Farewell to a Mediocre President
A presidential historian delivers his assessment of Joe Biden.
In John Updike’s 1992 novel Memories of the Ford Administration, the historian non-hero of the story just can’t finish writing his biography of James Buchanan because the fifteenth president of the United States is so overshadowed by the giant figure who comes after him—Abraham Lincoln. We know how he feels. For all the ink that has been expended on political events of the last year, it is surely incontrovertible that Donald Trump is the single most consequential political figure since Ronald Reagan, and arguably Franklin Roosevelt. Love him or loathe him, he’s a political giant who will be written about by historians in the way that Lincoln, FDR, Wilson and other transformational presidents have been. Meanwhile, Joe Biden will languish with the Benjamin Harrisons, Milard Fillmores and James Buchanans in the annals of presidential duds—otherwise known as the trash heap of history.
It’s a sad ending for a man who has given most of his adult life to serving at the highest levels of government. The harsh truth, though, is that Biden’s entire career, not just his presidency, has been a triumph of political mediocrity.
Biden had been lucky as a young man in 1972 to win a seat as the Senator from Delaware. Thereafter he stuck to the institution like a limpet, rising through the committee ranks and slowly accumulating status and seniority until 2008 when, lucky again, the inexperienced candidate Barack Obama added him to the ticket as an older head to reassure nervous traditional voters.
That pick was reassuring at the time partly because Biden was a type, and not an inglorious one either. Long serving and very pleased with themselves, these senators have often been the glue that helps stick the political system together. They are the institutionalists—a feature rather than a bug. For every President Kennedy, the government needs its Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Remember: Persuasion is now the home of American Purpose, Francis Fukuyama’s blog, and Richard Aldous’s Bookstack podcast! Opt in using your account settings to receive all of this great content via email:
Yet for all his institutional permanence no one, except perhaps Biden himself, realistically thought of him as the best of his generation or a future commander-in-chief. His attempted runs for the presidency in 1988 and 2008 ended in failure and humiliation. Any senator probably thinks they have what it takes to be the next Lyndon Johnson (the last long-serving senator to be president), but when Obama, a generational talent, eventually had the chance to hand him the baton in 2016, he passed Biden over as simply not good enough.
That raises the question as to why we would have expected Biden to govern other than he has since 2021. Perhaps you need to be a raving egotist to be a successful presidential politician, but the good ones have a sense of irony, including self-irony, that offers them mitigation in making their judgements. But irony has never been Biden’s strong suit. If it had been, he might have reflected, perhaps with a Reagan-like self-deprecating shake of the head, that he had become president too late and then settled into the role that history had bestowed upon him as a transitional president. It was, after all, the reason why the Democrats nominated him in 2020: to normalize politics after Trump and the pandemic, and to prepare the way for a new generation of Democratic leadership. Instead, pride got the better of him and he reverted to the mean of his own career. Self-regard stopped him from stepping aside.
Of course, there are achievements Biden can point to on the other side of the ledger. There was a sense early on in his presidency that he might put his half century of legislative and executive experience to good political effect. He quickly developed a working relationship with opposition leaders such as Senator Mitch McConnell and Congressman Kevin McCarthy. It was maneuvering by a president who really understood Congress and it helped him unexpectedly pass a slew of major legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. This act was of a kind about which other Western leaders could only dream. Certainly the European Union, with its anemic growth rates and low productivity, could not even begin to implement an industrial policy on this massive scale. The results were spectacular, with positive growth rates, low unemployment and a booming stock market.
The problem, of course, was that the policy was rampantly inflationary—something that was felt keenly in the pockets of ordinary voters. In this sense Biden was hoisted by his own petard. You don’t need to be a monetarist or disciple of Milton Friedman to understand that opening the floodgates on public spending is meant for a recession, not to feed a post-recession boom. This Keynesian president had forgotten the master’s own instruction that you have to tighten your belt in good times, not just let it out in the bad. It’s as true in the 2020s as it was in the inflation-hit 1970s when Biden started out.
Self-inflicted wounds like this point to another element that characterizes the Biden administration: a failure of communication and a sneaking sense that he is just not that bright. There has been much speculation about his cognitive function. The debate with Trump in June 2024 was so devastating partly because it reinforced concerns about underlying health issues. Those concerns may or may not be well founded, but either way it masked the more pertinent point that throughout his career Biden has never seemed quite up to speed. Being an intellectual is far from a prerequisite for presidential success, and is usually quite the opposite. (Take Professor Woodrow Wilson as Exhibit A.) FDR by contrast was famously judged to have a second-class mind but a first-class temperament. Nevertheless, whether it’s street smarts or actual smarts, being some kind of smart is surely an advantage if you’re leading the world’s No. 1 power.
And one kind of smart involves the ability to argue your case and think on your feet—something that Biden failed to do throughout his presidency. The bully pulpit only works if you’re an effective preacher. For sure, political discourse has changed beyond recognition over the course of his career. One of the means of communication that marked out the Reagan era was the use of the teleprompter for big speeches. Reagan’s total mastery of it made him look spontaneous and natural—he even taught Margaret Thatcher how to use it. Today the same technology has the complete opposite effect, making the speaker seem scripted and inauthentic. A politician like Trump understands that change, hence “the weave.” Biden, by contrast, could hardly function without one. Where Trump could sit with a podcaster like Joe Rogan for three hours, Biden could barely get through three minutes of reporters’ questions as he walked to his car tripping over his own verbal laces. It’s not generational: the two men are essentially the same age. It’s about political instincts and having the quickness to adapt. Trump has it, Biden doesn’t—and never did.
Not the least of Biden’s failures was his inability to convince people about the threat posed by Trump and to step down in time for a candidate to emerge who could better take the fight to his Republican opponent. But recent comments suggest more than a communication misfire. “I think I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump,” the president told White House reporters this month. As so often in his career, Biden has ended it by demonstrating that he’s an unserious person.
Talent will out in the end, they say, but so too will mediocrity. That is how history will remember Joe Biden. If that seems harsh, then remember that he told us the last election was existential for American democracy and accused Trump explicitly of being a fascist. If he believes these things to be true then he has presided over disaster and deserves every brickbat that history will throw at him.
Richard Aldous is Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Bard College and presents Persuasion’s “Bookstack” podcast. His books include Reagan and Thatcher, Schlesinger and The Dillon Era.
Follow Persuasion on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.
And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below:
I'm still trying to figure out who the actual president has been the last four years.
Mostly accurate but a little too harsh. Biden was dealt a tough hand. It could certainly have been played better, hence the accuracy, but it was legitimately difficult and he had some real accomplishments along with his mistakes, not least the fact that the U.S. economy has performed the best in the world during his time in office.