How Biden Blew It By Charles C. W. Cooke
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/how-biden-blew-it/
It is tough to find a modern presidency that has collapsed as swiftly as this one.
I t didn’t have to be this way.
If he had wanted to, President Biden could have fulfilled the promises that he made during his campaign and set himself and his party up for a successful 2022. He could have ignored the hollow passions of Twitter and cable TV, lowered the temperatures that so mar our quotidian politics, and delivered the quiet, limited, competent leadership that he promised during his inconspicuous run for the office. Recognizing that his party enjoyed only the barest of congressional majorities, he could have scaled back his lofty ambitions and ensured that his own focus and the focus of the public at large were as tightly aligned as possible. He could have narrowed his initial COVID bill, eschewing the entreaties to go big and limiting the scope of its relief to the desperate alone. He could have made the bipartisan infrastructure bill a centerpiece, rather than an afterthought, of his first year. He could have grasped that, because federal power is so limited, his role in fighting the pandemic would be exclusively oratorical. He could have understood that people care deeply about illegal immigration and gotten serious about limiting it, even as he struck a kinder tone. Having realized that inflation was clearly not set to be “transitory,” he could have directed the sum of his efforts toward alleviating it. And, while he was doing all that, he could have paid attention to the details that his job throws up in abundance — particularly in the foreign-policy realm — and thereby avoided the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan that drove a stake through his presidency within six months of his taking his oath. A little more humility, a greater willingness to say “no,” and a more acute understanding of why he won in the first instance would all have gone a long way.
Instead? Well, instead he did precisely none of that. Instead, he ignored all evidence to the contrary and concluded that he was a world-historical figure. Instead, he began talking about “transforming” the country. Instead, he proposed the largest spending program in modern American history. Instead, he sent a welcome message to would-be border-hoppers. Instead, he embraced every ridiculous neologism that progressives saw fit to throw at him: “Latinx,” “BIPOC,” “birthing person,” the lot. No sooner had Biden won the election, NPR reports, than a bunch of irresponsible voices had begun “flattering him with comparisons to two legendary Democratic presidents of the 20th century — Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.” And Biden, fool that he is, believed them. In March, Axios confirmed to general derision that Biden was exhibiting a sincere “determination to be one of the most consequential presidents” in American history, and — euphemism alert! — to explore the “elasticity of presidential power.” The correct response to being told that he might be the next FDR would have been to laugh the speaker out of the Oval Office. Instead, flattered, Biden said, “Tell me more.”
It is tough to find a modern presidency that has collapsed as swiftly as Joe Biden’s. After eleven months in office, the man is not only unpopular; he is a joke. Nobody admires him, except as an alternative to Donald Trump. Nobody fears him, except as a drag on their own political fortunes. Nobody wants him to run for office again, except, perhaps, if the alternative is a Democratic Party led by Kamala Harris. He vowed to be a “uniter,” but he has succeeded only in uniting the electorate against him. He professed to be a moderate but has lost the support of independents by two or three to one. He promised a return to normalcy, but he has somehow made things only stranger. He has continued the executive branch’s bipartisan assault on the Constitution, declined the chance to restore the presidency to a more modest place in our politics, and retained the destructive overpromising tendencies that have haunted so many of his predecessors. He is old, confused, inadequate, and, above all, demonstrably out of place. It did not take long after the inauguration for distracted Americans to ask, “Wait, that guy?”
This decline was not inevitable. Had he made better choices, Joe Biden might have spun his improbable rise to the White House into a basket full of gold. Instead, he has repeatedly smashed the loom. Biden is president because the Democrats didn’t want Bernie and the country didn’t want Trump. His presidency has failed because, drunk on his improbable ascent, he forgot that. Next year, he will have a short window within which to correct course.
If he misses it? Deluge.
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