Joe Biden's Carter-esque Presidency
Carter and Biden had the same opportunity, They failed in the same way.
In this column:
The remarkable similarities between the Carter and Biden arcs
This is not what we were sold
You had one job
Clinton or Obama might’ve succeeded where Carter and Biden failed
History Rhymes
After a mortifyingly scandal-plagued but unrepentant Republican presidency, a low-voltage Democrat defeats a strong primary field and then wins the White House by promising earnestness, decency, and a return to national normalcy.
But quickly that president is revealed as pettier and more self-absorbed than most believed. Before long, it’s clear that domestic and international events are too big for him. Inflation and economic underperformance plague America, and his approval rating plummets. His party rebels against him in the months leading up to the election. His administration’s legacy is further sullied by late-term events demonstrating the president’s poor judgment and leadership. His party is walloped in the election, and a Republican that many Democratic insiders can’t abide captures the Oval Office. Rather than admitting and atoning for his mistakes, the outgoing failed president blames everyone but himself.
Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden?
Bait and Switch
Jimmy Carter, who had the longest post-presidency in American history, passed away last month at the age of 100.
He was, I regret to say, among our nation’s weakest presidents. On objective measures he fared badly. But he also failed on his own terms.
Carter promised to be not just a turning of the corner but the guide to a sunnier future. Yes, he was running as a challenger in 1976 against incumbent Gerald Ford. But Carter saw himself and wanted others to see him as something broader—the antithesis of, even the antidote to, the calamities of the previous decade.
Recall: the prosperity and optimism that so many enjoyed in the early post-War era had mostly disappeared by the late 1960s. People were no longer thinking about our defeat of the Axis, Ike’s smile, Miles Davis’s innovations, The Beatles’ revolution, Brown, the CRA and VRA, the GI Bill…
They were instead thinking about Vietnam, Soviet power, stagflation, NYC’s bankruptcy scare, Kent State, and, probably most of all, Nixon and Watergate.
Jimmy Carter was, America was told, brilliant (a nuclear engineer) and humble (a simple peanut farmer). He would be a breath of fresh air (that smile) and a dutiful public servant (naval officer, state senator, governor). He was going to make American thrive again. He was going to give America reason to be proud again.
But ultimately Jimmy Carter was not the president we were promised. He most certainly was not the president we needed.
To dispassionately describe the major events of his time in office can instead sound like a foe is piling on. A recession, high interest rates, high unemployment, high inflation. Shockingly low public approval ratings. An oil shock. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Dreadful relationship with Congress.
Pardoning draft evaders. Telling people to wear sweaters when they couldn’t pay their energy bills. Lecturing America about its crisis of confidence. Boycotting the Olympics. Giving up the Panama Canal. Scheduling the White House tennis courts. Failing to solve the Iranian hostage crisis.
This was all very bad. But what lingers is the way he failed. He was not sunny but mean and scolding. Not affable but distant. Not expert but imperious. America desperately needed good cheer and strength but too often got haughty bumbling. We needed a clean break from a decade of decline, but that decline continued under his watch.
The things that made Americans scared and angry four years earlier were even worse by the time of Carter’s reelection campaign. It’s why Ted Kennedy primaried him. It’s why his late-term poor response to the Soviets’ Afghanistan invasion and the hostage crisis were so unsurprising. It’s why Reagan’s most effective line in 1980 was simply asking voters if they were better off than they were four years earlier.
Jimmy Carter was not as advertised.
And neither was Joe Biden.
You Had One Job
Joe Biden said he’d stabilize America. That he’d make America proud and decent again. He had the opportunity.
Donald Trump’s presidency could rival any of his predecessors’ in terms of dysfunction and meanness. His White House was a mess. He couldn’t get anything done domestically. His foreign policy was chaotic. He was lost during the pandemic. His language and behavior were crass and cruel. He denigrated his own team. His public approval rating kept falling.
America needed—and Joe Biden told us he’d be—not just a turning of the corner but the guide to a sunnier future. We were told that he was moderate in politics and temperament, a soothing and affable man in relationships, a reliable old-hand in governing. He would, we were assured, steady the ship and then hand the helm to a new captain.
But from the start of his term, Biden was somehow convinced by others—or somehow convinced himself—that he wasn’t just a transitional figure but an FDR-style revolutionary. He wanted to make big splashes domestically and internationally. But that wasn’t what America signed up for. And Biden’s results were not what we needed. The Afghanistan withdrawal was disastrous, his massive spending plans revivified long-dead inflation. His student-loan gambit was unconstitutional and reckless.
And time and time again, when America needed presidential leadership he seemed incapable of delivering, whether it was his lacking response to the southern border, our budget deficit and debt, crime, Ukraine, China, Iran, campus unrest, chronic absenteeism…
Nearly as bad as any of this, though, are the instances when Biden revealed that he could be unusually selfish, mean, and petty. More than belying his manufactured avuncular profile, it demonstrated that this was not the humble, decent, others-first public servant we were promised. The last phase of his presidency provided clear examples: The hiding of his manifest decline from the American public (and his team’s and allies’ unfair treatment of Robert Hur), his unwillingness to step aside to allow someone else to take on Trump, and his unpardonable pardon of his son.
Jimmy Carter needed to help America recover from a terrible decade, an era embodied by the corrupt Richard Nixon. But Carter failed.
Joe Biden needed to show America that it could end the Trump era and never look back. But he failed.
In 1980, voters didn’t have to choose between Carter and Nixon. Instead, they could pick a third option, Ronald Reagan. And they did so energetically.
But in 2024, voters, forced to choose between continuing Biden-Harris or returning to Trump, chose Trump. They knew full well what a Trump administration looked like, and they preferred it to four more years of Biden-Harris.
Clinton and Obama
One final thought. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama captured the presidency by promising to respond to the dire conditions they attributed to their GOP predecessors.
In 1991-1992, Clinton campaigned against the economic recession and enormous budget deficit, which, in Clinton’s telling, were the upshot of Republicans’ misplaced priorities. In 2007-2008, Obama campaigned against the Great Recession and the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, which, in Obama’s telling, were the upshot of Republicans’ poor leadership. Clinton hoped to turn the page on 12 years of Reagan-Bush; Obama hoped to turn the page on eight years of W. Bush.
In other words, Clinton and Obama faced challenges and opportunities like Carter and Biden. But Clinton and Obama earned second terms. They understood their assignments and got the job done.
So before chalking up the Carter/Biden failures to factors they couldn’t control, it’s worth asking, “Would’ve more capable leaders succeeded where they failed?”