As President Joe Biden (D) wraps up his term today, his four years in office had successes and blunders. I was proud to have voted for this man in the 2020 general and the 2024 primaries. Regardless of where he ends up on the Presidential rankings, he was still a better President than his predecessor or successor.
His successes were the fact he led the US out of the COVID pandemic, defended Ukraine from Russian aggression, secured infrastructure investments, got COVID-19 vaccines out to the American people, signed the Inflation Reduction Act, signed the CHIPS Act, signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed the American Rescue Plan, delivered a 3rd round of stimulus checks, put Ketanji Brown Jackson on SCOTUS, appointed a record number of judges, signing the PACT Act, expanded food assistance benefits, expanded the child tax credit that lasted for 6 months (and should have lasted longer if it weren’t for the Sinema-Manchin duo), joined striking UAW workers on the picket line by becoming the first sitting President to do so, signed the Respect For Marriage Act into law to protect against a potential Obergefell overturn, made Juneteenth a federal holiday, signed the Emmitt Till Anti-Lynching Act that makes lynching a federal hate crime, got the US out of Afghanistan (though the handling of it can be debated), got Sweden and Finland to join NATO, blocked Nippon Steel from buying US Steel, managed to get a ceasefire deal done (though it came too late), brought home Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan, and Evan Gershkovich from Russian prison in prisoner swaps, tried to solve the student loan debt crisis (although the right-wing activist judges keep denying him that), and signing a bill that makes the bald eagle America’s official bird.
His failures were his constant enabling of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, signing a bill banning TikTok in which SCOTUS upheld in TikTok v. Garland, signing the 2025 NDAA that banned trans children of military soldiers on Tricare from getting gender-affirming care, failure to get voting rights and Roe codified into law (though Sinema and Manchin are to blame here), and perceptions of chaos at the US/Mexico Border which he tried to solve with a bipartisan border security bill that Trump complained and forced the GOP to scuttle it.
During his tenure in office, like Barack Obama-- who he served under during his time as VP-- Biden was subjected to partisan faux investigations by House Republicans.
On June 27th, 2024, the debate between him and former insurrection-inciting felon “President” Donald Trump (R) revealed what a lot of Americans knew about Biden: his decline in cognitive ability and why running for a 2nd term was a colossal mistake. That awful debate performance led to him ending his re-election bid on July 21st after weeks of hemming and hawing. As a result of Biden calling it quits in the race, Vice President Kamala Harris (D) moved up to the lead spot on the ticket. Harris later picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to her running mate.
On November 5th/6th, 2024, the Harris/Walz ticket lost to the Trump/Vance ticket in the election, and the Democratic ticket not only lost the Electoral College vote but also the popular vote for the first time since 2004. The result left the question of whether aspects of Biden’s legacy will hold up better or worse in the long run.
There were lots of reasons why the Harris/Walz ticket list, and the key reasons for that are as follows (and some of these were out of the control of the candidate):
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Right-wing disinformation and misinformation being amplified on social media, such as the infamous Springfield pet-eating hoax and paranoia-induced QAnon/Pizzagate-tinged conspiracy theories about Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Lahaina wildfires, East Palestine train derailment, LGBTQ+/transgender issues (such as pushing the false “social contagion” myth, baselessly comparing gender-affirming care to “mutilation”, and comparing LGBTQ+ community members to “pedophiles” and “groomers”), COVID-19 (especially the promotion of discredited treatments such as ivermectin), and vaccines.
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Normalization of anti-vaccine and anti-expertise sentiments.
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Biden’s continued enabling of Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
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Biden signing a bill banning TikTok, which ended up being costly to Democratic chances among young Americans.
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Worldwide anti-incumbent backlash.
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President Biden’s low job approval ratings, especially in the 2nd half of his term.
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Inflation rate during most of Biden’s Presidency.
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House mortgages and grocery prices rising in recent years.
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The fact that a sizable amount of Americans were afraid of a woman leading the country, and a Black/South Asian biracial one at that.
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Right-leaning and right-adjacent podcasts such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Nelk Boys, Shawn Ryan, and Charlie Kirk-- especially those geared to young males-- helped normalized Trump and his misogynistic ways to that crowd.
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Right-leaning posts/videos getting more traction than left-leaning or neutral posts/videos on social media outlets, especially on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. This is despite the overheated claims of “censorship” of conservative content on social media.
In shortened form: conspiracy theories, Gaza genocide, disinformation and misinformation, TikTok ban bill, anti-incumbent sentiment, right-wing content dominating social media, President Biden’s low job approval ratings, and inflation were the key drivers for the 2024 losses for the Democrats.
As for Harris, I really don’t blame her for the loss very much considering the circumstances that she was thrown in, as I believe that President Biden, cost of living increases, and worldwide anti-incumbent sentiments were the main reasons for her loss. Harris replacing Biden as the Dem nominee helped save the Democratic Party in the medium-to-long term, as she fought Trump to an almost draw in the Electoral College and Popular Vote, got the House to a manageable distance for the Democrats to retake in the 2026 midterms, and got the Senate to a doable chance to flip within the next two election cycles.
Imagine if Biden was our nominee in 2024 instead? The Democrats would have fared far worse at the polls, causing them to lose even more states such as New Jersey, Maine’s two statewide ECVs, Nebraska-02, Virginia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New Mexico, and potentially put safe states like Illinois, Oregon, Colorado, Rhode Island, and New York in peril. They would have lost 15-30 more House seats and 5-7 more Senate seats, which would have quashed any chance of getting a majority for at least the rest of the decade.
