We offer our first effort of an evaluation — including an end-of-term report card — of the Biden presidency.
We have now reached the penultimate scene of Joe Biden’s presidency. As of this writing, he will still be president for fewer than two more months before the final scene occurs. That will be the peaceful transfer from him to his successor of the control of the full reach of the government, the nation’s powerful defence establishment, and, of course, global media attention on his decisions, hopes and plans.
Already, Joe Biden’s appearance at the most recent climate conference barely caused a ripple. And what will almost certainly be his last overseas presidential visit — to Angola in December — will not even be the lead story in the evening news. Instead, there will be obsessive attention on and speculation about the incoming president’s plans and pronouncements.
Thereafter, once his successor, Donald Trump, takes the oath of office, now-former President Biden will enter that curious twilight of the ex-presidential retirement zone. Contemplating ocean views from his home at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, perhaps he will begin writing his memoirs summing up more than a half-century of political life, maybe with the discreet assistance of a trusted aide or journalist as a sympathetic coauthor.
Save for Biden’s severest, even unreasonable, critics, his tenure in office featured real successes and forward-looking choices for the country. Simultaneously, however, it must be admitted that given challenging international and domestic circumstances, the Biden years were not totally unalloyed triumphs.
Even though we are still in the final weeks of Biden’s tenure, we will, soon enough, be deluged by a torrent of evaluations of his presidency — what it meant for Americans and the world. We will be getting them in print, online and in broadcasts, especially now that it must be seen as four years bracketed by two Donald Trump administrations. Accordingly, with this, we help start that wave.
Covid and Trump
Joseph R Biden entered the White House as America’s 46th president. He had offered a commitment to supporters, voters and the nation as a whole that he would be a transitional leader — from his generation on to a new, younger one. Moreover, he pledged he would restore honour and rectitude to the office he would occupy, replacing the chaos, crudeness and distemper of Donald Trump’s first term of office.
Paradoxically, it has turned out that while Biden will serve as a bridge — it will be one that reaches between Donald Trump’s first administration and Trump 2.0.
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In any judgment of the Biden years, it is crucial to recall the circumstances of the transition of the 2020 election. The country was still in the grip of the Covid pandemic and was looking fearfully at the attendant economic free-fall. As the 2020 inauguration drew near, Biden’s predecessor continued to refuse to admit he had lost the election and he boycotted all the traditional processes of a transition from one chief executive to the next.
Already, there had been the turmoil of two impeachments and there had been a slew of lawsuits and criminal charges brought against the outgoing president over his misdeeds. Meanwhile, the defeated incumbent president and his campaign undertook increasingly desperate efforts to get the country’s courts to overturn the vote.
Then there was incumbent president Donald Trump’s encouragement of a mob to try to sack the Capitol Building to prevent the formal certification of the results of the election. For many Americans (and non-Americans as well), it seemed democracy itself was under imminent threat and the nation was coming unglued.
Biden had entered the White House after two previous, unsuccessful runs for his party’s nomination, had had a long career as a US Senator from Delaware, and had also served two terms as Barack Obama’s vice-president. Along the way, Biden survived more personal tragedy than should be one individual’s allotment of pain.
Just as he was about to take up his Senate seat, his wife and daughter died in a traffic accident. Years later, one son, following military service abroad, had died from a rare brain illness. His other son endured efforts to end substance addiction, and Biden himself had suffered a near-death experience with a cerebral aneurysm.
While Biden’s Senate career was generally seen as moderate on economic policy and international affairs, when he chaired the Senate’s judiciary committee’s hearings on the confirmation for Clarence Thomas to become a Supreme Court associate justice, his rough treatment of Prof Anita Hill became a blot on Biden’s reputation for many.
Despite his personal tribulations, during his entire Senate career he had maintained a family life for his sons, commuting daily from Wilmington to Washington by train. Later, he found a second love, marrying Jill, and her influence became crucial in Biden’s world.
In 2016, he had acceded to pressure not to seek the presidential nomination. At the time, many fellow Democrats believed instead that Hilary Clinton’s bid for the nomination was the right one for its time, the party and the nation.
Then, four years later, in 2020, amid the Covid pandemic, Biden won the Democratic Party’s nomination and then the election against the sitting president, Donald Trump. His nominating convention and campaign had both been constrained by Covid pandemic isolation restrictions into following a style featuring few major public appearances to avoid creating super-spreader events.
Legislation
Right from the start, his administration was assailed by perilous economic circumstances generated by the pandemic. Moreover, the disease continued on its deadly trajectory, despite growing access to vaccines, as some individuals refused to take them in response to false rumours about their danger.
