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‘The guy who stayed too long’ – Firstpost

‘The guy who stayed too long’ – Firstpost



On January 20, as Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States of America, it marked the end of Joe Biden’s five-decade-long career in Washington. Biden now joins the list of nearly a dozen one-term presidents in the history of the US, and barely four of them since World War II. To accompany Biden in the list of one-term presidents in modern times are Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George HW Bush.

So, how will the Biden presidency be remembered? What legacy does he leave behind?

Job Approval Second Lowest Among Post-WWII Presidents

According to a Gallup poll, Joe Biden averaged a 42.2 per cent job approval rating during his four years as president, the second lowest in Gallup polling history. Extreme political party differences characterised Biden’s low job approval, as has increasingly been the case for recent presidents. Biden’s final job approval rating from a new Gallup poll is 40 per cent.

In terms of Gallup job approval ratings, Biden’s has been just a notch above—one percentage point higher—than Donald Trump, his predecessor (and now successor), who held the record low job approval rating. Before that, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman had the lowest averages for their presidencies.

As per another latest poll (The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research), only a quarter of Americans said Biden, a Democrat, was a good or great president. That is lower than the views of the twice-impeached Trump, a Republican, when he left office soon after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and during the deadly depths of the coronavirus pandemic.

Transitional, Transformational, or Interregnum

Four years ago, when Joe Biden ascended to the Oval Office in Washington, he pledged to unite the country, strengthen the Democratic Party, and defend democracy. Also, he assumed the presidency promising to be a transitional president, but when he took office, Biden hung a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt above the fireplace in the Oval Office in an unmistakable signal that he wished to be a transformational president and not a transitional one.

As his four-year uproarious, tumultuous term ends, and as 82-year-old Biden departs aboard his helicopter, with Washington receding away from his sight, the capital city is now the domain of his archrival Donald Trump, whose return was what Biden sought most to prevent.

How will Biden be remembered? More so as the US is more divided than when he took over, the Democratic Party is in shambles.

The probability is high that history will remember him as a president who was just as interregnum, an interim president between two administrations led by Trump, a man he once labelled a fascist and a threat to democracy.

Five Decades Legacy: From Youngest to Oldest

Fifty-two years ago, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, Joe Biden, arrived in Washington when he became the youngest senator in US history when he took office in 1973 at the age of 30 years, the bare constitutional minimum.

In his more than five-decade-long career, Biden ran for the office of president twice, falling short both times, before he became the running mate of Barack Obama in 2008. When Obama demitted office after eight years, most presumed that Biden, aged seventy-four, was too old to seek the presidency a third time.

But he surprised his doubters, seized the Democratic nomination, and trounced Trump at hustings to become the 46th president, promising performance and competence in place of chaos.

Relegated to History

In the 19-minute farewell address from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, this is what Biden wished

“It will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together. But the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow, and they’ll bloom for decades to come.”

But the type of America Biden leaves behind, seeds planted by him may or may not bloom for decades.

Joe Biden, when he ascended to the presidency four years ago, wanted to “restore the soul” of the US and prove that Donald Trump was only a footnote in the American story, not its next chapter. Biden also promised to make Trump an asterisk in the American story and to turn the page on him. But, on Monday he was replaced by his nemesis, Trump.

And as Biden departs from the White House, the real danger lurks that Biden, who had the ignominy of aborting his campaign for the second time for the presidency, months before the election, will soon be forgotten, relegated to history himself.

Here is in brief of positive and negative side of ledger of four-year presidency of Joe Biden:

Negative Side of the Ledger

Presidential legacies are “complicated matters”, writes The Atlantic, but, as Biden leaves the White House, he seems “less a transformational figure than a historical parenthesis”. His negative side of the ledger eclipses his major achievements as president. Here are the major ones:

One, the hypocrisy of fatherly indulgence—during his presidency, Biden had repeatedly vowed not to pardon his son Hunter, who was convicted of three felony gun charges. Nonetheless, as Trump was voted in, Biden, in the last weeks of his presidency, precisely did that—pardoning the son, a decision widely criticised by both Democrats and Republicans.

