First, disclosing my biases: I was a lifelong Republican, opposing Biden’s sort of politics, but then became a Democrat, contributing heavily in 2020 and ’24 to Biden as the anti-Trump — which trumped everything.
Biden did restore decency, sanity, integrity, seriousness, and a fundamental truthfulness. Alas, all undermined by his pardoning son Hunter, after a pledge not to, now saying the prosecutions were (sound familiar?) “politically motivated.” This gives unfortunate impetus to Trump’s dishonest and disgraceful assault on our justice system (especially with his conspiracist attack dog Patel named to head the FBI).
The act that most became Biden’s presidency was his leaving of it. Deciding to stand down went against the grain, but was noble. Trump could never do such a thing.
On the other hand, Biden’s seeking re-election to begin with was wrong. An earlier renunciation, and a normal nominating process, might have produced different November results. What did happen rendered tragically transitory Biden’s great achievement of restoring America’s civic culture.
His approval ratings, meanwhile, had never recovered from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Blame Trump for a shameful deal slating that withdrawal; but Biden could have nixed it. Keeping our small remaining Afghan presence would have cost very little, while the risks of ending it were huge. A terrible mistake.
Only one of several key Trump legacies Biden wrongly kept. Including most of his tariffs, which all serious economists agree are stupidly self-harming. In the big picture, free trade is win-win economics — but a wrongheaded, short-sighted hostility to it has taken hold, which Biden has bowed to, and even exacerbated, with a range of “America first” policies which damage global trade to our own actual ultimate detriment. (Psst: other nations getting richer is good for us.)
The tariffs are part of an overall “industrial policy” itch, with government trying to shape the economy, favoring some businesses over others. That never works out well. That’s why I used to be a Republican.
Biden also shamefully caved to public anti-migrant sentiment. Which actually a majority doesn’t share, yet xenophobia is so loud that Biden surrendered his principles to it. Betraying a promise he’d made to me personally (in an October 2020 zoom call) to reverse Trump’s shameful anti-immigrant measures. Biden did reverse some at first, but ultimately reversed the reversal, and his final capitulation was supporting extremist legislation giving Republican migrant-haters all they demanded (before they themselves cravenly killed it). The border has been a mess; Biden could have done better there, though Congressional Republicans blocked needed funding.
In foreign affairs, Biden did much to repair Trump’s damage to our valuable alliances and to restore our leadership, most notably in coordinating Western support for Ukraine. Yet our help there has been disastrously squeamish, from some misguided fear of provoking Putin, as if he’s not already doing all the evil he can — and as if we can still have normal relations with Russia. In consequence, the Ukraine situation is now bleak, with dire global implications.
At least there we’re on the right side. Not so regarding Gaza, where Biden makes America complicit in Israel’s ghastly war crimes. While Netanyahu thumbing his nose at us makes America look weak.
Inflation must be mentioned, being a key factor in Biden’s low approval ratings. A partial cause of inflation was going overboard in Covid-related stimulus (the Treasury is still gushing out money on some of those programs, whose rationale is long over). Yet inflation was really largely beyond Biden’s control, and his resulting unpopularity is way overdone. Really reflecting the sheer bloody-mindedness of the modern American electorate. Half will have partisan hatred for any president, no matter what, with many of the rest clueless about public affairs. No longer even grasping what this country is all about. Trump is those chickens coming home to roost — headless chickens.
My original draft gave Biden an overall grade of C-minus. The Hunter pardon knocks it down to D+.
American voters get a big fat F.