S.V. Dáte at HuffPost:
WASHINGTON — In the end, facing a choice between a convicted criminal and someone who looked, walked and talked like an old man, Americans preferred the criminal.
In his single term in the White House, Joe Biden led the country out of a deadly pandemic, pushed through a $1 trillion boost to road and bridge construction, secured massive new investments into American semiconductor manufacturing and clean energy infrastructure and pulled together an international coalition to support Ukraine after its invasion by Russia.
None of it mattered.
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Four months later, at a debate against Donald Trump, a weak and halting performance sealed that impression and finally led other Democratic leaders to pressure him to drop out as the nominee. He exited the race the following month and immediately endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who would go on to lose narrowly to Trump in November.
And so, Biden leaves office Monday with an approval rating in the mid-30s. His legacy, at least in the short term, will be turning over the White House to a convicted felon who only four years earlier had tried to end American democracy by remaining in power despite losing reelection — an act authoritarianism experts say meets the definition of a self-coup.
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United States of Amnesia
That Biden’s term will end this way may be a function of how he got the job in the first place. When primary voters consolidated behind him in late winter of 2020, it wasn’t necessarily because they loved him as a candidate or were enamored of his proposals. Rather, he was seen as Democrats’ best chance of defeating Trump, who after three chaotic years in office began his fourth by mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic — repeatedly downplaying its severity, for example, and promoting unproven drugs as cures.
It was Biden’s third run for the White House. He has never been viewed as a strong campaigner or a gifted orator. An appearance at a Las Vegas strip mall before the Nevada caucuses in February seemed to draw as many curious passersby as committed supporters. He wound up finishing a distant second in that contest.
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While Trump is only four years younger than Biden, voters haven’t held Trump’s age against him to the same extent. Others have seemed not to remember Trump policies that were unpopular at the time, like how tariffs he imposed in his first term had devastated farmers and brought on a mini-recession in manufacturing.
Even more important, most Republicans and many independent “low-information” voters bought into Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election really had been stolen from him, that he had had nothing to do with the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and that in any event, whatever violence had taken place was justified.
That storyline, soon adopted almost universally by elected Republican officials and pro-Trump media, upended the assumption early on by leaders in both parties that Trump’s actions leading up to and on that day had ended his political career.
And when pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and $5 trillion in stimulus spending, meant to avoid a deep recession, caused inflation to soar in 2022 and 2023, the blame fell entirely on Biden.
He argued accurately that the majority of that spending had occurred under Trump and that America’s recovery from the pandemic had been far more robust than that of other major economies. Voters were not interested in hearing it.
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But Reagan never had to face an opponent or the voters again. Biden did, and stubbornly insisted on pushing ahead, at times arguing that he was best positioned to defeat Trump a second time.
That assertion cannot be tested, although polling last summer indicated he would have suffered a far bigger loss than the 1.6 percentage point defeat taken by Harris. It also cannot be known how a full-on Democratic primary season might have unfolded had Biden announced in 2022 that he would not run again. Incumbency is an enormous advantage in presidential elections — most incumbents in modern history have gone on to win a second term — and an open primary might have produced a nominee so scarred in that process as to guarantee a loss in November.
Tim Dickinson, Tessa Stuart, and Andrew Perez at Rolling Stone:
Biden's remarkable service to the country includes defeating Donald Trump in 2020 - which in that moment had the air of saving American democracy. A seasoned dealmaker from his career in the Senate, Biden then began racking up a prodigious legislative record - including historic investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, and climate resilience - that places him among the most accomplished Democrats since FDR. Though it did him little good politically, Biden compiled a legislative and policy record that would be the envy of many two-term presidents.
Unfortunately, Biden's best legislative achievements may be forgotten, as some were only temporary - and others could soon be undone by Republicans. Biden's mistakes and shortcomings will likely be felt far longer, as he now cedes control of America to Trump, a Congress fully controlled by conservatives, and a far-right Supreme Court supermajority dedicated to rolling back the past century of American progress - and which has already bestowed on Trump unprecedented powers. The violence and destruction that the Biden administration supported overseas will, of course, be permanent.
The fact is this: Biden’s four years in office were largely a success, at least domestically. His first half of the term was when he was at his most successful. During the 2nd half of this term, and especially after 10.07.2023 and the debate performance, his momentum really fell off the cliff. Even then, Biden had some gems, such as his 2024 State of the Union address.
The Biden family will be missed for their service to our nation. We’ll miss Major and Commander keeping Secret Service agents in line with their nibbles and bites. We’ll miss his wife Jill being a great FLOTUS. And lastly, we’ll miss Joe for his decades of service in electoral politics and Amtrak rides.
We begin four years of the Fascist Felon’s term in office later today. May God help us deal with this traitor to America and our constitution who seeks to ruin what is left of America and its precious freedoms.
We gotta hope we come out of his 2nd four years with anything resembling a democracy left so it can be rebuilt and truly strengthened the next time a Democrat gets elected, which will hopefully happen in 2028, as long as we have free and fair elections. In 2026, we gotta flip the House and/or the Senate federally and win a bunch of offices downballot.
May God bless our troops who fought for our freedoms!
