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I think they will have to say that he failed in the only way that really matters -- he failed to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump. If he had stepped aside and his successor had won, then Biden would go down in history as the man who saved US democracy twice -- once by defeating Donald Trump, and once by stepping down.
Maybe US democracy will survive. Maybe it won't. But if it does survive, somebody else will get the credit for saving it. And if it does not, Biden will be on the list of people who are to blame.
I do think history will give him credit for suppressing paramilitary activity. What a shame it is making a comeback now.
And it will look back at his actions to see which ones were responsible for Trump coming to power and what he might have done differently. I think we are as well qualified to weigh in on that as future historians. So what do I say? People have posed many suggestions as to which of Biden's actions made him so unpopular as to bring Trump back to power. What do I say?
Too much stimulus ignited inflation: The assumption is that if we had not passed a stimulus, all would have been well. I disagree. The US passed a larger stimulus than any other country. Our economy rebounded faster and more strongly than any other country. Incumbents lost everywhere, but the swing against incumbents was less marked than anywhere else. I believe that these three things are all related.
On the other hand, the US was not any sort of outlier on severity of inflation. It began in the US a little ahead of the rest of the world and subsided in the US a little ahead of the rest of the world. But in terms of severity, the US was completely average and unremarkable.
It may be that a smaller stimulus would have meant lower inflation, at the cost of a weaker recovery. I am not convinced that would have done the incumbent any favors. Maybe there was a perfect happy medium that would have led to a strong recovery without strong inflation, but the chances of hitting it were minimal. Too much guesswork, too little certainty.
A crime wave: Crime went up in the wake of the pandemic and riots and then subsided. It would have done the same regardless of who was in the White House.
The disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal: This appears to be when Biden's popularity began to tank and never recovered. I basically agree with people who say that Biden was dealt a bad hand and played it badly. His predecessor negotiated the terms of withdrawal that led to the collapse of the Afghan government before the Taliban. Biden should have anticipated such a thing and prepared for it, working on issuing visas and getting our supporters out well ahead of time. Arguably, it might have worked better to withdraw during the winter, when a Taliban offensive would have been more difficult. The number of people we successfully evacuated was impressive, but not good enough.
Immigration: I believe this was Biden's biggest unforced error. The "Remain in Mexico" program was working, though as great cost to the individuals involved. Biden should have kept the program and worked to make it more humane, i.e., offering more protection to asylum seekers waiting in Mexico. Giving the opportunity to apply from afar was actually a good idea. It might even have been popular if the border had not been so badly inundated, but inundated it was, and it sank the Biden presidency.
Not tooting his own horn: There is a good argument that Biden would have been more popular if he had put his name on the stimulus checks that went out and showed up to take credit for all the infrastructure projects that he backed, as well as naming names for which Republicans voted against them.
Not being aggressive enough in prosecuting Trump: Maybe things would have gone differently if the Trump prosecution had begun right away. Maybe it would have killed his political career for good. But I really do believe that the failure there lay earlier -- with Mitch McConnell not voting and whipping to convict on the second impeachment. That would have killed Trump's career for good.
Overreach on "identity politics," including transgenderism: I don't know how important this was, or big the effect was in the real world, but I do think there was some overreach in both these matters. (I plan to post on them at a later date). I also fully expect Trump to overreach in the opposite direction.
Foreign policy: I think Biden handled the Ukraine and Gaza wars as well as could be reasonably expected. As for assumptions that an alternative would have worked better (not enough aid to Ukraine! Russia would never have gone nuclear! No restraints on Israel! Or maybe more!), hindsight is not, in fact, 20/20. We know what did happen and all the problems with the outcome. We do not know what would have happened if some other option was tried. In any event, most Americans do not vote based on foreign policy.
Running for a second term in the first place: There were clear problems with Biden withdrawing as late as he did. Would the result have been different if he had declined to run for a second term? This is another case of hindsight not being 20/20. No doubt a bruising primary would have ensued, which might have done real damage to the Democrats. I also do not really see who would have been a more effective candidate. Definitely not Gavin Newsome, who would have had "California" tattooed all over him, much to his detriment. Maybe a red or purple state governor -- Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Andy Bashear of Kentucky, or John Bel Edwards of Louisiana. But anyone who thinks the problem was particular to Biden -- or Harris for that matter -- underestimates the power of the Great Right Wing Noise Machine. Any candidate would have been a target of massive vilification that would be extremely difficult to overcome.
In short, if any Democrat had beaten Trump, Biden would have gone down in history as the man who saved democracy twice. If a normal Republican like Nikki Haley or even Ron DeSantis had been elected in 2024, Biden might have gone down in history as a leader who did reasonably well under difficult circumstances.
But as it is, he will go down as the man who failed to stop Trump.
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