The Four-Year Record of the 82-Year-Old President of the United States
The Four-Year Record of the 82-Year-Old President of the United States
Joe Biden’s Time for Evaluation
As the only term of Joe Biden’s presidency and his administration comes to an end, the time for evaluation has arrived. His legacy includes both highlights and shadows. While Donald Trump prepares for the inauguration ceremony, set for Monday, January 20, when Congress will officially mark his extraordinary return to the White House, the time for evaluation has come for Joe Biden and his administration.
In his farewell speech at the end of his only presidential term, Joe Biden, who had promised in 2021 to heal the soul of the nation, acknowledged that his promise had not been fulfilled. According to him, today’s America is in a state of constant battle, with a short distance between danger and opportunity. With Trump’s return to the Oval Office next week, Biden’s and the Democrats’ era seems to be just a temporary phase in an era of growing nationalism.
Of course, during these four years of presidency, this seasoned Democrat can say that he defeated Trump, stood against Russia, passed laws, appointed judges, and rightly claim that he left a strong economy for the country. However, it is also true that he did not understand the widespread public dissatisfaction with inflation, which his stimulus measures contributed to, and the fears related to immigration. Moreover, contrary to what he promised in the 2020 election campaign, which was to act as a bridge between two political generations, he not only failed to understand the right time but, worse, was unwilling to step aside.
His friends and supporters claim that opinions about his performance will change over time. But today, public opinion is clear and undeniable: only a quarter of Americans believe Joe Biden was a good or great president. This is less than the percentage Trump received when he left power shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the impeachment attempt, and while the country was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, regarding the rest of the world, opinions are not so clear-cut. Many believe that most of his successes will now vanish, and his legacy is Trump’s return.
What is the Paradox of Bidenomics?
Bidenomics is a term that refers to the economic policies of Joe Biden, the former President of the United States. These policies focus primarily on strengthening the domestic economy, reducing economic inequalities, creating job opportunities, and supporting the middle and lower classes. Bidenomics aims to sustain economic growth and improve economic and social conditions through investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and education.
Other features include a focus on social justice and support for workers and their rights. These policies pay special attention to combating climate change and improving living standards for different social classes. Overall, Bidenomics is a combination of tax measures, large-scale investments in infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, and regulating laws to reduce income disparities.
In domestic policy, perhaps no president has pursued more ambitious legislative programs than Joe Biden, tackling climate change, reducing and regulating drug costs, canceling or reducing student debt, and implementing stricter gun purchase laws.
In terms of infrastructure, Biden also advanced a comprehensive $1.2 trillion plan to rebuild roads, bridges, airports, water and sewage networks, and high-speed internet, which he managed to pass with Republican support. Additionally, his name will be linked with the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in green technology in U.S. history, and the Chips and Science Act, a nearly $300 billion initiative designed to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States and boost investments in research and development. However, the development of programs and obtaining permits takes time, and many of these projects have yet to produce the intended effects.
Joe Biden himself has complained that he hasn’t received the appreciation he thought he deserved. Instead, people blame him for the increase in inflation, which surged due to the $19 trillion aid packages approved by the government to help families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gas, food, and housing prices have all increased by more than 20%, causing many Americans to feel worse off. Biden inherited an economy severely damaged by COVID and leaves behind an exceptionally strong economy, as the Financial Times notes. However, as he prepares to resign on Monday, many Americans believe their situation is worse than when he took office.
A Foreign Policy with Bright and Dark Spots
Certainly, in foreign policy, Biden can take pride in some of his successes. Under his leadership, the United States strengthened its cooperation and alliances worldwide, from NATO to the Quad, which unites the U.S. with Japan, India, and Australia. His administration managed relations with China responsibly, restoring competition to a systematic and predictable framework. Enemies both in Russia and Iran are weaker than they were four years ago, and after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration played a crucial role in gathering and coordinating transatlantic support for Kyiv.
However, there were failures, such as the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, although it was decided in the last months of the Trump administration, and a massive wave of migrants at the border in 2023. Like all his predecessors, Biden failed to resolve the immigration crisis at the Mexican border. Despite promising a more humane policy after the heartbreaking scenes of families being separated at the border, he faced the reality that he couldn’t control this phenomenon without bipartisan agreement and ultimately had to adopt the same strict Republican policies.
Even if Biden deserves credit for rallying Europe to defend Ukraine, critics believe he failed to grasp the exceptional nature of the moment. Biden, as Phillips Payson O’Brien wrote in The Atlantic, viewed the conflict as a crisis to be managed, not as a war to be won. Today, Ukraine’s uncertain fate is left to his successor.
A Controversial Legacy
But it is in the Middle East that the former president’s legacy becomes highly controversial, with a multitude of destructions and the highest civilian casualties among all recent conflicts. The Gaza Strip, using military tools supplied by the United States, has literally been reduced to rubble and ashes. Biden claims to have supported the Israeli government, but in the eyes of many around the world today, he appears as a president who has trampled on the rights, values, and laws he promised to defend. Instead, what the Gaza war has revealed to international public opinion is a deep cynicism towards the United States regarding the liberal international principles Biden once spoke of.
In defending Ukraine, Biden asked other countries to recognize that only a rules-based system can save the world from chaos, and for this reason, we will all be in danger if Russia is allowed to achieve what it wants, he wrote in a highly critical article in The Washington Post today. But when it came to Israel, his administration decided not to enforce U.S. laws that condition military aid to foreign countries on their adherence to them and rejected the performance of key military institutions that the system is based on, including the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial authority of the United Nations. Four years ago, Biden announced the return of the United States and leadership that allies could rely on. Today, his words seem hollow among global leaders who are under the pressure of populism and have to deal with Trump’s return.
In the end, it can be acknowledged that only time will allow us to fully assess the merits and limitations, successes, and failures of Biden’s presidency. Historians have often reassessed presidencies that ended with unpleasant conclusions or electoral defeats, such as the recent cases of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, or George H.W. Bush. The effects of some of Biden’s significant achievements, including the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, will only be measurable in the years to come.
However, Biden’s political end is tragic, accompanied by real defeats and humiliations, domestically with his futile insistence on candidacy and his replacement at the last moment, and internationally, like the cases repeatedly imposed on him by Netanyahu. At least for now, the image that the end of his presidential experience gives us is that of a tired, stubborn, and not always wise man, someone who failed to step aside when necessary, while failing to capitalize on his undeniable political and legislative successes achieved between 2021 and 2023.
