Historians who rank US presidents tend to be overwhelmingly from a particular profession – college professors. And college professors tend to be from a particular point of view – liberal (progressive.) And therefore, Democratic presidents tend to rank high – FDR, Kennedy, Obama, and Republican presidents lower than warranted -Eisenhower, Reagan, Trump.
And whereas it’s probably a little too early in his presidency to seriously consider where Joe Biden ought to fit in the scheme of presidential rankings, three of his decisions, in my view, have been so bad, that he’ll likely deserve to be at the lower end of the spectrum than at the upper end when it comes to great versus terrible presidents.
First, the border. One would be hard-pressed to find any president at any time in American history who has more bungled an important issue than Joe Biden has our southern border. Stabilizing the US/Mexican border was perhaps the previous administration’s greatest accomplishment. Biden inherited a border which was, for the most part, stable, secure, and quiet.
Biden then came in like a bull in a china shop, stopped construction of the border wall, and reversed the “remain-in-Mexico“ policy, brought back “catch-and-release”, and perhaps worst of all, put the clueless Kamala Harris in charge of the border (among other things.) The border is now a complete mess. Illegal crossings are at all time highs, people with COVID are surging into the United States and spreading the disease far and wide, and deadly fentanyl is streaming into the country and killing huge numbers of Americans. Of course there is a virtual news blackout of this national scandal, so the American public is mostly unaware of the chaos, unless you happen to watch for example Fox News.
Biden bungle number 2 – Afghanistan. Joe Biden is in the process of repeating perhaps the most boneheaded decision of the Obama administration, pulling all US troops out of Afghanistan, just as Barack Obama pulled all US troops out of Iraq. Obama’s fatal decision led directly to the rise of ISIS, and the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people, and Joe Biden‘s identical decision with respect to Afghanistan will lead to the rise of the Taliban, and their partners in crime Al-Qaeda, and the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people (including here in the United States) when the terrorists once again have a safe haven in Afghanistan to hit their enemies across the globe. As the saying goes, “History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
And finally, boneheaded decision number 3 – the pipelines. First, our feckless president decided to shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline, which killed thousands and thousands of good-paying American jobs, was a blow to our energy independence, transfers transport of the oil from a safe pipeline to more risky trucks and trains, and ensures that more of the oil will be refined and used in China, where environmental regulations are lax, than in the United States, where they are strict. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, Biden gave the green light to the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline from Russia into Germany. This increases Europe’s dependence on Russia, undermines our besieged ally Ukraine, and gives one of our major adversaries, Vladimir Putin, a major victory. Way to go, Joe.
I could have added more Biden screw-ups to the list, but respecting your time, I thought I’d limit it to just three. The bottom line is this: yes, it’s still fairly early in the Biden administration, and maybe with some major improvements, Biden might rise from terrible to mediocre, but he’s got a long way to go.