WASHINGTON – By the standard that President Biden has set for himself, the core goal he proclaimed when he ran for office in 2020, it is impossible to judge his one-year presidency as anything other than a failure.
“We are fighting for the soul of this nation,” Biden said at the start of his campaign in 2019. “If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally change the character of this nation.” And I cannot stand by “How this happens.”
Now Trump has a chance to do exactly what Biden tried to prevent – spend eight years in the White House and leave his mark on American politics for decades to come. And there will be little Biden can do except stand by and watch.
Biden's insistence on running for a second term at age 81, despite voters' doubts that he was up to the task, and his disastrous result in the June debate plunged his party into a three-week crisis. When he dropped out of the race in July, it was too late to organize an orderly competition among potential successors; His Vice President Kamala Harris only had 103 days to campaign.
But there was much more to Biden's four years in office than his physical decline and his monumental mistake in trying to run.
Former President Carter's death is a reminder that presidents who at first glance look like failures are often judged more generously in a decade or four.
Carter left office in 1981 after a single term, viewed as a popular example of presidential failure due to a stagnant economy, foreign policy crises and a landslide defeat by Ronald Reagan.
As time went on, however, historians increasingly focused on the underappreciated achievements of Carter's time in office: new standards for ethics in government, an emphasis on human rights in foreign policy, and the first steps toward reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.
That may also be true for the president, who leaves office this month.
In his first two years in office, backed by Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, Biden achieved an impressive record on economic legislation: a $1.9 trillion stimulus package to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic to help and a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the $280 billion CHIPS Act to boost high-tech manufacturing and the $2.2 trillion Dollar-cost Inflation Reduction Act to promote clean energy.
After a post-pandemic spike in inflation that left food and gasoline prices stubbornly high, Biden's virtuoso moves in negotiating deals in Congress didn't help his standing with voters as much as he had hoped.
But as he ruefully noted in his farewell speech last month, Americans may not realize the full benefits of these laws until he is no longer in office.
“I know it’s hard for many Americans to see, and I understand it,” the president said. “You're just trying to figure out how to put three squares on the table. But I believe it was the right thing to do… (to) set America on a stronger course for the future.”
“He did a lot in one term,” said historian Julian E. Zelizer of Princeton University, who has already begun work on a book about Biden’s presidency. “These are calculations that will continue to pay off for many years to come.
“At the same time, politics is important,” Zelizer added. “One-term presidents who are not successful politically often give way to a successor who moves the country in a completely different direction – and that is also part of their legacy. … Both things – the successes and the failures – can be true at the same time.”
The tragedy of Biden's presidency is that he once suggested an alternative path – that he might choose to serve just one term as interim president.
“I see myself as a bridge, not anything else,” Biden said during his 2020 campaign. “You saw that a whole generation of leaders is behind me. You are the future of this country.”
But once he was in office, aides say he never seriously considered forgoing a second term.
He saw himself as the only candidate who had proven he could defeat Trump. And when Democrats did relatively well in the 2022 congressional elections, he saw the result as confirmation that his approach was working.
Twelve days later he celebrated his 80th birthday – and despite his denials, his age began to show. By mid-2023, 77% of voters said they thought Biden was too old to serve another term, including an impressive 69% of Democrats.
“His decision to run was an act with massive consequences,” said Zelizer. “A younger candidate might have been able to change the course of the election.”
The irony now is that Biden's legacy is now in Trump's hands.
If Trump succeeds in dismantling most or all of Biden's programs and reshaping the political landscape as Reagan did in the 1980s, Biden's successes will be short-lived.
But if Trump fails — if his administration proves chaotic, if Democrats take control of Congress in 2026 and if a next-generation Democrat takes back the White House in 2028 — the Biden legacy could get a second life.
Of course, neither of these scenarios is one that Biden ever envisioned. But now, as he once feared, all he has to do is watch what happens.