Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me. Today, we’ve also been reminded — again — that he’s a patriot of the highest order.
Sixteen years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I knew about Joe’s remarkable career in public service. But what I came to admire even more was his character — his deep empathy and hard-earned resilience; his fundamental decency and belief that everyone counts.
Since taking office, President Biden has displayed that character again and again. He helped end the pandemic, created millions of jobs, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, passed the first major piece of gun safety legislation in 30 years, made the biggest investment to address climate change in history, and fought to ensure the rights of working people to organize for fair wages and benefits. Internationally, he restored America’s standing in the world, revitalized NATO, and mobilized the world to stand up against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
More than that, President Biden pointed us away from the four years of chaos, falsehood, and division that had characterized Donald Trump’s administration. Through his policies and his example, Joe has reminded us of who we are at our best — a country committed to old-fashioned values like trust and honesty, kindness and hard work; a country that believes in democracy, rule of law, and accountability; a country that insists that everyone, no matter who they are, has a voice and deserves a chance at a better life.
This outstanding track record gave President Biden every right to run for re-election and finish the job he started. Joe understands better than anyone the stakes in this election — how everything he has fought for throughout his life, and everything that the Democratic Party stands for, will be at risk if we allow Donald Trump back in the White House and give Republicans control of Congress.
I also know Joe has never backed down from a fight. For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of country — and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.
We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond.
For now, Michelle and I just want to express our love and gratitude to Joe and Jill for leading us so ably and courageously during these perilous times — and for their commitment to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on.
Obamacare wasn’t bad before it got mostly dismantled. Iran Nuclear Deal was smart. Paris Accords had potential. He cleaned up our ISIS mess. Nuclear disarmament was nice. He wasn’t a bad pres, considering his situation. Mainly screwed up with his approach to the Russians.
Comparing George W to him is pretty meh.
Also there was the whole “avoiding the second great depression” thing we were careening towards when he took over.
Another thing that has been arguably a big mistake is the natural gas over reliance (presented as a “clean” alternative to oil and coal).
I was gonna add Common Core, but honestly I’m unsure if it is just the testing that’s bad or the whole pie. It seems more like a mixed bag like any other federal policy.
Yeah that’s fair.
That said, I understand that natural gas was presented as a clean solution by the industry. I just wish there had been a more thorough analysis of what it meant, or at least tougher regulations.
(AFAIK) Natural gas leaks are very hard to spot, so they are very hard to fine, yet very common.
Natural gas “the transition fuel” was obviously as big a con as “clean coal.” Nobody believed it besides consultant-brained Democratic operatives in Washington.
That doesn’t make sense. If this were true how could they bill consumers
Leaks in pipelines, not in customer facing equipment
I love hating Obama but the testing actually came in from Bush with No Child Left Behind.
watching him concede every single point to the Republicans during the ACA negotiations was infuriating
Can you tell more about that?
Georgia, Crimea. Gave Russia a pass.
Georgia happened during George W Bush’s administration, not Obama’s. Syria and Crimea though.
Happened across two events, the Syrian uprising against Bashar Al Assad, who was a Russian ally, and the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Obama was generally trying to navigate a more diplomatic approach to the Russians, and reluctant to take any harsh actions against Putin. But starting in Syria, the Arab Spring had led to a revolt against Assad, and he was rapidly pushed back. Before he fell, Russia stepped in with their military and helped him push the rebels back. We had an opportunity to intervene ourselves after Obama stated that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” for us. He ended up using chemical weapons anyway, and we declined to intervene in any significant way. With Assad backed by the Russian military and the rebels backed by nobody’s big military, they ended up getting crushed and Assad is still in power there to this day. With a Russian military presence helping him stay secure.
Then in 2014, despite the Budapest Memorandum giving the US and UK some measure of responsibility for securing Ukrainian territorial integrity, when Putin quickly seized Crimea we basically did very little, just some minor sanctions and arms to the Ukrainians if I remember right.
Then a lesser thing, when it became apparent that Russia was using influence operations to meddle in our elections, he again did very little. This one is a little more forgiveable, since it was the end of his term and what even can you do? Still frustrating though.
All together, it became a pattern of being soft on Russia that Putin took advantage of, and imo helped lead to the Russo-Ukrainian War today.
What I would have liked to see instead, with the benefit of hindsight, is limited engagement in Syria to strike Russian assets, or perhaps a no-fly-zone over Syria, though that would be diplomatically difficult without UN support. After Crimea, very robust sanctions (which would’ve been problematic for the Europeans dependent on Russian energy exports), major upscaling of aid to the Ukrainians and a defense treaty. After the meddling, well, he could have at least gave a Presidential address about it or something, I dunno.
Thanks for your thoughtful input.
In ukrainian case I too feel like the sanctions’ way could’ve been troubled, but there could’ve been the case if not for some mini-lend-lease for official government and their weakened troops but for an involved peacemaking mission in a hot warzone of Luhansk and Donetsk if that issue had been taken seriously. There’s probably some PTSD from Balkans, but I can see how it could’ve been more effective at ceasefire than Minsky accords and probably saved MH-17 in the future. Besides, this angle of this russian covert offensive was to make sure the Crimean peninsula is sustained and without that they’ve been ought to build a bridge to reach it and struggled with water supply all the way up to 2022, that was probably another reason for the open war. There are probably some scenarios how it could’ve been happened differently if Obama and EU got more into that situation.
