January 21, 2025
Dhaka – Today, Donald J Trump enters the White House. If his recent antics are any guide, there's probably not going to be a dull moment. Trump's proposal to make Canada the 51st U.S. state and seize the Panama Canal and Greenland has become the focus of a media storm.
Before Trump’s media frenzy completely drains the air, let’s take stock of his predecessor’s reputation.
I still remember the joy that supporters felt four years ago when they welcomed the election of President Biden. It's not just his supporters who welcome a return to normalcy, civility and, frankly, a degree of sanity in the White House.
Many people breathed a sigh of relief. No more wildly provocative tweets at 3 a.m. to piss off Trump’s enemies. Say goodbye to questionable Cabinet appointees, a surprising number of whom had to resign under a cloud. No longer will disgruntled former colleagues spread shameless gossip and turn the White House into tabloid territory.
At last, we have a proper president to do justice to the gravitas of arguably the most powerful office in the world.
What a difference a four-year term makes. Americans didn’t really shed any tears when Biden left office.
According to a CNN poll, he left office with an approval rating of 36%. That's a huge drop from the 60 percent approval rating he had when he took office.
CNN reported that “Americans generally view Biden’s four years in office as a failure, not a success.”
Yet his supporters claim—with some justification—that Biden's achievements are considerable. He has led the country through the coronavirus crisis and left the economy in a relatively strong position that is the envy of the rest of the world.
“In his first two years in office, Biden has passed a major bill to rescue the economy from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, a bipartisan law aimed at rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure, the first gun legislation in decades. SECURE Act, the largest climate investment in history, a law designed to reduce risk.
So why are Americans so unhappy with Biden?
There are many reasons, including Biden’s serious flaws.
Biden’s predicament must be considered against the backdrop of the brutal political landscape of the Western world. Massive post-pandemic discontent has exposed incumbents to populist rage. Britain's Conservatives were unceremoniously ousted; Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned; Germany's Olaf Scholz may be about to step down, while France's Emmanuel Macron ) is crumbling.
In the United States, inflation has caused sharp increases in grocery and gas prices, hitting voters' wallets.
There’s also the disturbing fact that America’s media, like its people, is increasingly polarized. For avid watchers of right-wing Fox News, their view of any Democratic leader is likely to be biased. But Biden’s own shortcomings were indeed a key driver of his downfall.
The American presidential pulpit is a very powerful tool. But Biden has done little to use it to make his point. In fact, he has participated in fewer press conferences and media interviews than any of the previous seven presidents, going all the way back to Reagan. Trump has twice as many interactions with the media as his predecessors.
The terrible and undeniable fact is that he was often too senile towards the end of his presidency, while an overly deferential media was complicit in perpetuating the ludicrous lie that Biden was fully functional. Long before his disastrous debate performance against Trump, alarming signs of his aging had appeared on television, including a penchant for going off on tangents or offering phantom handshakes, among other embarrassing quirks.
Biden did himself and his party a huge favor by declaring himself president from the start. Instead, in an act of profoundly selfish arrogance, Biden chose to stay until his party elite forced him out. His recent claim that he could have won the election is unbelievable.
When Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, his own legacy was tarnished — irrevocably, in my opinion. Even more shocking is the full compensation for Hunter — a horrific moral depravity for a man who once stood for the rule of law against a far more willful Trump.
History provides some clear clues about Biden’s moral weaknesses. Biden's 1988 presidential bid failed after he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labor leader Neil Kinnock and exaggerating his academic achievements.
Outside the United States, Biden’s reputation will be forever tainted by his complicity in Israel’s unjustified genocide against the Palestinians. He may be credited with the recent ceasefire breakthrough between Hamas and Israel. But the fact remains that the ceasefire agreement was ready in May; why was it signed now? There are reports that Trump is waiting for an opportunity to tell Israel who is boss. News reports say Trump envoy Steven Witkoff met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sprained his arm. Although Biden was breathless, he was too timid to take on Netanyahu, and much of his anger was reportedly performative.
A deeper look at Biden's long record reveals a bellicose streak. As a U.S. senator from Delaware, he had been enthusiastic about a massive U.S. attack on Iraq for years. Biden viciously attacked U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter when his principled stance undercut his false argument about destroying Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
For most of the world, beyond the delusional bubble of the “rules-based order” of the United States and most of its European allies, America's blind support for Ukraine and its attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin, When one considers America's indifference to the world, it is filled with sanctimonious hypocrisy.
Even in his farewell address, Biden's warnings about the rise of America's oligarchs, while true, had little moral weight.
Bloomberg reported that “despite President Biden’s warning in his farewell address that ‘oligarchy’ and the ‘tech industrial complex’ threaten American democracy, the richest Americans remain among the biggest winners during President Biden’s administration.”
“The 100 richest people in America have seen their wealth increase by more than $1.5 trillion over the past four years, with tech tycoons including Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg leading the way… The rich 0.1% gained over $6 trillion.
new york times A devastating assessment of Biden’s legacy. “President Biden ran for the White House promising to be a transitional figure, but once he arrived he began to think of himself as a transformational figure. But after a tumultuous four years in office, it turns out that he is actually neither ,” Peter Baker in ” new york times.
“Instead, Mr. Biden will ultimately go down in history as the transition period between Donald Trump's two terms in office, a hiatus in the middle of a chaotic period of change that, for better or worse, he had hoped would Becoming an asterisk in America's story, soon to be forgotten, he will now be the one trying to defend it for generations to come.
