Biden promised calm after Trump’s chaos, but the world has not cooperated

During the 2020 campaign, Joseph R. Biden Jr. denounced Donald J. Trump as “A sitting president who sows chaos instead of creating order.” After defeating Mr Trump, Mr Biden told the nation in his inaugural address that he would reverse the policy “state of chaos” that he had inherited.

The new president essentially promised to usher in a calmer era as the person responsible for Trump’s rambunctious Twitter bomber.

But the world has not cooperated. While Mr. Biden has restored order to the White House and generally conducted himself with the decorum common during the pre-Trump presidency, he has nonetheless presided over a turbulent period that has upset many Americans. Inflation, the explosion of border migration and the wars in Europe and the Middle East have created a sense of instability that polls show has eroded his support.

To some extent, this impression has been fueled by conservative media, which bombards viewers and readers with messages about “Biden’s border chaos,” among other consistent themes. But polls show that satisfaction with the country’s direction has fallen by half since Mr Biden took over three years ago. And paradoxically, Trump, once dubbed the “chaos president” by a Republican opponent, is now marketing himself as the antidote to disorder, capitalizing on faded memories from his own time in office.

“I think Biden has delivered on the promise of calm and order in his own White House, all those things, including good-faith efforts to work with the other side,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama. . “But he was dealt a rough hand, and events over which he generally has little control have created a sense of disarray in which the self-styled strongman is now offering to come back and step into the breach.”

As he enters the House chamber on Thursday evening to deliver his final State of the Union address before the November election, Mr Biden faces the challenge of reassuring Americans that he is in charge of events, instead of the other way around. Advisers hope a strong performance will send the message that Mr. Biden’s mature leadership remains preferable to his indicted challenger’s volatile form of constant struggle and norm-breaking.

Mr Biden plans to address public concerns by highlighting his efforts to lower the cost of living and will try to convince Americans that the economy has recovered strongly from the Covid lockdowns and shutdowns 19 pandemic that started under Mr. Trump. By contrast, he could highlight Republican disarray by pointing to the party’s rejection of a bipartisan border deal to stem the flow of immigrants and its refusal to even bring security aid for Ukraine and Israel to a vote in the House of Representatives .

“There is a lot more instability around the world, but the bottom line is that no one is questioning Biden’s word or reputation in the world,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey. “There are factors over which we have no control. We cannot control an attack in the Middle East” or an invasion of Ukraine. “But his response to external instability has been to demonstrate America’s leadership, and I think that’s a credit to him.”

Mr. Biden’s pledge to return to normalcy proved a deep relief to Democrats and many Republicans, as well as international allies, when he first took office, especially after a violent mob incited by Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the transfer of force. Military units and security barriers gave Washington the feeling of a city under siege.

The new president was a diametric contrast to the old one. He didn’t start daily flame wars or abruptly fire cabinet secretaries by tweet. He threatened no American friends abroad and promised no “retaliation” against his opponents at home. He was a throwback to another era.

But by the summer of Biden’s first year in office, the sense of order was shattered by the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, with Taliban forces storming Kabul, Afghans running down an airport runway trying to escape on departing planes and U.S. troops killed a terrorist bomb attack. Biden’s approval rating has already begun to fall from a high of 57 percent in Gallup polls but fell to 43 percent after the withdrawal and has not recovered since.

He was not helped when inflation hit a 40-year high, border crossings reached record numbers, Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel. The mood in the country took a dark turn. While 45 percent of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going in the country after Mr. Biden’s inauguration, the highest level since 2005, only 19 percent do so now.

“They see it in their households with prices, they see it in the world, they see it at the border, they see it in Afghanistan, they see it in Ukraine, they see it in the Middle East,” former Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican, said in an interview. “And they say, ‘Well, I’ll accept a few tweets I don’t like in exchange for some stability.'”

a recent CBS News poll found that only 31 percent thought Mr. Biden’s policies would increase peace and stability, while 47 percent thought Mr. Trump’s policies would do so if he won a second term. Conversely, 36 percent thought Trump would damage peace and stability, while 43 percent said the same about Biden.

This has become a constant theme of Mr. Trump and his supporters in the conservative media attacking Mr. Biden. “His policies have now resulted in nothing but widespread chaos here at home and abroad.” Sean Hannity said on Fox News in November. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Mr. Trump stated“In many ways we are living in hell right now.”

The Biden campaign responded to Trump’s comment by reminding Americans of what the previous four years were like. “America already had the opportunity to choose whether they wanted four more years of hell with the chaos, division and madness of Donald Trump – they said no,” a campaign spokesman said in a statement.

Despite public concerns, there are now ample indicators of stability in the United States. Covid has transformed from a society-shaking killer to a more manageable health problem. Recent data shows that violent crime last year reached near its lowest level in more than fifty years. After peaking at 9.1 percent in 2022, inflation has fallen to 3.1 percent, although prices have not fallen.

The fear of a recession has diminished unemployment Since the Vietnam War, growth has been below 4 percent for longer than ever before, stock markets are setting records, wage increases are outpacing price increases, and domestic energy production is higher than ever. And while wars rage in Europe and the Middle East, American troops are not in the middle of them for the first time in decades.

Many voters still don’t see that in their own lives or don’t appreciate the improvements they do see in Mr. Biden. Only 26 percent of respondents from The New York Times and Siena College called the economy good or excellent last month. But that was six percentage points higher than an earlier poll, and Biden’s advisers hope that as economic optimism increases by the fall, it will translate into additional political support.

The president’s allies said the way he has conducted himself in office should be more important than events beyond his control, and foreign officials regularly say in interviews that they would much rather deal with Mr. Biden than the unpredictable and often hostile Mr Trump.

Democrats said Mr. Biden should use the State of the Union address and other opportunities to turn the tables on Republicans by highlighting their own internal turmoil, punctuated by the impeachment of their own Speaker of the House last year, leaving the lower house of Congress leaderless for three weeks.

“He has the opportunity to contrast the Republican Party that is unable to pass government funding, that is holding back the Ukrainian replenishment, that has experienced the speaker’s drama and that focuses more on leadership battles than on what is important to Americans. people,” said former Rep. Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida. “That would be an opportunity for him to create a contrast.”

“But,” she admitted, “it’s really hard to deny that the American people are experiencing a real sense of insecurity, both from an economic perspective and from a foreign policy perspective.”