Rob Natelson: The Biden Presidency: The Worst in History?

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How will history rate the presidency of Joe Biden?

Biden cares about his historical ranking, and frequently cites presidential surveys—notably in his last debate with Donald Trump. As he ends his term, writers have begun to assess his own performance.

Most of the assessments have been predictable: Democrats like him—largely for his domestic policies—and Republicans don’t, for policy and other reasons.

Thus far, academic historians have awarded him respectable rankings (such as this one). But the surveys are heavily biased by the fact that the academics who are polled are overwhelmingly left-of-center. Moreover, many of the surveys’ criteria for judging performance (see here and here) are disconnected from the Constitution’s actual job description of the presidency. Indeed, a few criteria contradict the constitutional plan. In some surveys, presidents win points for good relations with Congress even though the Constitution was designed to promote competition and tension between the executive and legislative branches.

Over time, however, even liberal academics change their assessments. In recent years, for example, they grudgingly have moved the liberal Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) down the list, while raising the conservative Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).

As explained below, despite the liberally-skewed criteria, Biden eventually will be remembered as one of America’s worst Presidents.

The Constitution’s Criteria

The Constitution charges the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” In other passages, some less overt, it charges him with administering the executive branch, recommending policies to Congress, vetoing bad bills, appointing good federal officers, and conducting foreign policy.

Most of Biden’s “achievements” are outside the Constitution’s list. Thus, one Democratic writer credits him with “Creating more than 16 million jobs” and “Reducing health insurance and prescription drug costs for millions of Americans.” But the Constitution does not assign these tasks to the President, but to the states and to Congress.

Other Biden’s initiatives actually were at war with the Constitution. One reason behind the Constitution was to forestall efforts to transfer debt burdens to innocent parties. Yet this is exactly what Biden tried to do, with proposals for increasing debt on future generations and transferring the burden of student loans to the taxpayers.

Liberal Academics’ Criteria

While the presidential surveys pay some attention to the Constitution’s criteria, they focus mostly on non-constitutional factors. Liberal survey respondents apply these non-constitutional factors to upgrade Democratic Presidents and downgrade Republicans.

Hence, Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) wins points for pursuing “equal justice for all.” Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) is marked up for “economic management” (despite the historical record to the contrary).  Barack Obama (2009-2017) is ranked high for “moral authority.” And John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) gets credit for “vision.”

On the other hand, the academic respondents mark down almost every modern Republican president for alleged lack of intelligence.

How Does Biden Rank?

In an August, 2023 Townhall column, I issued a preliminary assessment of Biden’s presidency using factors—both constitutional and extra-constitutional؅—commonly employed by liberal historians. I found that even after injecting liberal bias, Biden was still headed for the bottom.

Let’s update the findings:

Foreign policy: Biden found a world in relative peace and left it with major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. He halted the American-brokered progress toward Arab-Israeli treaty-making. Foreign policy mistakes led to the resurrection of the power of Iran. He did redeem himself in part by making clear that a Communist Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be met with American military force.

Military policy: The most visible military event was the Afghanistan-withdrawal debacle. But also concerning has been the crumbling of military readiness and the imposition of “woke” policies that divert attention and impair recruitment.

Law enforcement: Biden’s refusal to enforce federal immigration law ranks as the greatest failure to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” since the days of James Buchanan (1857-1861).

Scandal: Corruption has dragged down the rankings of Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding, even though both men were personally honest. By contrast, there now seems little doubt that Biden benefitted personally from his son’s influence-peddling schemes. At the end of his tenure, Biden compounded his guilt by issuing his son a full pardon. Even many supporters were outraged.

Moral Authority/Demagogy/Polarization: Divisive rhetoric tarnished the reputation of Andrew Johnson (1865-69), but Biden’s rhetoric may have been worse. Particularly vicious were claims that Trump supporters were “semi-fascists,” along with apparently calculated efforts to intimidate and anger.

A telling tidbit: Biden may have been the first occupant of the White House to abandon presidential dignity by employing obscenities publicly and repeatedly.

Equal justice for all vs. abuse of power

John Adams (1797-1801) loses points for signing the 1798 Sedition Act. Richard Nixon (1969-1974) is marked down for attempting to cover-up a petty burglary. Wilson loses points for civil rights violations.

None of this matches the record of the Biden administration, which conducted “arguably . . . the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history”—at least in peacetime. The administration was deeply involved in suppressing disfavored news and commentary.

Biden backed up his divisive rhetoric by deploying the federal justice system against political opponents on an unprecedented scale. Courts normally timid about enforcing constitutional limits on presidential power had to repeatedly blunt administration overreach.

Intelligence. Presidential surveys demote Wilson because a stroke impaired him during the final year of his term. But despite mendacious denial, we now know that Biden has been mentally impaired throughout his entire presidency.

Vision. It is difficult to construct what, if any, particular vision Biden had for America. His signature legislation—the so-called Inflation Reduction Act consisted mostly of special interest handouts and did not reduce inflation.

Conclusion

Most Presidents near the bottom of survey lists are there principally because of a failure on one or two survey criteria—Harding for corruption, for example, and Buchanan for failing to enforce the law. What is striking about the Biden presidency is its abject failure over a wide range of criteria.

It is sobering that we have lived through one of the worst administrations in U.S. history and that, despite this record, Biden’s chosen successor lost the popular vote by less than two percentage points.

Yet it is a tribute to our Constitution that America survived even this administration, and it is reassuring that the electorate finally decided to end it.

Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional historian and former constitutional law professor who is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver. He authored “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015) and contributes to the Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.”