The Biden administration pushed hard for a slate of legislation to steady, then re-energise the economy and provide investments in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure. Drawing on Biden’s decades of congressional experience, and despite a Congress where opposition Republicans tried to block their passage — the Biden administration gained support for funding investment in hi-tech bricks and mortar plants aimed at returning manufacturing to the US.
There was also support for massive infrastructure spending as well as green energy programmes. Further, there was extended income support for pandemic-affected individuals and families.
The overall economic record of the Biden years produced economic statistics the envy of every other developed OECD nation. During Biden’s time in office, some 16 million jobs were created, unemployment largely stayed below 4%, and eventually wages began to rise faster than inflation.
One serious problem in all this, however, was a major spike in inflation across the board, once the stimulus packages kicked in, the pandemic isolation eased, allowing a rise in the demand for goods and services. This was happening even as multinational supply chains for the manufacturing of many items remained in disorder as a result of the pandemic and resultant transportation snarls.
The Federal Reserve Bank also contributed to inflation by hiking interest rates in an effort to control an overheating economy, but that effort also pushed up inflation with higher lending costs.
Moreover, some measures, especially commitments towards infrastructure rebuilding, did not result in immediate amelioration of the circumstances of financially distressed citizens and so it was hard for average citizens to see the benefits. The old adage that a president gets the blame for inflation and higher prices, but rarely the credit for economic growth, haunted the Biden administration.
Foreign affairs
Nevertheless, most Americans, at least in the early years, generally supported the Biden stimulus measures as necessary in perilous times. But foreign affairs crises increasingly troubled the Biden presidency.
Determined to carry out the unpleasant, dangerous American withdrawal from Afghanistan (and ultimately what became a surrender to the Taliban) that had been negotiated by Donald Trump in the last year of his presidency, Biden drew down American forces to the minimum needed to maintain a precarious defence perimeter around the Kabul’s airport.
That triggered a flood of Afghans desperate to flee their disintegrating nation. Biden had never been an enthusiast for military operations in Afghanistan and he had, in fact, opposed “the surge” of troops there during the Obama administration to stabilise the situation. But now he was in charge when two decades in Afghanistan were coming to an end in a chaotic withdrawal.
Many of those attempting to flee were individuals who had worked closely with American and other foreign military teams there as aides, interpreters and guides — as well as their families. Others were fearful the incoming Taliban government was on course to become a thoroughly brutal regime. The ensuing pandemonium of the pullout and the crowds left on the tarmac became a major negative for the Biden administration and his public support never recovered.
Read more: US-Afghanistan misadventure: Why things went so horribly wrong
Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the outbreak of new, bitter hostilities in the Middle East a year later might have been major opportunities for showing leadership. But they also could be perilous for the success of Biden’s presidency.
The Russian invasion of its Ukrainian neighbour — following months of mounting threats — as well as an earlier occupation of the Crimean peninsula and a stealth occupation of parts of eastern Ukraine by soldiers not wearing unit insignia, the so-called “little green men” — set up the possibility of a total collapse of Ukraine’s outnumbered, under-equipped forces.
That could have been followed by the Russian occupation of the entire nation. Russian officials variously claimed Ukraine was not a legitimate nation, that it was run by a nest of neo-Nazis, or was a catspaw for Western plans to dismember Russia, thus justifying a military campaign against that neighbouring state.
Remarkably, the Ukrainians rallied to push back against the invaders, especially once they were increasingly supplied with anti-tank weapons and other crucial bits of kit from Nato armouries. In the face of the invasion and Ukraine’s unexpectedly stiff resistance, Biden succeeded in rallying broad support — financially and with military supplies — from nearly the entirety of Nato membership, giving the Ukrainians a fighting chance to draw the Russians to a stalemate and then to begin to push them back.
Inspired by Biden’s persistence in support of Ukraine, there was a growing realisation of a larger danger to Europe from the invasion. This propelled two long-time neutral nations — Sweden and Finland — to reverse course and join Nato as well. Throughout, Biden was in his element, pressing a broad, yet potentially fractious, international coalition on the need to preserve the security and independence of Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion.
In the months after the initial invasion, the Biden administration pushed to ratchet up the range of military materiel made available to Ukraine, from the US and Nato allies. However, this flow of materiel was both insufficient and too slow to deliver a real knockout blow, highlighting the Biden administration’s reluctance to see the Ukraine conflict escalate into a major European war.
Most recently, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, the US has now authorised the Ukrainians to use American-made, longer-range ATACM missiles against military targets inside Russia, now that Russia continues to use missiles, drones and smart bombs against civilian targets. And, moreover, as Russian ground forces have been reinforced by 10,000-plus North Korean troops (presumably in return for hi-tech military equipment).
