Keeping Political Perspective
Thank God Trump is gone, but that's no reason to worship Biden yet.
President Biden has been very busy. He had the USA rejoin the Paris Agreement, ended President Trump’s ban on entry to residents from some Muslim-majority nations, mandated mask-wearing on federal property, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline permit, undid the ban on transgender people in the military, and much, much more. He has been president for a week.
He has undone some of the harm that President Trump caused. There is much to celebrate, and I see my circles doing so. What I see missing, however, is the perspective necessary to good politics. President Biden has made many executive actions to undo what Trump did — and the next president will undo many of Biden’s actions. This is part of why it is good that he is pushing out these orders sooner rather than later (we will get at least a good four years under them) but the real tests of Biden’s efficacy come in the forms of military actions and legislative leadership.
Every president of the modern era has had to face international challenges. President Trump had to face down a belligerent North Korea, and he and President Obama both inherited extreme difficulties in the Middle East. President Bush was faced with the necessity of action after 9/11, and President Clinton’s actions helped end the Bosnian War. This is just a tiny sampling of the military events that have taken place over the past three decades. President Biden will be presented with a crisis in international affairs eventually. How well he performs will help define his competence as a leader.
President Biden’s ability to get laws passed will be critical as well. While the president is the head of the executive branch, not the legislative branch, the public has come to expect the president to help lead the legislative process, and presidents have promised to do so. President Biden has already presented a coronavirus relief bill and an immigration reform bill to Congress. That is good, but if they pass, and in what form, will be crucial. Democrats hold only the slimmest majority, tied in the Senate and with a ten person majority in the House. Passing big reforms on contentious but pressing topics like healthcare, gun control, and environmental protections will be very difficult. Given Democrats’ reluctance to abolish the filibuster, and the fact that Congress is likely to flip red in the midterms, it is unclear how much Biden will actually get done legislatively.
An immediate objection might be that the president is key to controlling COVID-19. While the president has a lot of influence in coordinating coronavirus response, I try not to grade him on a curve just because of President Trump’s abysmal failure. President Biden initially set a concerningly low goal of one million vaccinations a day originally, something President Trump’s incompetent leadership had already almost achieved, before raising it on Monday to 1.5 million vaccinations a day. So far, what I have seen is that President Biden is approaching the pandemic with the basic competence I would expect from the president — which is extremely relieving given what we just came from, but not quite something praiseworthy.
Executive actions are great. President Biden's actions have already changed lives for the better, and it seems like he is going to keep it up. On top of that, just having a fairly normal and competent president is already a massive relief. But if he wants to leave a lasting mark, the place he is most likely to find it is in the legislature and abroad. It is too early to be confident how he will do on those fronts.