President Joe Biden, one year later, here is the scorecard:
First of all, president Biden has had to spend time convincing United States residents and the rest of the world that he did not steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump. He won it fair and square by approximately seven million popular votes and the majority of the Electoral College. These facts are vigorously disputed by T. Rump loyalists, both inside and outside of Congress, who have swallowed the Big Lie by the ex-president. Neither is a plus nor a minus.
Biden started his term of office in grand style by issuing a slew of executive orders which reversed the orders of his predecessor. Mostly, they were concerned with environmental protection, worker safety, and fiscal reform. Because the ex-president signed a record number of orders, Biden has a long way to go to catch up. Still, a plus.
On the other hand, Mr. Biden issued permits for drilling and fracking of oil and gas (respectively) on public lands and coastlines. A major minus.
Another stumbling block has been immigration reform. In this regard, Biden the neo-liberal has not learned anything from his time as vice president to Barack Obama, trying to convince Republicans, who were having none of bipartisanship, to get on board. So, the deportations continue, migrant families exist in limbo in Mexico, and their children are separated from them. Definitely a minus.
The major concern for the U.S. right now is the COVID-19 pandemic. Just when we thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel, the virus mutates and spikes again. President Joe has toyed with the idea of mandating vaccination for every man, woman, and child as his solution to the problem. He can’t do it; the vaccines are labeled “Emergency Use Authorization” and, by law, cannot be mandated. Still, he hopes to find a Federal judge who will agree with him. Another major minus.
His one victory so far has been his infrastructure-spending bill, with a little bit of help from a handful of Republicans, including, would you believe, Mitch McConnell. On the other hand, he has had no luck with the voting-rights bills, shot down by intransigent Republicans and two renegade Democrats over the use/non-use of the filibuster. A plus and a minus.
In the foreign-policy arena, the Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by re-joining the Paris climate-change agreement. He wanted to re-join the Iran nuclear deal, but Iran has a new president who is more conservative than his predecessor and will not negotiate. And he has continued to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia for so-called defensive use. But the Saudis have used everything they have received to bomb Yemen back to the Stone Age. Half a plus and a minus.
His biggest foreign policy bugaboo is none other than president Vladimir Putin, a.k.a. Czar Vladimir (the “Great”). Putin wants to live up to his personal name which, in Russian, means “lord of the earth.” He wants to restore the Russian Empire of the Romanovs, however, he can; this means corralling all of the former Soviet republics. He has deployed 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and demanded that NATO halt its eastward expansion. Biden has pledged to “protect” Ukraine. The rest of the world waits with bated breath wondering who will blink first. Half a plus.
By concentrating on Russia, Biden has ignored the real threat to world peace: China. In The Chas’ humble opinion, China is a greater problem to solve. The Chinese have a centuries-old cultural world view which must not be overlooked. They long have viewed themselves as the “Middle Kingdom,” whereby they are at the center of the world and all else revolves about them; they have considered themselves as the only civilized people in the world and all others as barbarians in sore need of their guidance.
Since the end of the civil war in 1949 between Mao’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, China has re-embraced its ancient tradition, using every tool at its disposal to achieve their goal as the Number One Superpower on Earth. Building a colossal war machine to the detriment of all other concerns, violating trade agreements, making large loans to countries which puts them in long-term debt, stealing other nations’ intellectual property, expanding its borders eastward and westward – there is very little Beijing will not do to become the “Middle Kingdom” once more and for all eternity. And let us not forget that China has covered up its part in the spread of COVID-19. Biden’s inattention to this threat is a super minus.
Just a thought.