At this point, while the Biden administration’s efforts have forestalled the fall of Ukraine, they have not been sufficient to guarantee that nation’s survival, let alone a peaceful integration into the EU or, more distantly, Nato. For those looking for decisive endings, this support of Ukraine has not yet produced such a success, although it has helped revitalise Nato and its members’ commitment to it.
Significantly, the Biden presidency is being succeeded by one whose leadership is much less sympathetic to major aid to Ukraine in its struggle. This can not be called an unmitigated success story by any means.
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Meanwhile, the Biden administration is now increasingly tangled in the latest round of fighting in the Middle East. This has followed Hamas’ deadly 7 October attack on an Israeli music festival, the overwhelming Israeli military retaliation in Gaza, and, most recently, the expansion of fighting into Lebanon. There have also been repeated missile and rocket launches from Hezbollah and Hamas fighters, supported by Iran. That support has led to, so far, limited attacks from the air by Israel and Iran on each other.
As Israel’s main weapons supplier, the Biden administration continued to reiterate its support for Israel, even as it has attempted to achieve negotiated ceasefires. That would include the release of hostages taken on 7 October and, more distantly, a broader, more comprehensive settlement.
Unfortunately for the Biden administration, the ceasefires remain elusive; the devastation of Gaza (and now Beirut) continues; and growing obloquy towards Israel and its leadership has spilled over against the US in much of the world — as well as fuelling domestic dissension inside America. There is little hope a ceasefire, let alone a larger settlement, will be the outcome of the Biden administration’s frenetic diplomatic activity before it gives way to Trump 2.0.
Biden critics, meanwhile, continue to accuse the administration of ignoring the flow of illegal immigration into the nation across its southern border. Even though such numbers have returned to more usual historic levels, the lack of a comprehensive plan made immigration (and inflation) particularly volatile issues for the 2024 election, and they were seized upon by Donald Trump as winning issues in the recent election.
Report card
Biden, despite his apparent growing frailty and uncertainty in public, demonstrated in his disastrous debate with the Republican challenger, well into the year 2024 insisted he would run for re-election on the basis of his successes in dealing with the country’s economic circumstances and with global leadership. The transition to the next generation would have to wait a bit longer.
But, after that debate, Biden vacillated whether to end his re-election bid and allow his party to nominate another before giving way to allow the party’s nominee to be his vice-president, Kamala Harris. Despite waging a strenuous campaign, she was defeated by a Republican laser focus on the ills of immigration, the lingering inflation, Chinese market competition and a presumed crime wave. It was a dispiriting end to the idea the Biden era would help usher in a new age of civility and mature leadership.
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When Joe Biden takes his final flight aboard Air Force One, after his successor is sworn in, commentators will be hard at work, crafting their evaluations and summations of the victories, flaws, and failures of Biden’s tenure in office. And, doubtless, many of his key aides and senior officials will be drawing up the outlines of their own “we were there” “tell almost all” memoirs as well.
For the more thoughtful reckoning of Biden’s presidency, it will fall to historians and political scientists in the years ahead to draw up their respective balance sheets regarding his tenure in office during a tempestuous time. Such evaluations will almost certainly depend on how the Ukrainian conflict ends, or how or if the current Middle East conflict unwinds.
Moreover, Biden’s time in office will be measured by how his successor deals with the country’s foreign affairs and its economic challenges, given the kinds of policies he insists he will be implementing from “Day One.”
In his report card, we feel comfortable giving him an A- on his economic measures, given the success in restoring a tottering economy and setting the wheels in motion for a potential renaissance in high-tech industry.
Let’s give him a B on reviving civility in public life, even if his successor seems certain to reverse that trend.
But we must give I’s (incompletes) on Ukraine and the Middle East, given the nature and intensity of those conflicts and the unlikelihood of an easy ending.
Unfortunately, we must give what used to be called a “gentleman’s C” for his dealing with immigration, especially since the omissions and commissions helped set in motion the defeat of his vice president.
Perhaps, too, we should add a notation in the space marked “teacher’s comments” that reads: “Should have done better in communicating his goals and ideas to his fellow citizens.” Too often, his ideas and plans failed to get the fair hearing they deserved because of a lack of building vigorous foundational arguments for them in a political world that is now so deeply riven in its political loyalties.
But perhaps by the time historians get hold of the Biden legacy he will be more honoured than he is now, similar to the way someone like Jimmy Carter is now regarded all these decades after he lost his bid for reelection. DM