In 10 days Biden’s legacy will be cemented and Donald Trump will again be President of the United States. Trump will in his second term be the same as he was in his first, mostly ineffective, but bent on the goal of dismantling every piece of progress from his predecessor’s administration.
Legislative achievements, Domestic policy
Biden’s legislative achievements are far less impressive than those of Barack Obama, but there are some important laws in their own right.
The Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan are on par with the stimulus package President Obama signed in 2009. They are also on par with the 5 Cornoovirus Relief Acts Trump signed in 2020. They provided immediate temporary relief to a struggling economy, but they did not fundamentally change any laws for the long term.
President Biden signed Juneteenth into law and signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. He codified gay marriage. These are his signature legacies in social policy.
No major economic laws were signed which significantly changed regulation, and no new major programs were created, though many were proposed.
In terms of legislative accomplishments, nothing has changed from when I made my ranking in 2022. He was good on domestic policy, but not revolutionary.
Foreign policy
His foreign policy has been defined by three crises which I believe are connected.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan was supposed to be a success and we were told the Taliban would not lead to power. Either the administration was deeply misinformed or the President lied. The way we continued the withdrawal even when it was obvious Afghanistan was under attack with us leaving was a disaster. This was a continuation of Trump’s policy.
6 months later, Russia intensified its invasion of Ukraine. We have provided aid, though with significant strings attached. The restrictions have prevented Ukraine from winning the war and have increased costs in human lives. We only diverted from the Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump policy of avoidance of supporting Ukraine fully until after the election.
The War in Gaza has no clearly defined end state. President Biden proposed a ceasefire which the Israeli government refused without any counter-proposal. There is no peace plan for Israel today. There is no clearly defined end state when the war will end. Biden has failed to bring peace to the Middle East. Not just that but his sending of American weapons has led to the largest escalation of death in Israel and Palestine since the Nakba in 1948. It has been a total failure. We continue Trump’s policy of completely supporting Netanyahu’s premiership and we likely will until he is dead.
The only success has been the deposition of Assad, which is undeniably the only good foreign policy accomplishment while Biden has been President. We have increased aid to Ukraine and removed some strings. Russia has had to readjust its military aid to the Assad regime, so Syria won.
1/4, a 25% success score. Failure.
Executive actions and appointments
There were very few executive actions to mention. The big ticket proposals which his base supported by and large were not signed into law. They will all be repealed by Donald Trump, so they are not worth mentioning.
His appointments to the courts have been superb, and appointing Lina Khan to the FTC is a win for the middle class.
Unfortunately, if we wanted a Democratic majority in the Supreme Court we needed to win in 2016 or the 2014 Senate election, but we lost both. There are only 3 liberals on the Supreme Court today, and it will not flip until Clarence Thomas, Alito, and Roberts are all replaced as long they are replaced by Democrats. So if we control the Presidency consistently from 2029 to 2050 there is a small chance we might see a liberal Supreme Court again.
Or we could see more resignations like we saw from Anthony Kennedy which can push the timeline even further in the future.
If Clinton had won in 2016 we would have had a liberal Supreme Court.
Short of an expansion of the Supreme Court or impeaching a current conservative justice, there is no realistic chance there will be a liberal court for the next quarter century. The courts have been fully captured by the Republican Party.
But her emails…
The Elephant in the room
The biggest issue with Biden’s presidential legacy is how he will be succeeded by Donald Trump in 10 days. Over the last 4 years, Biden has failed to convince the American people that Democratic government is significantly better than Republicans, leading to yet another Republican trifecta in 10 days.
He harassed his friends and coddled his adversaries. Americans now need visas to travel to the Schengen Area and the United Kingdom. Biden’s utter incompetence at diplomacy has built more walls than Donald Trump has seriously proposed.
In 2021 Biden had the opportunity of a lifetime to show that he stood with the American people, our allies, and human rights. Instead, he has shown that legal restrictions on military aid do not matter. He has shown that the reality on the ground with military engagement does not trump the statements in unratified treaties. While Israel can do basically whatever with the weapons we give them, Ukraine has onerous restrictions well beyond the law. The double standard is staggering.
The economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine cannot be overstated. Shutting down food exports from Ukraine sent global food prices spiraling, while sanctions on Russia sent the global price of oil and gas through the roof. The sanctions have been working, albeit much slower than most would like. This stage of the war has now lasted for three years. For comparison, the Invasion of Sicily which was the straw that broke the camel’s back in World War II happened only two years before Hitler killed himself in a bunker. The Invasion of Ukraine could have and should have been won by now. That will prove to be Biden’s most enduring legacy.
His legislative achievements have been modest, with nothing revolutionary.
None of his executive actions will last.
The fundamental problem of the Biden presidency is that after the rife unbridled corruption of the First Trump Presidency, which was in many ways a continuation of the Presidency of George W. Bush which climaxed with increasing visa restrictions around the world and the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, enough Americans are somehow still convinced that a Republican presidency will do a better job than the Democrats.
The messaging from the administration has been so poor that many Americans truly believe the economy is doing poorly even though on almost every metric except the price of housing the economy is doing extraordinarily well, especially compared with our international peers. We have the strongest major economy in the world today, yet many Americans believe our economy is doing poorly. We are in a weird situation where people know they are doing well but believe the economy is poor overall.
His foreign policy has been one failure after another with no major successes. Ukraine is still fighting for their lives and there is no realistic path to peace in the Middle East. The only solution for Israel and Palestine is to pull out at this point. They are not interested in peace.
In 50 years Biden will be a mostly forgotten presidency. No major laws to remember him by, and he will not be the oldest president ever, with no major accomplishments to his name. I doubt he will get a section in history books to himself. He is not a bad man, but as president, he has been average overall.
One of the most fundamental parts of being a politician is to convince people that you provide real answers to problems without creating more problems, at least more than your opponent. On this front, Biden has utterly failed. This is only the second time a Republican has won a plurality of the popular vote in the last 35 years.
To put this in perspective, Bill Clinton deregulated Wall Street, sold off Amtrak, stood by as Rwanda had a genocide, criminalized gay marriage, and even still more Americans voted for Al Gore than George W. Bush.
Joe Biden couldn’t even manage that.
2024 is the first time a Republican has won the popular vote following a Democratic President since 1980.
Like Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden was primarily brought down by foreign policy. Jimmy Carter failed to resolve the hostage crisis. Joe Biden failed to end the War in Ukraine and bring peace to the Middle East. Jimmy Carter managed to administer the Camp David Accords. Joe Biden couldn’t manage that.
The biggest and most enduring legacy of Joe Biden will always be the second Presidency of Donald Trump.
In his own words
There many immortal quotes by Presidents which reverberate over time and define their legacy. The most famous are of course Kennedy’s speech about the moon, Roosevelt’s declaring the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, or Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address.
When it comes to Biden when looking at his moderate legislative accomplishments and his foreign policy, no one can summarize the Biden Presidency more accurately than Joe Biden himself.
Nothing will fundamentally change.
He was preceded by Trump and he will be succeeded by Trump. We have had no major changes from the foreign policy of Trump’s first term. The expansion of visas globally has accelerated under Biden’s time in office. The major civil rights victories of the last 50 years were all under Obama’s presidency. We had a Republican Supreme Court entering this century, and we still do 25 years later. There is no sign of peace in the Middle East, the War in Ukraine still rages.
This is Joe Biden’s legacy.
Promises made. Promises kept.