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In making her case that Biden was our most lawless President ever, the author compares is actions with instances of lawlessness by earlier Presidents to show how much worse Biden was. Judge for yourself.
Andrew Jackson: Defied a Supreme Court ruling seeking to protect the Cherokee Nation and paved the way for the Trail of Tears.
Joe Biden: When the Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness, he looked for ways to modify it or expand existing programs to achieve his goal.
Abraham Lincoln: Unilaterally suspended habeas corpus, ordered arrest of opponents in Congress and the media.
Joe Biden: Encouraged his Attorney General to indict Trump and taunted Trump when he was indicted.
Woodrow Wilson: Palmer Raids, with some 6,000 opponents of US participation in WWI arrested.
Joe Biden: Harshly pressured social media to take down misleading posts about COVID.
Franklin Roosevelt: Made a serious threat to pack the Supreme Court.
Joe Biden: Appointed a commission to study proposals to pack the Supreme Court.
Barrack Obama: Refrained from enforcing marijuana and immigration laws.
Joe Biden: Refrained from enforcing a TikTok ban that went into effect one day before he left office, when his successor made clear he wanted to have the chance make the decision.
George W. Bush: Signed a campaign finance law he admitted might be unconstitutional.
Joe Biden: Undertook action to forgive student loans, institute and eviction moratorium, and climate change action despite doubting his actions were constitutional, criticized the Supreme Court "in the most strident and partisan terms" when they struck down his actions.
Donald Trump: Tried to overturn the election when he lost.
Joe Biden: "To his credit" did not try to overturn the election he lost, but did conceal his mental decline. And then there is the matter of his pardon of Hunter Biden and his attempt to declare the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution ratified.
The author ends up by acknowledging that there might be reason to fear seriously unconstitutional actions by Trump, but these were purely hypothetical, while Biden's actions were real.
Where do I begin? From the start, I guess.
Does anyone seriously believe that student loan forgiveness is worse than the Trail of Tears? I suppose the author might say that the Trail of Tears is substantively worse, but the actions are procedurally equivalent because they both involved defying the Supreme Court. But responding to a Supreme Court defeat by attempting to tweak one's actions to pass constitutional muster is not the same as open defiance. It is fairly normal behavior.
Both Biden and Lincoln were acting under extraordinary circumstances. Nonetheless, encouraging the prosecution of one's political opponents to an Attorney General who (it should be noted) did not always agree, is not the same as arresting them. And, contrary to what many Republicans are now claiming, being a political opponent is not an automatic get out of jail free card.
Even the author appears to acknowledge that putting pressure on social media is not quite the same as mass arrests, but apparently doesn't see them as all that different. Do I have to point out that Trump threatened to throw Mark Zuckerberg in jail for life for kicking Trump of off Facebook?
Nor is studying the possibility of court packing but not making a serious attempt quite the same as make a serious, though failed attempt. And before 1869 Congress routinely changed the number of justices for to achieve political goals.
Again, the history of Presidents leaving laws unenforced did not begin with Obama by any means. And Biden's refusal to enforce the TikTok ban amounted to a one day delay that his successor clearly intended to extend.
As for the idea that GW Bush's worst offense against the constitution was signing a campaign finance law -- the mind boggles. GW Bush distorted evidence to get us into a war, ran a chain of secret torture chambers designed to be outside the law, and openly defied laws requiring a warrant to tap phone calls. Presidents -- or Congress -- testing the limits of their power by taking actions that the Supreme Court might strike down is not extraordinary lawlessness. It is fairly normal behavior -- so long as they obey the Supreme Court once it makes a decision. (Bush also quite routinely tried to tweak his behavior to pass constitutional muster when the Supreme Court struck it down).
And if the author seriously wants to argue that Biden's efforts to conceal his cognitive decline were worse than at attempt to overturn an election, why does she consider it "to his credit" that he did not commit the lesser offense? For that matter, why is it "to his credit" that Biden did what every candidate for President has done with one exception -- accepted the outcome of the election.
As for Biden's pardon of his son (and others), does anyone seriously believe that Trump would not have pardoned the January 6 offender if Biden had not pardoned his son? He openly ran on the promise to do just that, after all.
I agree there is no excuse for unilaterally attempting to declare the Equal Rights Amendment ratified.
I suppose the author might acknowledge that Biden's actions, taken individually might not be as bad as her points of comparison, and it is the combination that makes them worse. But the argument is unconvincing. I heard similar argument about the Obama Administration -- that the sheer volume of its misconduct was unparalelled. The flaw in either case is obvious.
Examine any administration under a microscope and you will find plenty of things to criticize. The author is taking particularly notorious actions by previous administrations and comparing them to the day-to-day actions of the current one. Examine the day-to-day actions of any administration and you will find grounds for criticism, as hyperbolic as you may wish.
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