Trump’s win made Biden’s historical legacy one of failure

As the clock winds down on Joe Biden’s presidency, it is a fitting time to reflect on his tenure. History reminds us that presidents — from Ulysses S. Grant to Harry Truman to Donald Trump — are often viewed more favorably with time, but most Americans seem doubtful that Biden will benefit from such a reassessment. So how should we judge the Biden era?

It’s impossible to evaluate Biden’s presidency in isolation, as it is intrinsically tied to the man he was elected to replace, and who is now replacing him: Donald Trump.

It wasn’t destined to be this way. Having run as a transitional figure, Biden succumbed early to the fatal conceit that he could be a transformational leader, akin to Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson. Reportedly encouraged by historians, Biden pursued ambitious goals but lacked the electoral mandate and the large congressional majorities that FDR and LBJ had leveraged to enact sweeping change.

This overreach defined Biden’s presidency. His executive orders quickly reversed some of Trump’s more restrictive immigration policies, which critics argue acted as a magnet for illegal border crossings. Even the New York Times acknowledged that Biden’s “more welcoming approach” encouraged parents to send migrant children across the border.

He also spent heavily on pandemic relief, with outlets such as Vox noting that the American Rescue Plan exacerbated inflation — though the extent of the damage remains debated, and inflation surged globally.

Biden’s decision to complete Trump’s planned military withdrawal from Afghanistan was marred by a disastrous execution. The chaotic and deadly exit caused his approval ratings to plummet and never recover.

It didn’t help that Biden and his team downplayed the fallout from these mistakes, dismissing them as “transitory” (inflation) or “cyclical” (the border surge). His claims about Afghanistan were equally misleading. These 2021 missteps planted the seeds for what now seems like an all-but-inevitable Democratic defeat in 2024.

When Biden actually achieved impressive legislative victories and accomplishments (such as in energy production), he rarely got much credit. The modern presidency demands rhetorical and physical vigor — qualities Biden often struggled to deliver.

But it was his reluctance to serve as a transitional president who could pass the baton to a younger generation of leaders that ultimately sealed his party’s fate.

Leadership expert John Maxwell says that “Success without a successor is ultimately failure.” Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as vice president was perhaps his first major mistake. Burdened by prior baggage and the challenging tasks assigned to her, Harris failed to emerge as a viable heir. And by delaying his eventual decision to step aside, Biden left Democrats without time to rally behind a stronger candidate.

For these reasons, Biden’s presidency seems more like a bridge to nowhere than a bridge to the future.

Biden was elected as a “return to normalcy” after the tumult of Trump’s first term. But by failing to build a durable Democratic legacy, he inadvertently paved the way for Trump’s return to the White House.

Before he even took office, many of us argued that Biden’s only mandate was to “not be Trump.” In a sense, he achieved this goal on Inauguration Day. But implicit in the deal was the notion that Trump’s presidential career was finished.

Biden failed to live up to this fundamental promise, and perhaps we shouldn’t be entirely surprised by this; while “Uncle Joe” Biden was cast by Democrats as America’s congenial grandfather who would serve as a stark contrast to the congenital liar he replaced, Biden was an imperfect vessel for this role. Throughout his life, Biden had been a gaffe-prone and irascible blowhard who, in the words of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Biden’s early political career was tarnished by controversy, most notably when he not only borrowed the words but also the personal narrative of British politician Neil Kinnock. More recently, questions have arisen about the accuracy of the origin story Biden often tells to explain his entry into politics. Then there’s his long-disputed claim that the driver involved in the tragic 1972 car accident that killed his wife and daughter was drunk — a charge refuted by the Delaware judge who investigated the crash.

Yet even in the production of such shocking falsehoods, Biden finds himself overshadowed both qualitatively and quantitatively by Trump. (The Washington Post documented over 30,000 false or misleading claims made by Trump during his first term.) Biden is to Trump what Joe Frazier was to Muhammad Ali.

Like “Smokin’ Joe,” “Sleepy Joe’s” legacy is inextricably tied — and diminished — by his connection to his biggest rival.

The fundamental promise of Biden was to knock Trump out of the presidency and make sure he never got up off the mat. By that measure, Biden’s single term will be judged a failure.

Trump’s return to power ensures that Biden’s legacy will remain defined by what he failed to do. As the saying goes, “You had one job.” Or as NFL coach Bill Parcells famously put it, “You are what your record says you are.”

Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books “Too Dumb to Fail” and “Filthy Rich Politicians.”

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