Judging by the flurry of articles explaining why none of what’s going on right now is Joe Biden’s fault I think it’s fair to say that we are now on our second, possibly third consecutive president for whom this was the case, at least on their part of their supporters. Whatever else you may say it’s clear that the days of “the buck stops here” are long gone.
My own view is that I think that it just as it is fair for presidents to claim credit for the good things that happen on their watches it is equally fair that they should be blamed for the bad things that happen. None of these people were dragooned into running for president.
So, for example, I think it’s completely fair to blame President Trump for the CDC’s poor response in the early stages of the pandemic but equally fair to give him credit for Operation Warp Speed. I thought it was fair to blame President Obama for the economic decline in the early part of his presidency and give him credit for the subsequent recovery. I thought that saying that “he saved the economy” was excessive.
I think we give Presidents too much credit and too much blame, but if you are going to engage in this stuff I think you ought to be consistent. If you wanted to give Trump credit when the economy was good you need to accept the blame when it was bad. My one caveat here is that I wouldn’t start the blame and credit for the first 3-6 months.
Steve
As a slight aside. I wonder how much the performance of this administration is effected by the management model employed.
I recall you mention Democratic presidents like the “hub-and-spoke” or “ad-hoc” model of management. Due to age, I wonder if Biden is forced more into a “staff model” and that’s causing problems with personnel who were expecting a hands-on President.