Rating the presidency of Joe Biden

 Rating Joe Biden's presidency (#18):

Until the final year of Joe Biden's time in office, I was prepared to rank him in the Top 10 of all our presidents. Why?

Biden accomplished some incredible things. he inherited a pandemic, COVID, that was almost entirely bungled by his predecessor, Donald Trump (though Trump deserves minor credit for Operation Warp Speed). The economy was a disaster, also due to COVID and Trump's incompetence and corruption. The reputation of the United States worldwide was at its lowest point in its history. Climate change was at a tipping point. Infrastucture had been neglected.

These are the major issues historians would likely spend the most time on excluding foreign policy issues.

On COVID and the economy, the Biden Administration did a marvelous job. It saw us through a once in a century pandemic. Relying on science, putting the good of the public first and sustaining individuals and small businesses who could not work or operate were key. This connected to the economy, too. While a very small portion of the inflation that developed was due to government spending, that piece of inflation was worth it to insure people could eat, keep their homes and have the electricity stay on, while also allowing small businesses to steer clear of financial ruin. Most of the inflation was a direct result of the COVID pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By the end of Biden's term, inflation was almost back to normal level, and, while people were unhappy about prices, the truth was prices never go down in most cases and the economy was on its way to full recovery.

The United States was also making good progress on infrastructure, bringing home overseas jobs and climate change, though not nearly enough on the latter issue.

Foreign policy began looking better than it ended up being for Biden. While he was blamed for the deaths of thirteen members of our armed forces during the evacuation of Afghanistan, the withdrawal was simply following the deal Donald Trump had negotiated. Not leaving Afghanistan would have resulted in far more deaths when the Taliban restarted significant attacks, which would have definitely happened.

Biden was rock solid, though, in his support of Ukraine. His leadership united NATO and kept Ukraine afloat. If he failed on Ukraine, one could argue he moved too slowly in supplying more powerful weaponry. But this is a hard take, given the opposition of countries like Germany and others. Also, Republicans in Congress continually blocked Biden's funding needs.

The area Biden failed the most in foreign affairs would be on Gaza, but not for the reasons pro-Palestinian activists might think.

Supporting Israel was the correct move by the Biden Administration. Hamas started the violence. And that actually began in 2007 when they came to power. The war could have ended at any time if the perpertators of years of violence against, not only Israel, but the people of Gaza, stopped with Hamas  relinquishing power and leaving the region.

Most of the opposition to Israel in the United States had an air of anti-Semitism to it. However, Biden failed on Israel and Gaza by not being much tougher on Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister. Netanyahu, and his extremist and corrupt government, were given far too much free reign. Biden could have helped limit the violence in Gaza by pressuring Netanyahu more in a number of ways - funding, the United Nations and public speaking.

However, the area that caused me to drop Biden ranking the most was the 2024 presidential election. He had said in 2020 he was a bridge candidate. He never should have run for re-election in 2024. While he was never as mentally diminished as Donald Trump, his mental faculties clearly had fallen off. There was no way he could be president for a second term. Running, until he dropped out, not only hampered his losing campaign, but did not give breathing room for Kamala Harris to develop a better campaign of her own, or for Democrats to hold a genuine primary season to pick either Harris or someone else. Biden's initial decision to run for re-election, besides being dishonest as to his mental state, tied inflation and that mental state to Kamala Harris. Trump might have won anyway, but none of this helped. And now, the United States is on the verge of losing its democracy to an authoritarian, corrupt, idiot in Donald Trump