I say “arguably most accomplished first term” because the only real competition is Obama’s, which featured a series of legislative successes for which Biden also deserves enormous credit. How old will ancient Joe have to get before everyone stops underestimating him?
Indeed, polls show over two-thirds of Americans, including half of Biden’s own party, say he’s too old to serve another term. But he wasn’t too old and tired last week to rescue the global economy from congressional Republicans threatening not to pay America’s bills. He wasn’t too old and tired last year to force labor and business leaders together to avert an economically catastrophic national railroad strike.
In 2021, Biden inherited a country reeling from Covid from an administration without a plan; he got over 200 million vaccines into people’s arms in his first 100 days, twice what he had promised before the election.
He was saddled with a precarious job market, but passed a Covid relief bill that helped him create more jobs in his first two years than any president in American history; in fact, more in 28 months than any previous president had in four years.
Was Biden too slow to acknowledge inflation as a real and serious problem? Without a doubt. But the criticism became outsized. He continues to take a political pummeling for soaring gas prices and the skyrocketing cost of eggs, but when he released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and gas prices tumbled down, no one gave him credit. When the cost of eggs plummeted, no one said, “He saved our yolks.”
He signed into law a 15% corporate minimum tax on companies with profits over $1 billion, forcing global behemoths like Amazon, Nike, and FedEx to at least pay something. And it’s expected to raise $313 billion to help reduce annual deficits.
Biden didn’t exactly stick the landing in Afghanistan. 20 million Afghans don’t know where their next meal will come from, and the U.S. appears to be doing nothing to help. But there was never any possibility of a graceful exit from the Graveyard of Empires. And while George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all promised to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan, it took Biden to get it done. We needed an “I’m too old for this shit” president to end America’s longest war. Just as we needed his diplomatic chops to hold NATO together – and even expand it – as it stands with Ukraine against Russia in Europe’s most consequential invasion since World War II. A year ago, nobody bet on Biden or Ukraine. Today, I wouldn’t bet against them.
No U.S. president had ever done anything major to combat climate change… until Biden. His $369 billion in clean energy investments finally established a pivot point for the U.S. to turn away from our suicidal fossil fuel-soaked energy paradigm toward a sustainable, modern system.
It’s been a long running joke how presidents from both parties promise to “rebuild America,” do a photo-op before a banner that says “Infrastructure Week,” and then ghost us. But Biden actually got a trillion dollar infrastructure bill done, with strong bipartisan support.
For decades, American presidents – even Trump – talked about getting Medicare the right to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies for prescription drugs. Only Biden got it done.
Biden became the first U.S. president in 30 years to sign serious gun control legislation, with bipartisan support. He was also the first president to sign a bipartisan bill enshrining into law the protection of gay and interracial marriages.
Presidents always give lip service to “competing with China,” but only one signed the $52 billion landmark CHIPS and Science Act that allows America to go toe-to-toe with China in the battle for big tech. Guess who?
Notice a pattern here? Biden’s half century in politics, so often held against him, gave him the awareness to make a list of big, important things that might be doable and the expertise to cross them off one by one. They say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert; he’s put in 100,000 hours on political negotiation, and has the results to prove it. Age is an unstoppable force, but so is wisdom.
Republicans frequently say, “He’s hostage to his left-wing base.” Oh yeah? Then how come so many on the other side of the aisle keep voting for his compromises? On infrastructure, gun safety, competition with China, the debt limit bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, the railroad bill, the expansion of medical benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits… In these polarizing times, I don’t think anyone can truly “unite America,” but it’s remarkable how often he’s united the senate.
Our news and social media are addicted to conflict and negativity, but Biden has given us very little of it. He’s not up at 3am tweeting vicious attacks on the other side, although he is occasionally up at midnight negotiating with them. He’s made America civil again.
He also appointed and got senate confirmation for the most popular Supreme Court justice in 17 years, Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman in the Court’s history.
He’s also the first president with the courage to fully and unconditionally pardon all federal offenses for simple marijuana possession, and urged governors to do the same at the state level.
I could go on all day listing this guy’s accomplishments, but I’ve only got 1200 words.
He needs a second term not only to protect the historic gains of his first term, but to cross other items off his bucket list, like codifying a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care decisions, a gun control bill that does more than nibble around the edges, a renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and making the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in half for the short time it lasted, permanent. I’ll gladly watch four more years of him crashing his bike and tripping on stage to give him a shot at all that.
Where else has Biden fallen short? He’s still using most of Trump’s immigration plan; there’s still no progressive vision for comprehensive immigration reform. He took a shameful trip to Saudi Arabia to kiss the ring of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a walking war crime who Biden had promised to treat as a “pariah.” He chose as his vice president Kamala Harris, who’s done almost nothing to distinguish herself in the position. One wishes he would have gone with a proven, dynamic executive like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or the dream of dreams, a political rock star like Michelle Obama. But then again, if he had, right now everybody would be asking the wrong question – “Why isn’t she running this year?” – rather than the right one – “Hasn’t he earned four more?”
Matt Gunn