For Joe Biden, an Anniversary without any Major Change of Direction

As he enters his second year in office, the president should provide fresh motivation for his administration, which badly needs some.

With an approval rating languishing in the same depths as that of his predecessor, the president is facing a difficult period. According to his many critics, Joe Biden must change everything from A to Z if he wants to avoid an electoral rout.

If you judge by his press conference Wednesday, there will be no radical change of direction. In any case, there are deep reasons for Biden’s political difficulties, and it would be unrealistic to bet on a rapid fix.

A Mixed Bag

Biden has major achievements to his credit. The recovery plan he adopted when he took office has had a significant positive impact, which will extend beyond the short term. Economic growth, jobs and the financial markets are showing solid results.

The COVID-19 vaccination campaign has been a success (although it was hampered by Republican resistance). Massive investment in infrastructure is a colossal success, something which his predecessor lamentably failed to achieve.

There are a few shadows hanging over the picture: a politically disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, inflation that is affecting everyone, a tenacious and capricious pandemic, the persistence of undocumented immigration and an upsurge of urban violence.

A Little Realism

Some criticize Biden for projecting weakness fueled by incessant personal attacks from his opponents and amplified by media fond of this sort of shallow thinking. Biden’s apparent inability to rally his party behind a principal legislative plan does nothing to counter this kind of image.

Breaking this deadlock may allow him to pass, in whole or in part, his massive plan for social and environmental intervention, but neither his recent actions nor his declarations yesterday allow one to predict with confidence that he will do so.

Even if Biden can push his plan through Congress, nothing guarantees that it will make a major difference in the approval ratings or at the ballot box. Biden has more to gain from a significant improvement in the two problems that preoccupy voters above all, the pandemic and inflation, and these challenges depend only in part on what the White House does.

Getting Back on Track

When asked what he intends to do differently during his second year, the president promised to better defend his achievements, and to be more in touch with and engage more deeply in his party’s election campaigns.

Doing these things will not really help him if inflation and the pandemic persist. To get back on track politically, Biden will obviously have to make sure that his messages get across and that voters understand and remember what his administration has succeeded in accomplishing. But his fate will depend above all on the objective conditions that affect everyone, and he will thus have to enact the proper policies and hope on his lucky stars that inflation and the pandemic don’t continue through November.

The other thing that is needed to ensure his presidency is a political success is making sure voters remember that, even if his performance and his party’s performance are far from perfect, the Republicans offer no concrete alternative as they sink further into Trumpism.

Generally, midterm elections are a referendum on the president’s performance. If that holds true this year, the Democrats will have a very hard time getting back on track. Fortunately for them, the semi-retired resident of Mar-a-Lago can’t resist hogging political center stage. If voters perceive the election as a choice between Donald Trump and Biden, it could rekindle chances for a Democratic comeback.