Republic.

Obama and Pelosi did it to save the Democrat Party. And right now, it needs saving.

But they first had to  get Biden out of the way and come up with a candidate who can win. Democrats face a strong and unified Republican Party that is favored to win the presidency, take control of the Senate and beef up its majority in the House as well.

And as of now, Biden, frail, confused and wobbly, is out of the fight and has endorsed Kamala Harris.

Ironically, hardly had Biden returned to the basement in his Rehoboth summer home Wednesday than his campaign sent out emails attacking Trump and asking for donations beginning as low as $25.

“Thanks for standing with me.” He wrote.

While the country and the world have changed since Biden defeated Trump four years ago, Biden did not. He was back in his basement stuck in time and running the same campaign as he did four years ago and hoping for the same results.

Records and achievements aside, Biden took a beating visually. The public contrasted the television pictures of a wounded but vigorous Donald Trump striding victoriously on the stage at the GOP convention to a bent over Joe Biden barely able to climb the steps of Air Force One.

Biden’s basic problem was that he has failed, mentally and physically, to show Americans that he was up to the challenge to lead the country for another four years.

Trump, even after all he has been through shows, that he can.

Trump gets shot, but  Biden got wounded.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi speaks at the North Carolina Democratic Unity Dinner fundraiser in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker)