How Do You Assess a President?

In recognition of the end of the first year of President Joe Biden’s presidency, we’re seeing quite a number of assessment, many critical, of that first year. Rather than round them up or comment on them, I want to ask a question: how do you assess a president’s performance as president?

There are clearly multiple criteria for doing so including what is accomplished during that presidency, the challenges he or she may face during that presidency, approval rating, and, like it or not, the criteria he or she may set up for themselves. That’s one of the reasons James K. Polk is pointed to by many historians as one of our greatest presidents: he accomplished everything he said he would when running for president.

Based on those criteria how is Joe Biden doing? I think we can safely acknowledge that he’s a doing at least a fair job of not being Donald Trump, unquestionably the reason that some of those who voted for him did so. Tempting as it is I can’t award him an excellent rating on that because events are catching up on him and he’s re-adopting some of Trump’s policies, in some cases impelled by the courts.

In honesty he’s doing pretty much what I expected him to. I expected him to be a mediocre president, a moderate only in relation to the center of the Democratic Party, and (important to me if not to most Americans) have a pretty terrible foreign policy. We’ll see what happens on the foreign policy front. A+ for leaving Afghanistan, C- for execution of leaving Afghanistan. He has some major credits to his name: the additional spending for COVID-19 relief and his infrastructure bill. I didn’t much agree with either policy but those are major credits nonetheless and fair is fair.

In terms of approval rating he’s not doing particularly well and it’s obvious why. On most opinion polls Americans list their three most greatest interests as COVID-19 (particularly Democrats), the economy, and immigration, particularly the situation at our southern border and he’s not doing particularly well on any of them. You can question how much influence a president has on any of them (particularly COVID-19 and the economy) but Americans’ concerns are Americans’ concerns and a lot of energy is being expended on issues like voting rights and climate change which are not near the top of their concerns. Why is President Biden out of alignment with the American people on these priorities? Probably two reasons: first he’s in pretty good alignment with Congressional Democrats and they’re out of alignment with most Americans. Not only that but his actions on inflation (aggravating it if anything) and immigration (our southern border) are also in close alignment with Congressional Democrats. And, as I pointed out before, there’s not much he can do on any of those priorities which will not take him out of alignment with Congressional Democrats which would be disastrous with such narrow majorities.

Is there any question that, relative to the criteria the present has set up for himself, e.g. unifying Americans, accomplishing a considerable amount, etc., he’s doing very poorly indeed?

I did want to touch on what impelled me to write this post: Steven L. Taylor’s post at OTB criticizing David Ignatius’s WaPo column criticizing President Biden. I think that Steven is missing the point. The only reason I read what David Ignatius writes is that I think he’s a pretty good barometer of the prevailing wisdom in DC. Otherwise why read him, pay any attention to him, or write blog posts about him? Why does what he write have any significance? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe David Ignatius has lost the thread and no longer speaks for the prevailing wisdom in DC. Then why write about him?

Consequently, from my perspective every criticism that Steven makes of Mr. Ignatius (silly, “Green Lanternism”, etc.) is rightly levelled at DC opinion among the civil bureaucracy and other nomenklatura. That’s extremely valuable intelligence.

14 comments… add one
  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    “He has some major credits to his name: the additional spending for COVID-19 relief….”

    It will take time to prove whether the ARPA is a major negative credit or a major positive credit.

    Here’s the circumstances of the ARPA. The bill was to fulfill a campaign promise, it was passed on a party line vote, enacted despite the warnings of prominent economists like Larry Summers that it was economically irresponsible, and whether the bill was the actual cause, those warnings have come to pass.

    You know what’s another bill that had those characteristics — Smoot-Hawley. Now I don’t think enough time has passed to judge ARPA. But the risk is real; if the Federal Reserve has to go scotch earth to bring inflation under control, I’m fairly sure the ARPA will end up in the economic textbooks of “what not to do”.

  • It will take time to prove whether the ARPA is a major negative credit or a major positive credit.

    No argument here. I don’t happen to agree with it but I do think it was a major accomplishment.

