Good riddance to Joe Biden, one of America’s most disastrous presidents

The old centrist’s credentials lie in tatters, with America now facing the prospect of a radical Harris administration

On Monday night, Biden took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to bid an emotional farewell.Outside there had been significant unrest, with hundreds of keffiyeh-clad Gaza activists marching downtown to accuse Kamala Harris of “genocide” in Gaza.
Four people had been detained by the police when they managed to break through a security perimeter that had been set up around the venue. In one snapshot, a tall thug wearing women’s clothing was filmed berating police officers in an unusually deep voice.
Quite obviously, this was not just about Gaza. This was a clash of worldviews, with Western values of freedom and liberal democracy being assailed by the trendy new radicalism, a mélange of old-fashioned socialism and woke fundamentalism. It all put me in mind of Ronald Reagan’s battles with the Left.
As Biden departs weeping from the stage, it is natural to consider his legacy. Perhaps that was part of the reason for his tears. Whereas Reagan inherited a divided country but successfully united it through the force of his charisma and solid values, Biden inherited a divided country from Donald Trump, promised to unify it, and left it more divided than ever before, with an orange sun rising once again on the horizon. It is hard to look upon his period in office as an untrammelled success.
Partly, this has been because the 46th president has allowed himself to be pulled hither and thither by the increasingly militant progressive wing of his party, which has attempted to dictate policy on issues ranging from foreign affairs to rent controls. Biden dithered, capitulated, and triangulated, losing both his values and his overseas allies in the process – all for him to lose his chance at a second term, pushed out without so much as a how’s your father by a Democratic machine still heavily influenced by the Obamas.
Perhaps that is what lay behind Biden’s response to the thugs in Chicago. “Those protesters out in the streets, they have a point,” he told the convention, adding: “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” The blatant both-sideism – only one side was attacked in the most savage and unprovoked fashion, only one side is restricting its aggression to military targets, only one side is a democracy, and only one side are jihadi butchers – was bad enough. But it was the “appeasement”, to borrow Reagan’s bête noir, that betrayed the most damning indictment of Biden’s time in office.
His lamentable remarks at the DNC are consistent with months of rhetorical hostility towards his Middle Eastern ally. It is no exaggeration to say that Biden has publicly criticised Israel much more than he has criticised Hamas. Such moral relativism from the highest office has inflamed America’s domestic tensions, with contemptible scenes of anti-Semitic violence on American campuses after October 7 still fresh in the minds of voters. By contrast, when Reagan, as Governor of California, faced widespread civil disobedience on campus in the Sixties, he took the college authorities to task: “no more appeasement”. 
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy understood that the true enemy was not Fidel Castro but the Soviet Union, which was pulling the strings of anti-western subversion around the world. Reagan came to office with that same understanding of the seriousness of the struggle. He responded by enacting an uncompromising strategy of containment and pressure against Moscow which on a few short years, resulted in its collapse.
What a contrast with Biden. His deplorable withdrawal from Afghanistan handed the territory to terrorists and sent our enemies the message that the US does not stand by its allies; all you need to do is wait it out and grind the superpower down, and you will be handed your victory on a platter. A direct line can be drawn from that debacle to the Ukraine war.
Biden’s policy towards Israel in its hour of need, while including many crucial gestures of support like the two aircraft carriers despatched to the Eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath of October 7, has been sporadic, involving several enforced pauses in the fighting which have depleted Israel’s resources and pointlessly delayed victory.
Strategically, the Americans have shown little understanding of the region, the enemy, the deception of Hamas propaganda or even the practicalities of warfighting, insisting for example that Rafah could not be safely evacuated only to be proven wrong when Israel did just that.
The problem runs deeper still. The current geopolitical moment provides an uncanny echo of the Cold War, but instead of the Soviet Union pulling the strings, it is Iran. Reagan understood that Moscow was behind the noose that was tightening around America, both from abroad and from within. Today, Iran is the “head of the octopus”, with its proxy tentacles reaching out into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, even creeping into London and Washington. 
Weakness is the enemy of any presidency. Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas have mounted their most audacious attacks when Biden has projected uncertainty. Staunch allies, feeling the sting of abandonment, are quietly recalculating. At home, Biden’s old centrist credentials lie in tatters, with America now facing the prospect of a radical and divisive Harris administration. Where is the heir to Reagan when you need him?