Unlike the last two Democratic presidents, Biden inherited an economy that was, fundamentally, OK, and thanks to an extremely narrow Congressional majority he had a good excuse for not doing anything to help poor people and instead simply spending money to build stuff and create jobs.
He’s also come along at a fortuitous time in foreign relations; China’s antagonized most of its trading partners plus their economy’s spiraling into catastrophe, Russia managed to stitch the EU and NATO back together and get all of our lukewarm allies back to feeling extremely gung-ho about American military assistance, renewable energy is starting to make a real dent in oil politics…
He’s a perfectly competent old-school moderate Democrat and his relationships on the Hill may have made the difference with the infrastructure bill e.g. but he also came into an unusually good situation.
When he took office, 700 people a day were dying of COVID. At the end of his first year, it peeked at 2000 a day. I wouldn’t call that an “unusually good situation.”
Of all the things that could be said about 2020, Biden coming into an unusually good situation is the most disingenuous, even if you are just talking about the economy.
Trump and Republicans blew an insane amount of money and had nothing to show for it among the general population, covid-19 was handled incredibly bad by Trump leading up to that point, and the lame duck president of the United States had just attempted a coup to stay in power.
Framing this time as anything but unprecedented and tumultuousis does not do it justice.
Unlike the last two Democratic presidents, Biden inherited an economy that was, fundamentally, OK, and thanks to an extremely narrow Congressional majority he had a good excuse for not doing anything to help poor people and instead simply spending money to build stuff and create jobs.
He’s also come along at a fortuitous time in foreign relations; China’s antagonized most of its trading partners plus their economy’s spiraling into catastrophe, Russia managed to stitch the EU and NATO back together and get all of our lukewarm allies back to feeling extremely gung-ho about American military assistance, renewable energy is starting to make a real dent in oil politics…
He’s a perfectly competent old-school moderate Democrat and his relationships on the Hill may have made the difference with the infrastructure bill e.g. but he also came into an unusually good situation.
When he took office, 700 people a day were dying of COVID. At the end of his first year, it peeked at 2000 a day. I wouldn’t call that an “unusually good situation.”
Of all the things that could be said about 2020, Biden coming into an unusually good situation is the most disingenuous, even if you are just talking about the economy.
Trump and Republicans blew an insane amount of money and had nothing to show for it among the general population, covid-19 was handled incredibly bad by Trump leading up to that point, and the lame duck president of the United States had just attempted a coup to stay in power.
Framing this time as anything but unprecedented and tumultuousis does not do it justice.