  • Jan Link

    This column perplexes me, as there is little to nothing I find representative as being true of the Biden presidency. Usually, after reading one of Dave’s posts I mentally compliment him in how deftly he weaves together partisan issues into a very non partisan text. And, even though he and I come mostly from different ends of the political spectrum, I am able to see his POV as being fairly processed and delivered in words. This assessment of president Biden, however, is far afield from me being able to understand, let alone, agree with his perspective.

    From the grades given to Biden for his withdrawal from Afghanistan, to not being “Trump,” the infrastructure bill (having less to do with building infrastructure than social infrastructure changes), to the unmonitored COVID relief spending – there seemed little thought given to the “good” any of these moves would do for the people or the country as a whole. After all, lives were recklessly lost, degraded or uprooted in his Afghanistan departure. Valuable equipment was abandoned, as were people who were promised a safe outcome.

    “Not being Trump” is also as feckless as someone assessing success by “not being Obama.” If an incoming leader can’t detach himself from his dislike for an opponent, in order to weigh and implement the programs and policies of that opponent which did work, he is doing a disservice to the very people he was elected to govern. For instance, the border policies of Biden’s predecessor protected the border from drugs, human trafficking and illegal crossings far more than what is going on now, in fact the border has turned into nothing short of a full blown crisis that is being ignored by the Biden Administration.

    As for Biden’s approval rating – such a rating, IMO, is a combination of one’s likability and their policy-making. Trump’s lower numbers reflected more the latter, his un-likability, rather than his policy agenda. Biden’s continuously falling numbers, though, indicate how out of touch he is with the needs and wishes of the average American. Overall, Biden has an approval rating in the low 30’s; Hispanics and independents in the 20’s; and, “going the wrong way,” is somewhere in the 60’s. His policies are simply cringe-worthy, and do more harm than good. How did shutting down oil, for example, help sustain our newly developed energy independence, where we now have been forced to tap into our oil reserves and go begging to the Saudis for more oil?

    Lastly, just as a comparison of past and present presidencies —> when was the last time Joe Biden attracted a crowd of 35,000+, and extemporaneously spoke to the people for almost 2 hours? Last night in Arizona, Trump, did just that. It’s gotten little to no exposure, unlike what would have happened If Biden had accomplished such a feat. People were lined up for 25 miles for this venue. Police finally stopped traffic some 4 miles outside the event, saying it was too full. Some then walked the 4 miles just to hear what he had to say. Again, insert Biden into such a public forum and it would be similar to the “crowds” he drew during 2020.

  • I’m not a Biden supporter but I’m not a Biden hater either. Let’s just take my assessment of Afghanistan. The REALLY right thing to do was not put boots on the ground there to start with. It’s a tar baby.

    What’s the second best thing to do? Leave. Three consecutive presidents weren’t stupid enough didn’t have the guts to leave. There WAS no good way to leave Afghanistan. Maybe C- was too favorable. D+? Certainly not an F because there WAS no good way.

  • bob sykes Link

    Are you sure Biden is President? Was Trump President? (I think not.) Eisenhower might have been the last President of the US.

    Any administration is a collection of feuding factions, each trying to get control of policy. Often, usually, they fail, and end up controlling only one aspect of policy. E. g., Poles and Russian Jews control our Eastern European policy. No President, certainly not *Biden* (whoever that is), controls his own administration. Just consider how Bolton and Pompeo repeatedly, and publicly, slapped down Trump. Just ask Kim.

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    To be fair to Biden, I will name one issue where he is doing well and I think was something he campaigned on and is important to voters (when they voted in 2020).

    That is dialing down racial tensions that rose during Trump’s Presidency and reached worrying levels in 2020.

  • Drew Link

    “That is dialing down racial tensions that rose during Trump’s Presidency and reached worrying levels in 2020.”

    Jaw dropping. Are you with George Wallace? Jefferson Davis? etc Any policy disagreement is sure fire evidence of racism. What will come out of his mouth next? “They want to put you-all back in chains?”

