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BIDEN: NO COURSE CORRECTION. The failures of President Joe Biden’s first year in office are obvious to all. Inflation is raging. COVID is raging. Crime is spiking in some big cities. The U.S.-Mexico border is a mess. The American withdrawal from Afghanistan was a mess. And with it all, the president and his party are obsessed, most of all, with passing a voting rules bill that would help ensure their future election by federalizing the voting system along lines favorable to Democrats.
As Biden approached his first anniversary in office, there was much talk of some sort of “reset” or “reboot” or “restart” for his flailing administration. But it’s just talk. As he pieces together an approach to governing in Year Two, Joe Biden is still Joe Biden. His judgment is still lacking. And he’s not really planning to do anything differently.
Biden said so himself at his news conference on Wednesday. After pronouncing himself “satisfied” with his team’s performance in the first year, Biden said, “There’s three things I’m going to do differently” in the next year. The remarkable thing is that none of those three things is substantive. None involves Biden actually changing course from his unsuccessful first year.
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The first change Biden listed was: “I’m going to get out of this place more often.” In the coming year, he will travel more around the country and talk to voters. “I’m going to make the case of what we’ve already done,” Biden said, and try to use his record to build support for future action.
Biden’s second change is that he will be “seeking more advice of experts outside, from academia, to editorial writers, to think tanks.” He specifically mentioned his meeting, early in his term, with presidential historians who told him he had the opportunity to pass sprawling, life-changing legislation like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was terrible advice. Now Biden wants more of it.
Biden’s third change is that he’s going to campaign a lot for Democrats in the midterm elections. “We’re going to be raising a lot of money,” Biden said.
So those are Biden’s big three changes. Notice that none of them involves any real change. And none say this simple thing: I’m going to do a better job.
Remember when some Republicans wished President Donald Trump could change, even just a little bit? Could he smooth off some of his rough edges and be less combative? The answer was no; Trump is who he is. The same is true for Biden. At this stage in his life, don’t look for him to change.
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