Joe Biden's Bittersweet Farewell
It is a bitter irony that one of the last public acts of the Biden administration was to eulogize President Jimmy Carter, the last one-term Democratic President. The parallels do not end there. Two men of deep faith with significant and even landmark accomplishments, who left office in defeat partly due to economic forces beyond their control and conflict in the Middle East.
President Carter’s achievements include many domestic policy accomplishments along with the Camp David Accords and Panama Canal Treaty that redefined both the Middle East and Latin America. Carter, however, could not overcome an economy in a state of shock from two Arab oil embargoes and the release of Nixon-era price controls which triggered gas lines and inflation as high as 12.3 percent; and a 444-day Iran hostage crisis.
Historians credit President Biden for the greatest legislative achievements of any President since President Johnson while working with a very slim majority during his first two years. This includes a massive COVID relief package; a historic infrastructure bill that is the most substantial infrastructure investment since President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system; restoring our manufacturing competitiveness with the CHIPS Act which will bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States; and lowering drug prices under Medicare. He also skillfully brought together an international coalition to support Ukraine, expand NATO, and sanction Russia for its aggression without committing any U.S. troops.
Yet while The Economist heralded the Biden economy as “bigger and better than ever” weeks before the election, President Biden was uniquely unpopular. Under President Biden, inflation reached its highest levels since 1981, reaching 9.1 percent in June 2022 due to a variety of factors including shortages due to COVID’s disruption of the supply chain; oil and food price increases due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and corporate price gouging or “greedflation”. While inflation had fallen to 2.7 percent by November 2024, voters still felt pinched and blamed Biden and Vice President Harris.
Biden’s Middle East crisis was the war between Israel and Hamas. In 1948, President Truman, while in the middle of a tough reelection fight, became the first world leader to recognize the state of Israel doing so eleven minutes after its creation. Like, Truman, Biden offered Israel strong support throughout the crisis but paid a steep price with younger voters who wanted an end to the war in Gaza. In 2024, however, for the first time, a Democratic Presidential candidate’s support for Israel became a liability. A YouGov poll found that Democratic support among young voters dropped significantly in key swing states because of the conflict. Among Biden 2020 voters who did not support Harris, between 19% and 38% in the following swing states – Arizona (38%), Michigan (32%), Wisconsin (32%) and Pennsylvania (19%) – did so because they wanted an end to the war. This is significant since had Harris carried these states she would be taking office today and not Trump.
The Trump Restoration
Another bitter irony is that President Biden, who pledged to be a transitional President and who made saving American democracy the center of his reelection campaign, hands over power to an embittered and emboldened Donald Trump. Biden was aware that “the perception of age” was his biggest vulnerability (and it likely contributed to his inability to convince voters that the economy was improving), yet he announced he was running for reelection without deliberating with his aides or family on this point. When his CNN debate performance forced a reckoning, it only gave Vice President Harris 107 days to establish an identity with the voters, which proved to be insufficient.
In addition, if President Biden was intent on preventing a Trump restoration, then why did he not borrow from the Reagan playbook and remind voters how awful things were under Trump every chance he could as Presidents Reagan and Bush did for twelve years with respect to Jimmy Carter? Also puzzling is the administration’s failure to identify and address its top vulnerability early on – the border.
While preserving democracy was at the center of President Biden’s campaign, inexplicably it was not a top priority for his Attorney General Merrick Garland. By the time Garland got around to prosecuting Trump for January 6th and misuse of classified documents, Trump had already washed away the stain of January 6th and had Republicans walking lockstep on his contention that his prosecutions were “lawfare”. Now with Trump taking office in a matter of hours, Garland has tied his own hands to block the release of the Independent Counsel’s report on the classified documents case because of a stubborn refusal to dismiss the case against two remaining minor defendants who no doubt will be pardoned or have their cases dismissed by the new administration before the month is over. As a result, we may never know the truth about this serious offense.
Even worse, just as Reagan’s victory in 1980 was partly the result of skullduggery as Republican operatives made a deal with Iran in 1980 not to release the hostages before the election (a point recently confirmed by the New York Times), in 2024 it was Republican jurists’ brazen partisanship from Aileen Cannon to Samuel Alito and John Roberts in running interference for Trump in these cases to prevent any trial before the election.
Today, the Trump restoration to power will be complete. Trump takes office validated by voters that these cases were simply political attacks. The man who promised his voters to be their retribution, now has immunity from the Supreme Court should he seek to extract revenge.
Thank You Joe
In his eulogy of President Carter, President Biden spoke of Carter’s character and having lived “a good life of purpose and meaning, of character driven by destiny and filled with the power of faith, hope and love.” The same can be said of President Biden. I had the privilege of meeting then-Senator Biden and my impression of him is as the last of the classic old school Irish Catholic politicians.
As Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. leaves Washington after over fifty years of service as a Senator, Vice President, and President and returns to Delaware, I thank him for his service. It is, however, extremely disappointing to hand off the Presidency to a man without character or faith and who has little regard for the principles this country was founded upon. While I think history will fault President Biden for this, I believe on balance his legacy will be to be remembered as a good man who accomplished a great deal in his one term.
Now we turn the page and, as President Biden said in his farewell address, “it’s [our] turn to stand guard . . . [to] be the keeper of the flame [and to] keep the faith.”
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