    What is this dialing down of which you speak?

  • steve Link

    I expected the withdrawal from Afghanistan to go much worse. Thousands of people moving across the country would expose a lot to IEDs or direct attack. Since it went better than expected I would give it a B. Biden put some effort into the infrastructure but his efforts on BBB seemed half hearted. As I said, it wouldn’t and didnt pass. We have a lot of immigrants being help down south but AFAICT not a lot crossing. The difficulties finding people to do low cost labor jobs would seem to support that. Since essentially every economic number is pretty good other than inflation the Biden admin does need to address this better. Not sure there is much they can do about the supply chain part.

    On covid other than convincing everyone to get vaccinated there isn’t much else to do. Put more money into therapeutics I guess.

    Steve

    Steve

  • Encounters (read: apprehensions) at the southern border are twice as many as they were last year at this time and last year at this time they were almost twice as many as they had been the previous year, see here.

  • Jan Link

    ”There WAS no good way to leave Afghanistan.”

    I would rephrase that to say,”There was no perfect way to leave Afghanistan.” The Trump transition team tried to meet with Biden’s, and share their assessment of the Taliban and departure plans in the mill. But, they were soundly rebuffed. When you listen to that advice and ideas, it included not leaving Bagram Air Base to the Taliban; having a safer evacuation executed there, with an orderly evacuation of vetted civilians; including the Afghan military in these plans etc. it wasn’t just a half-a** pick up your stuff, include unvetted people in a chaotic departure, and leave all the rest.

    How Steve could possibly give Biden a B for creating so much mayhem and suffering, in the wake of his knee-jerk leadership, is beyond the pale.

    CR’s “dialing down” racial tensions under Biden also seems terribly out of step with reality. Where is the data on this statement? Also, why are so many minorities voicing discontent with the D party and leaving it? Just note the racial component in the last election, which saw the grip the D’s have had on the black community slipping.

    Steve’s immigration facts also seem skewed, in not showing the negative impact the open border has had, not only on massive illegal crossings, but also dealing with the huge increases in drug and human trafficking. Biden’s policies, in essence, are aiding and abetting the cartels, not the people of Mexico or this country.

  • Andy Link

    I’d give Biden an A for leaving Afghanistan and a D- for execution.

    I think the argument that “there was no good way to leave Afghanistan” papers over the many serious errors that were made which did, in fact, make the withdrawal worse than it should have been.

  • steve Link

    Andy- Have yet to see a non-partisan critique of the withdrawal. Any pointers to someone who did such and can explain why it was wrong? To be clear, my bias is that everyone knew we were leaving and a lot of those we had to evacuate were people who should have left a long time ago, but then you always have those people so I ma not sure how much responsibility we should have for them.

    Steve

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    So here’s why I said what I said.

    First, 2021 hasn’t had a destructive protest that’s garnered nationwide outrage.

    Second, Biden has cooled tensions both intentionally and unintentionally. In the intentional department, Biden chose to respect the Rittenhouse verdict (yes, yes I know Biden implied Rittenhouse was a white supremacist in 2020, but we are evaluating Biden’s first year).

    In the unintentional department, Biden’s low standings in the polls seems to have given more momentum to the surprising shift of Hispanics towards Republican party in 2020. That in turn seems to have shifted the mindset of Republican officeholders and influencers towards this voting bloc (which is not a monolithic bloc, but one gets the idea). Its a new world where Texas Republicans are viewing the Rio Grande as an opportunity and Texas suburbs as their hardest territory to defend. Or as another example, while Virginia’s election was about Virginia issues, if Trump had won, I don’t think Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares would have won statewide office. And it is important for tensions to ease that African Americans, Hispanics and Republicans realize African American Republicans and Hispanic Republicans are a real thing and important to the future success of the Republican party.

  • polls seems to have given more momentum to the surprising shift of Hispanics towards Republican party in 2020

    It’s only surprising to those who don’t understand how real people behave. You know, people who believed Texeira and Judis’s book. I argued against their thesis at the time so it’s not surprising to me.

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