One year Joe Biden
Dashed hopes and a lurking Trump
01/19/2022, 11:45 am
For many Americans, Joe Biden’s entry into the White House a year ago marked the end of a nightmare. However, not much remains of the enthusiasm. With every failure of Biden, a renewed candidacy by Donald Trump becomes more likely.
After the election in the United States, there was almost boundless enthusiasm among Donald Trump’s opponents: “Our long national nightmare is over,” said a comment in the Washington Post about Joe Biden’s victory at the time. A year ago, on January 20, 2021, the Democrat replaced Republican Trump in the White House. The spirit of optimism has now given way to disillusionment. In polls, just over 42 percent of Americans think Biden is doing a good job. Of all the US presidents since the Second World War, only Trump got a worse result after almost a year in the White House – and the difference is shrinking.
Biden started with a message of reconciliation. “Not every difference of opinion has to be a reason for total war,” said the Democrat in his speech at his swearing-in ceremony. “Let’s start over.” While the new beginning fizzled out, the fronts between the camps have hardened. In a poll by Quinnipiac University ahead of the anniversary, 49 percent of Americans said Biden was more likely to help divide the country, while only 42 percent said the opposite. More than half (53 percent) expect the political division to deepen.
The brilliant start
Biden’s poor poll numbers are related to the ongoing corona pandemic, but are also a result of his mixed record. After taking office, he got off to a brilliant start and was able to quickly fulfill some of his promises. On the first day in the White House, he initiated the USA’s return to the Paris climate protection agreement and stopped the country’s exit from the World Health Organization.
In foreign policy, Biden also departed from his predecessor’s “America First” strategy. His first trip abroad took him to Europe, where he assured the countries of the G7 group, NATO and the EU that the USA would again be a partner at the table.
Domestically, one of Biden’s achievements is that he got two billion-dollar bills of law through Congress: one to boost the economy battered by the pandemic, another to invest in the country’s ailing infrastructure. His government also sees it as a success that unemployment, at just 3.9 percent, has almost reached the level before the Corona crisis.
How Biden fails with core projects
However, the achievements are overshadowed by failures and problems. “Biden’s epic failures” – the news site Axios chose this headline for a balance sheet on the anniversary. Biden initially failed in Congress with two key domestic policy projects – an electoral law reform and a billion-euro package of laws for climate protection and social affairs. This is particularly bitter for him because his Democrats have majorities in both chambers – the House of Representatives and the Senate – albeit narrow ones. Not only are the Republicans using every opportunity to torpedo Biden’s plans. Central projects fail due to resistance from Biden’s own party.
During the election campaign, Biden advertised his negotiating skills and his long congressional experience – from 1973 to 2009 he was a senator himself. The prospects are bleak for the 79-year-old: In the congressional elections next November, there is a high probability that the Democrats will lose their majority in the House of Representatives and possibly also in the Senate. Then the Republicans could significantly expand their blockade policy, Biden’s legislative projects would have little chance of success.
The difficulties are not confined to Congress. He is not largely responsible for some negative developments, for example consumer prices. The inflation rate has risen to its highest level in 40 years. Other problems, on the other hand, are clearly his fault, such as the catastrophe in Afghanistan: the unconditional withdrawal of US troops he ordered brought the Taliban back to power, and the Biden government seemed completely overwhelmed. Vice President Kamala Harris, who hardly makes an appearance, is also unlucky.
Trump never went away
Many voters associated two main hopes with Biden: that they would finally be rid of Trump and that the corona virus would be brought under control. Biden set a high pace with the vaccination campaign, but since then the fight against the pandemic has been very bumpy. A few days ago, he failed with plans for compulsory vaccination or testing in larger companies because of the conservative majority in the Supreme Court, which Trump once cemented.
Trump, on the other hand, not only remembers himself in such echoes of his tenure – he never disappeared from the political stage. Biden has long sought to ignore his blustering predecessor. The president changed course on January 6, the anniversary of Trump supporters storming the Capitol. Biden blamed his predecessor directly for attacking Congress, which was then set to confirm his election victory. “For the first time in our history, a president not only lost an election but tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Biden said. He also took the opportunity to rub some salt into Trump’s wound, who never accepted his defeat: “He’s not just a former president. He’s a defeated former president.”
“Completely and Totally Failed”
It was once customary for incumbent or former presidents not to criticize their predecessors or successors. Trump threw this practice overboard. The Republican has never been sparing with attacks on Biden, whom he still accuses of having come to power through electoral fraud – although he failed with lawsuits in dozens of courts.
Biden “is destroying our nation,” Trump recently ranted. “All the political theater is just to distract from the fact that Biden has completely and utterly failed.” A survey by the University of Massachusetts in Amherst at the end of last year shows how much Trump has undermined trust in democracy, especially among Republicans, with his unsubstantiated allegations about electoral fraud: 71 percent of supporters of Trump’s party said that Biden’s victory was likely or definite not been legal.
Also alarming is the result of a survey by the broadcaster CBS, according to which 62 percent of Americans expect violence on the part of the losing side in future presidential elections. Around two out of three respondents see democracy in the US at risk.
Regarding Trump’s possible re-election, New York Magazine recently wrote: “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the fate of American democracy could depend on the success of President Joe Biden.” Trump has so far left open whether he would like to run again in the 2024 presidential election. According to the Quinnipiac University poll, 69 percent of Republican supporters would support such a move. Despite all of Biden’s difficulties, according to this survey, the election would not be a sure-fire success for the now 75-year-old Trump: 59 percent of Americans rejected the Republican’s re-election.