What Joe Biden achieved and what went wrong as he stepped down as Democratic candidate
The writing has been on the wall for US President Joe Biden for some time. Here is how he came slowly and painfully undone.
World
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The presidency of Joe Biden, who navigated a tumultuous term characterised by a global pandemic, economic insecurity, family turmoil, and wars in Europe and the Middle East, is over. He was the 46th Commander in Chief of the United States.
Biden had a decades-long career in US politics before entering the White House during a time of historic uncertainty and upheaval. But his legacy will largely be remembered for his role as friend and foil for the two larger-than-life presidents that came before him – Barack Obama, the 44th, and Donald Trump, the 45th.
Biden served as the 47th vice president of the United States for two terms under Obama. The pair shared a storeyed working relationship, at times characterised as a bromance, at others as frenemies.
In the final days of Obama’s term, the outgoing president brought Biden to tears by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. The highest civilian honour the US can bestow on a civilian had only been awarded to Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Regan, and General Colin Powell. Obama called Biden his “brother”, a “lion of American history”, and the “best vice president America’s ever had”.
In the final days of Biden’s term, Obama brought the president to a rage as he led a secret whisper campaign pushing for his ouster from 2024 presidential election.
Biden won the presidency in 2020 after successfully campaigning on “Restoring the Soul of America” as the antithesis of Trump and the bombastic personality that overshadowed the previous four years.
His path to the White House began in 1972 when he was elected to the Senate just months before an accident killed his wife and daughter. At 29, he was one of the youngest Senators ever elected.
He was Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 16 years, and Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12.
His proudest Senate accomplishment was his role in the Violence Against Women Act, landmark legislation that increased penalties for assault and abuse. Less popular was the larger Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that made it law, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and widely blamed for the mass incarceration of African-Americans.
Barack Obama, who would become the US’s first African-American president, announced on August 23, 2008, that Biden would be his running mate as Vice President.
The eight years of Biden’s vice presidency were marked by his work with Congress on passing the Recovery Act, following the global financial crisis, and the president’s signature piece of legislation – the Affordable Care Act.
He also spearheaded US diplomacy from Europe to the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, making key decisions that would later plague him as president. He suggested the Russian “reset” as the administration failed to send lethal aid to Ukraine after Moscow-backed separatists invaded the Donbas and annexed Crimea in 2014.
On January 20, 2021, Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States.
The ceremony came amid intense security in the chaotic aftermath of the January 6 riot, in which supporters of his predecessor stormed the US Capitol as Congress was attempting to certify Biden’s election.
Biden came to office vowing to shut down the coronavirus, not the economy, codify the Roe v Wade abortion precedent into law, nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court, forgive student loan debt, end oil drilling and fracking in the US, and cure cancer as we know it.
After an early honeymoon period in which he signed a US$1.9 trillion (A$2.7 trillion) Covid relief bill and a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, his legislative agenda stalled and public sentiment sharply turned after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, returning the country into the hands of the Taliban.
While initially praised for his tough stance on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, combined with his administration’s policy to shift away from fossil fuels and record pandemic-era spending, all conspired to backfire on the US economy.
Despite naming another $500 billion piece of legislation the “Inflation Reduction Act”, inflation stubbornly refused to reduce.
Inflation reached its worst levels since the 1970s, the country barrelled toward recession and fears of stagflation, and crime and gun violence soared as a result.
The nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fulfilled his Supreme Court promise, but the lack of response to the court’s overturning of Roe v Wade infuriated his own party. Many of his election promises, like cutting student debt, failed to materialise despite his administration’s best efforts to subvert the Constitution to pass it.
While Biden became the least popular president since World War II, he was still able to keep an expected “red wave” at bay during the 2022 mid-terms to retain narrow control of the Senate. It was perhaps his most consequential achievement.
But soon after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the Democratic Party that Biden dedicated his life to began murmurings of a replacement before an all-but-doomed rematch in November.
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