According to a Gallup survey released on January 7, most Americans say history will treat Joe Biden’s presidency unfavorably. The next day, USA Today published an interview with Biden that reminded us why.
Biden’s lack of self-awareness is incredible. He believes he would have beaten Donald Trump if his disastrous debate performance hadn’t forced him from the race. Biden told reporter Susan Page that his laughable claim is “based on the polling.” What polling—from Mars? As CNN’s Harry Enten pointed out, when Biden withdrew from the race in July, he was on track to lose not only the battlegrounds but also reliably blue states such as Virginia, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.
Democratic elites shoved Biden aside for Kamala Harris because his June 27 debate with Trump revealed to the world that the oldest president in history was not up to the job. And yet, to this day, Biden pretends that his age and physical and mental condition did not contribute to either his unpopularity or his belated decision not to run for a second term. When Page asked Biden delicately if he would have had the “vigor” to serve until January 2029, Biden replied, “I don’t know.” He must be the only person alive who’s unaware that the answer to Page’s question is NO.
Biden’s ego led him to conclude he could gaslight the public into thinking that he was able to execute the duties of president until age 86. His ego prevented him from recognizing that the surprising Democratic performance in the 2022 midterm election was a perfect opportunity to announce he would let other, younger candidates run in a contested, competitive primary for his party’s 2024 nomination. In the end, the attractions of power were too strong. Biden tried to keep up the charade. And everything fell apart.
The president carries a chip on his shoulder visible from space. His desire to prove that he’s better than his predecessors, especially his former boss Barack Obama, was behind foreign policy blunders such as the retreat from Afghanistan, dilatory resupply of Ukraine, ambivalence in the Middle East, and blocking Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel on national security grounds. The other day Biden yelled at a group of journalists that “I might be the oldest president, but I know more world leaders than any one of you have ever met in your whole g—m life!” Who cares? Did no one tell him that geopolitics isn’t a game of Six Degrees of Separation?
Above the fireplace in the Oval Office hangs a portrait of FDR. In 2021, a group of academic flatterers told Biden that he could succeed, perhaps even surpass, the four-term president who gave us the New Deal and victory in World War II. And Biden fell for it. As usual, his reach exceeded his grasp. His American Rescue Plan Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act unleashed a torrent of spending that contributed to record inflation, higher interest rates, and the national debt. Biden is unapologetic. “There are things that are going to create enormous wealth and work out there,” he told USA Today, “but it takes time.” Not soon enough for the Democrats.
A decade from now, voters may or may not recognize that the bridge they are driving over was built using money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But they certainly could tell, and quickly, that Biden’s spending and energy policies were responsible for the inflation eroding their standard of living. Biden’s argument was that government policy could weaken national populism by improving the fortunes of the working class. The opposite happened.
Why? Because voters are not dopes. You can’t tell members of the working class that their lives are improving when the price of gas is rising, a trip to the grocery store eats up much of a paycheck, and asylum-seekers from the southern border are camping down the street.
Biden and his apologists tout job growth and a record stock market. These are accomplishments, to be sure, but positive macro data do not override voter dissatisfaction with prices and interest rates. Also, Americans are unhappy about more than the economy. Biden combined big spending with a left-wing cultural agenda. The big spending created inflation, and the cultural agenda turned off normal people. Not even the shiniest semiconductor plant in Wisconsin can silence popular outrage at DEI, gender ideology, open borders, and slavishness to teachers’ unions.
Biden has repeated these personal and ideological errors throughout his months as a lame duck. It’s as if the whole horrible exercise has been distilled into two-and-a-half months. Biden abused the pardon power twice: First, he forgave his son preemptively of all crimes Hunter has committed or may one day commit; then, he commuted the death sentences of all but three federal prisoners. Biden acted according to a lunatic double standard. Why the expansive pardon for Hunter but not for others convicted of similar offenses? Why spare a child murderer but not the Boston Marathon bomber? (To be clear, I support the death penalty and am disgusted by Biden’s commutations.)
Part of the reason for Biden’s moves is spite. He wants to “Trump-proof” his unpopular legacy. That’s why he auctioned off materials for the border wall, honored Hillary Clinton and George Soros with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and banned offshore drilling across a record 625 million acres of ocean. It’s why he told USA Today that he is considering preemptive pardons for allies who might be investigated by the GOP Congress and Trump Justice Department.
Yet the lesson of Biden’s presidency is that the Left’s attempts to stop Trump only make him stronger. “Middle-out, bottom-up” economics made voters look back fondly on the Trump economy. “A foreign policy for the middle class” made voters reminisce about the world before 2021. And Democratic lawfare turned the former president into a victim of a two-tiered system of justice.
Biden is left defending decisions that history will judge—has judged—harshly. He is lackadaisical when he’s not being defensive. At one point, Biden asked USA Today, “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”
I do. When he’s 86 years old, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. will still be the one-term president responsible for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
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