Today is a day of transition – and not just in Washington. This will be my final post on Bearing Drift. I’m giving Substack a whirl, so if you’re interested you can find me at Standing Athwart, Yelling Stop [1]. It will be a busy four years (at least).
This post, however, will be looking back at the Biden Administration that will come to an end at noon. Most of the commentary surrounding Biden has varied between praise for his accomplishments and lamenting that he was still unable to fend off Trump’s return. For the most part, however, both “sides” of this argument assume that Biden was a major break from Trump. Ironically, if that were true, the Democrats would have actually defeated Trump and this would be a very different day.
The Two Ts
The two largest and most damning examples of this can be described as “the Two Ts” – tariffs and the Taliban. I’ll address the second one first. Simply put, Donald Trump surrendered to the Taliban [2], but pushed the operative date into Biden’s Administration. It was a terrible “agreement” that he signed. That said, Trump was not in a position to implement it.
Biden was. Biden did. Biden shouldn’t have. The Taliban were already breaking the promises [3] it had made in the agreement. Biden had every justification to tear it up and insist that the United States and the Afghan people deserve better than a Taliban return to power. Instead he followed Trump’s plan. The rest is tragedy.
Domestically, as America faced a double-whammy of COVID-driven supply chain foul-ups and an energy disruption caused by Ukraine, Biden had a chance implement the supply-side reforms his predecessor-turned-successor missed or ignored. Biden chose not to do that. Maddeningly, many of the tariffs Trump implemented are still in place as he re-takes office today. For all the talk of Biden’s age impacting his ability to do his job, one aspect that is still largely beyond discussion is how Biden’s ideas on trade are old (as old as Trump’s in some areas). For whatever reason, Biden still saw trade as importing final goods (in competition with domestic firms), instead of importing inputs (to be used by domestic firms). Thus, the easiest way to address inflation – and their most visible way to be seen doing it – was left unused.
It’s the Continuity that Did Biden In
There are many things about which the two presidents disagree, of course. Trump is still beholden to Vladimir Putin; the consequences for our democratic allies (and for us) will be evident enough in the near future. The culture wars will go on so long as there are people who wish to fight them (I would argue that itself is one of those consequences already occurring but that is not the subject of this post). Trump will claim to want to cut spending; he is more likely to be serious about cutting regulations. Neither were of interest to Biden.
Yet on the big things that drove Americans’ realities (and thus, their votes), Biden’s failure wasn’t a departure from Trump. It was his continuity of Trumpism. When history looks back, it will find that continuity to be what sealed Biden’s fate.
Whether American democracy goes down with Biden remains to be seen. As I said earlier, I’ll be tracking its fate at Standing Athwart, Yelling Stop [1].