Idk how it works tho.
Getting rid of the tax penalties was the only good thing the supreme court did. And also that was the worst and stupidest part of the whole bill, inserted by the insurance company lobbyists. It’s the thing that initially made ACA hugely unpopular (despite it just being so complicated and stupid). It pretty much caused the entire midterm disaster. It was one of the biggest and dumbest unforced errors the Democrats ever made.
Without the requirement that healthy people get insurance in addition to sick people, there is no reasonable mechanism to keep the prices in check. The sick people need to get diluted down somehow.
As it stands, we end up paying for it anyway, just in a more roundabout way.
That’s untrue though. They got rid of the penalties and price appreciation did not accelerate. The penalties were completely unnecessary especially considering they already had all the complicated rules to prevent people from getting insurance after they get sick (enrollment periods, “life events” etc).
Prices actually did go up, quite a lot. And the ACA allowed people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance, it actually explicitly prohibited insurance companies from locking them out, which they are otherwise economically incentivized to do.
Prices were going up before ACA, under the penalties regime, and after it. There was no inflection point when the penalties got removed.
People are still locked out of getting insurance on the exchange except during enrollment periods which means people can not “time” getting insurance. They can not wait to get sick and then get insurance only when they know they need it.
The biggest problem with the exchanges is the insurance offered is pretty shitty (but better than pre-ACA individual coverage), and many exchanges have no real competition or even no competition offered. This is due to flaws in the design of the exchanges (making them per state) and not providing a public option that would always participate in every exchange and set a ceiling on prices.
Yes, but how much were they going up? Here’s a chart:
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-health-insurance-premiums/
You may note a difference in rate of change before, during, and after the ACA in its full form.
I don’t see the problem with enrollment periods, that seems like a reasonable restriction to me. I definitely prefer a public option, but we don’t have the congressional support to get that. Didn’t then, don’t now. I’m unfamiliar with the amount of competition in less-served areas.
According to Howard Dean, who was DNC chair at the time and party to the negotiations, Lieberman could have been arm-twisted into supporting the public option, but Obama didn’t care enough to fight for it.
Doesn’t surprise me, I liked Lieberman. Problem is you’d simultaneously piss off the neo-lib faction.
And China.
Obama’s second term was spent mostly in the Middle East where there was no winning move. ObamaCare had potential but was neutered out the gate, Trump’s dismantling just put it out of its misery.
See: better ex-pres than pres.
E: His first campaign was legendary though. There was something in the zeitgeist that the left has never recaptured since. Typing this, I’m wondering that’s the same feeling Trumpers have about their movement, except for the complete opposite reasons.
I don’t see where he went wrong in China, he didn’t really do a lot, and there wasn’t a lot to be done. ISIS massacring the Yazidis after stealing all the military equipment we left behind was something we had a responsibility to address, though.
Obamacare was neutered by the repealing of the federal penalty for violating the mandate aspect of it. This was during Trump’s term. Unless you’re referring to something else.
It’s one of those democrats-are-bad-because-republicans-vote-against-it arguments.
Letting the Chinese relationship get so bad and one-sided. Not heading off fent and letting the Midwest continue to rot, and letting the whole thing come to a head with Trump’s presidency.
How exactly did the Chinese relationship get so “bad and one-sided”? What would you have liked to see?
China repeatedly and flagrantly violated WTO rules, imposed restrictions on US companies, pushed US companies out of the Chinese market, forced technology transfers, forced joint-ventures, nationalized foreign-owned companies, aggressively manipulated currency markets to keep Chinese goods cheap, engaged in dumping to put foreign competition out of business (ex: rare earth metal mining, solar panels).
Obama refused to address any of this. Even obvious things like the postal union rules causing the USPS to lose money subsidizing the import of Chinese products making it cheaper to ship from China than inside the US.
Then there was the whole Fentanyl thing which is very obviously China waging a new opium war against the US.
All this lead directly to the collapse of the Democrats in the midwest and the rise of Trump.
Yes, they do engage in a whole ton of unfair business practices. How do you think we should address this? I agree on the postal subsidies, incidentally.
Regarding fent, it wasn’t a thing yet in 2016.
Obama should have declared globalization dead, accused China of killing it by not playing by the rules, and started fighting the trade war that Trump and Biden have been fighting. If he had done that in 2014 or earlier Trump never would have gotten elected.
He definitely should not have spent his entire second term fighting for the TPP harder than he ever fought for anything prior to Obamacare, rebranding it several times and then finally and laughably insisting that it was his answer to Chinese aggression. “My solution is to globalize even harder.” – Barack Obama
I don’t personally support a trade war, I think it strengthens the Chinese position in the long term by reducing the amount of economic leverage we have over them.
Globalization, whether we like it or not, simply isn’t dead. It came about due to things like airplanes and cargo ships. It’s not feasible to undo this without losing our advantages on the global stage.
DNC shit their pants when Bernie was polling well