Exactly a year after President Joe Biden took office, his administration desperately needs a reset. It will help if he begins governing as he promised during his campaign.
The first year of this presidency has been the worst in my lifetime. On the pandemic, Biden has fumbled treatments, testing, and messaging while attempting mandates that were illegal and in many ways counterproductive. On the economy, his spending and regulatory policies, combined with the signals he sent to the Federal Reserve Board, have re-catalyzed inflation after a 40-year lull. On immigration, his policies have resulted in a humanitarian crisis and a surge of crime and of dangerous narcotics entering the country.
On crime in general, Biden’s policies and messaging, along with those of Vice President Kamala Harris, have contributed to a nationwide spike in violence. On education, Biden’s team and its allies have shown hostility to parental control and choice. On religious freedom, on abortion, and on racial and sexual identity politics, the Biden administration has been the furthest to the left in history.
And in foreign affairs, Biden has been utterly disastrous. The bug-out from Afghanistan was the most ignominious retreat in U.S. history, leaving hundreds of people and billions of dollars in military hardware behind, giving carte blanche to the Taliban, and abandoning an air base that should have remained of great utility not just for intelligence and operations against jihadis, but as a check on Chinese and Russian ambitions, too. Biden also did nothing noteworthy to support Cubans rallying for their freedom or to bolster Hong Kong’s independence. And as Russia prepares to invade Ukraine, Biden reacts like a frightened supplicant rather than taking bold action, such as rushing more arms to Ukraine or imposing serious, preemptive sanctions.
Meanwhile, with rhetoric so outlandish that even the nakedly partisan Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois thought it went “too far,” Biden deliberately divides rather than unifies the country. Indeed, on both policy and language, there’s not a single, readily identifiable subject on which Biden has tried to find common ground rather than scorch the Earth from a leftward direction.
This all contradicts his repeated, prominent message during his campaigns both for the Democratic presidential nomination and for the general election. Throughout 2019-20, Biden’s emphasized his supposed moderation, willingness to find common ground, and yen for respectful discussion. Instead, he has offered nothing but hard-left policies and verbal attacks on adversaries.
To save his presidency and better serve the country, Biden must do after just one year what former President Bill Clinton did after two: tack to the center. Recognize that his party holds only the barest of congressional majorities. Press procedural reforms that really can be bipartisan rather than ones seeking obvious partisan advantages for Democrats. Break mammoth bills into bite-sized chunks and do the hard work of building bipartisan supermajorities for them.
And find a proverbial “Sister Souljah moment,” based on the time Clinton in forceful language stood against some of the nuttiness of his party’s left wing. If Biden found the courage, or just the raw political calculation, to swat down some nonsense from radical Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York or Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, or maybe tell the national education unions to get lost or stop insisting that “transgender” biological boys should undress in girls’ locker rooms, it would help him reengage with Middle Americans turned off by his tone and focus.
There was a time when, despite his other flaws, Biden at least knew how to make political shifts to follow public opinion. Even if only to provide for the defect of better motives, Biden should still be pure politician enough to see that his political viability lies near the center, not the angry Left, of today’s political world.