And what a clemency it was—breaking free from his declared promise to “abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle”, Biden “granted a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period”.

With Biden’s gaffe, Democrats cannot take the morally elevated position on Trump.

Two, the second time folly—when Biden fought the 2020 presidential election, he promised to be a transitional president “with an implicit but clear pledge that he intended to serve a single term”. But as he took over the presidency, he sought to become a transformational figure, but in the end, he turned out to be neither.

His folly to run for the presidency for the second time despite record low approval ratings, voters’ concern about his age, and clear signs of physical and mental decline and aborting the bid midway gave Kamala Harris, barely 117 days to put her campaign together, denying Democrats whatever chance they had to effectively counter Trump’s march to the White House.

Three, hard-hitting—on the domestic front, the biggest trouble that Biden faced was hard-hitting inflation. Though finally monthly inflation came down below 3 per cent in 2024 just before the election, economic growth was steady, and unemployment rates were low, this good news came too late in the day to give succour to common Americans. And voters decided to neither “forget nor forgive” for the misery the common American worker had to face in four years of the presidency of Biden.

Four, the spurt in migration—one of the biggest failures of the Biden administration that Trump successfully exploited in elections—was the inability to contain the migrations to a manageable level.

Five, blunders galore—there were blunders galore on the international front. It includes but is not limited to.

  • Chaotic Kabul: The abrupt and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan not only handed over the country on a platter to the Taliban but, for a president who prided himself on his foreign-policy experience, it was a particularly disastrous moment. Biden’s Gallup approval rating dipped below 50 per cent for the first time amid the chaos in Kabul—a mark it would never reach again.

  • Inability to Restrain—As the world’s biggest superpower, it was incumbent on President Biden to diffuse the Russia-Ukraine tension and avoid the war. Instead, the information available now suggests that much before the war started, the US shipped arms and ammunition to Ukraine. Shortsighted policies on the war have made bigger countries of Europe—France and Germany—financially crippled and have led to political upheaval resulting in the rise of the far right and far left in both countries.

  • Turning a Blind Eye to Humanitarian catastrophe – Biden will go down in history as the American president who turned a complete blind eye to the humanitarian crisis in the Israel war in Gaza in his overzeal to support Israeli President. The avowed objective of decimating Hamas was not achieved, but 50,000 innocents died (including a disproportionately high number of elderly, women, and children). The truce that came into effect is too little and too late and gives no guarantee that the internecine war will end.

Positive Size of the Ledger

Not all was negative about Biden’s presidency. His administration had its achievements too. The important ones are:

One, Covid-19-effective handling of a once-in-a-century pandemic Covid-19, particularly after chaotic and confusing.

Two, enlargement of NATO—particularly in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Three, bipartisan successes: Biden’s landmark “American Rescue Plan” delivered nearly $2 trillion in new government spending and was quickly followed by a trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure investment bill.

Four, robust economic revival after Covid-19, low level of unemployment, and eventually taming the inflation. The economy created 2.23 million jobs in the final year of Biden’s term.

Five, affordable healthcare—managed to double the number of Americans having access to affordable healthcare. As per the latest information, almost 25 million Americans have signed up during the 2025 open enrollment period, compared with the 12 million who signed up during the last year of the Trump administration.

Six, strengthening alliances in the Asia Pacific as a bulwark against China.

Epilogue

Indubitably, Joe Biden had many successful acts in his fifty-two-year-long political career, including as president. Also, America is normally charitable in assessments of its former presidents. Nonetheless, the main legacy Joe Biden leaves behind is his last act—“as the guy who stayed too long.”

The author is a multi-disciplinary thought leader with Action Bias and an India based impact consultant. He is a keen watcher of changing national and international scenarios. He works as President Advisory Services of Consulting Company BARSYL. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.



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