President Joe Biden’s first year in office has been full of challenges and criticism. Despite the frustrations, Daniel Bennett, the department chair for Political Science at JBU, claims Biden is a return to stability and “boring” politics. With the previous administration’s penchant for uncertainty, things seem to be more uneventful and unsurprising during Biden’s first year. “It’s probably about what we expected,” Bennett said.
“Every president gets a bit of a honeymoon phase early in his presidency,” he continued. “There’s almost a push to get legislation passed, that’s what he did with COVID-19 aid and then eventually the infrastructure package that was passed. But even with a unified Congress, the margin for error is so slim in the Senate, so to see the type of transformative legislation that a lot of progressive Democrats were hoping for was just not in the cards. And the fact that it didn’t happen shouldn’t seem like a surprise.”
When evaluating the president’s first year, the criticism lies in a handful of places: inflation, foreign policy, the pandemic and voting rights. Inflation, Bennett said, was naturally something voters would be concerned about since it impacts them directly. However, he explained, “Evaluating the president based on the economy is a bit off. Either you’re giving them too much credit or too much blame. The economy takes a long time to cycle through, and, in all honesty, we’re still seeing remnants of the Trump administration’s policies.”
Sam Gurel, a senior political science major, said “Inflation-wise, the purchasing power of the American dollar has not risen or gone down at the same time prices have increased for like a 70-year trend. Generally, it’s not like, ‘This president did this thing,’ and, ‘I can’t believe the Democrats or Republicans did this.’ In general, the American system has really, totally left behind the American worker.”
Despite the fact that inflation did not start with Biden, he may not be helping it. Biden has passed a portion of the Build Back Better agenda which included allocation of funds to support infrastructure like roads, sewers and even internet, but it was expensive along with COVID-19 aid. It’s because of this expense that the other portion of the Build Back Better agenda has not been passed, which dealt with social infrastructure like community colleges and early child education.
Inflation is only one piece of the criticism Biden is facing, however. The other issues lately are with regards to the Voting Rights bill not being passed in the Senate. Gurel explained, “One of the details of the bill was that you couldn’t be denied even if you were a felon so giving voting rights to felons. What I think is most fascinating is the distinct ways conservative and liberal media will portray it. For some it’s the ‘Voting Rights Bill’ and no one wants to come against voting rights. And then, ‘Election Rules’ for another. So that creates more space for argument.”
While Biden is having trouble passing the second portion of his Build Back Better agenda and the Voting Rights bill, there are still matters of rising tension between Russia and Ukraine. Bennett and Gurel had differing opinions when it came to the Biden administration’s foreign policy maneuvers. In fact, President Biden’s ratings were very high until the pullout from Afghanistan; the ratings haven’t recovered since. Bennett doesn’t think Afghanistan is relevant, however. “Afghanistan was a big issue although I don’t know how many Americans who would evaluate the president are still thinking about that. We have a pretty short political memory,” he said.
Gurel said he wants an administration that’s “sly and skilled in dealing with these powers like Russia.” He criticized the president, saying, “The response to Russia was abysmal. He basically gave them license to invade the country. It gives Putin the ability to walk in and be like, ‘It’s a small incursion.’” Gurel continued, “This is a four-dimensional chess match of foreign policy and dealing with Putin, and nobody in the administration seems like a powerful enough figure to combat those people.” Gurel pointed out that Russia and China are both extremely powerful and motivated countries with influences around the world and are “our enemies 110%.”
On the other side, Bennett had a more positive outlook on the president’s foreign policy. He explained one of Biden’s ambitions was a return to normalcy “domestically but also internationally” due to the concern the U.S. was no longer a global leader. Bennett says we are in a more traditional foreign policy system now, and things are simply complicated. “With Ukraine, it shows how complicated international relationships are, given the competing interests of the United States and its allies vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine. It’s what we expected but with Ukraine you’re not getting the blustering tox that some in the country are hoping to deter the Russian regime. It’s a lot more subtextual, nuanced and maybe like underwhelmingly menacing.”
He continued to explain the difficulties in the situation, saying, “They need their European allies to go along with any action the United States takes. A lot of those European allies, especially Germany, have a lot invested with Russia, so Germany is not going to be gung-ho about slapping on a bunch of economic sanctions on Russia if it comes to their detriment from importing oil and gas from Russia.” Bennett offered some more context, saying, “You know, Biden I think served for a long time on the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate. That was one of the reasons Barack Obama picked him to be his vice president, to lend some foreign policy chops to that ticket in 2008. Right now, it just seems like they’re treading water. Not sinking but not advancing in a way that’s awe inspiring.”
When it comes to the pandemic, Bennett was not so positive. “The way the administration has handled coming out of the pandemic has been worthy of criticism—the fact there was some confusion on how to offer tests: on the one hand saying we should test, but how do we get them, what if we can’t afford them? Missed opportunities there, I think.” He hoped the administration would start taking actions for how to get out of the pandemic instead of just managing it.
Overall, Bennett thinks Biden’s presidency has been more stable. However, he claims that Biden probably will not be able to recover from this situation, and he doubts he would run again next term.
“I don’t love the continuation or trend of demonizing people in the media. We saw this with Donald Trump obviously, but we also see this with Biden,” Bennett said.
“I think it just exasperates the tension and divisions we see. I don’t like that it’s becoming a trend.”
President Biden may not be the most exciting or productive president in U.S. history, but that merely warrants fair criticism, not demonization. Bennett predicts the next presidential election will be “on the side of Republicans.” The United States will likely continue to swing back and forth between red and blue, left and right.
Photo courtesy President Biden’s Instagram