President Biden’s reelection strategy is coming into focus – attack Donald Trump, woo suburban women with talk about abortion, and scare voters with talk of “threats” to democracy. Notably missing? Any triumphal discussion of achievements resulting from successful policies implemented by the Biden Administration. That’s no surprise – Joe Biden’s presidency has been a total failure, and has left America and Americans in far worse shape than before he took office.
Let me start with the obvious: Joe Biden is the worst president of my lifetime.
In his debate with President Jimmy Carter, then-candidate Ronald Reagan famously asked voters to consider, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Americans asking themselves that question today would be hard-pressed to answer “yes.”
For starters, they’ve been robbed of purchasing power by Biden’s inflation – inflation that reached heights not seen since Carter was in office. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Calculator, a basket of goods that cost $100 when Joe Biden took office in January 2021 would today cost $117.27. That’s the worst inflation over a first three years in office since Carter’s first three years in office. It’s the equivalent of a secret tax foisted on the American population without benefit of a vote in Congress, and that means there’s no one to hold accountable – other than the man whose policy decisions essentially took money out of your pocket, President Biden.
Moreover, Joe Biden is personally untrustworthy and corrupt. His personal history of lying and embellishing and breaking promises is legendary. He lied about his personal life, he lied about his academic credentials, he lied about his professional life, and he lied about his relationship to his son’s business. Testimony before Congress has made clear that despite his denials, he has been an active participant in his family’s corrupt business practices. (RELATED: JENNY BETH MARTIN: Nikki Haley Should See The Writing On The Wall)
He made a conscious decision to open our southern border to invasion by illegal aliens. Since he launched his open-borders policy, more than 7 million illegal aliens have been encountered at the southern border and released into the interior of our country. Add another 1.8 million “known got-aways” – individuals we know evaded apprehension as they crossed into our country illegally – and who knows how many got-aways that we do not know of? They have brought with them human trafficking, sex trafficking, and drug trafficking. The fentanyl that poisons our sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, comes to America across Biden’s open borders, and it’s contributed to more than 112,000 deaths by drug overdose in 2023 – the first time that number has ever crossed 112,000 for a 12-month period.
Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 led directly to the deaths of 13 American servicemen and servicewomen and sent a signal of weakness to America’s adversaries abroad. They took notice, and they took action. Russia’s Vladimir Putin – whose troops had crossed Russia’s border with Ukraine with impunity eight years earlier, when Biden was vice president – sent tens of thousands of troops across that border in a new, direct assault on Kyiv, and has fought for two years since to destroy Ukraine, in what has become the largest land war on European soil since World War II.
Biden’s reversal of the Trump Administration’s policies regarding Iran has been similarly disastrous. In search of a renewed nuclear deal with Tehran – which wasn’t a good idea when the Obama-Biden Administration first pursued it in 2015, and certainly wasn’t any better an idea in 2021 – Biden brought back veterans of the Obama-Biden Administration to conduct negotiations with the Iranian radicals. As an inducement to Iran, Biden stopped enforcing U.S. sanctions against Iranian oil – and, as a result, Iranian oil exports grew from 775,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, bringing Tehran another $32 billion to $35 billion, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, money that can be used to support Iran’s terrorist proxies. Despite the administration’s efforts, Iran has refused to reenter the inspection regime, and has instead continued to make progress toward a nuclear weapon. Yet the Biden Administration saw fit to free up first $6 billion, and then another $10 billion for Iran’s use, even as Iran continues to fund and direct terrorist activity against U.S. personnel and interests – including the deaths of three U.S. servicemen and the wounding of dozens of others in Jordan last weekend. (RELATED: TERENCE P. JEFFREY: You May Have Missed This, But Biden Delivered A Real Head-Scratching Speech Over The Weekend)
Biden’s woke policies in the military have led to the worst recruiting crisis for our armed forces since they went all-volunteer in the 1970s. His pursuit of a radical climate agenda has ended the days of America’s status as a net oil exporter and returned us to being dependent on foreign imports, which leads to higher prices for gas at home and gives our adversaries a measure of influence and control they didn’t previously have.
Biden’s appointment of Merrick Garland to serve as Attorney General was just the first step in Biden’s plan to weaponize the federal government against his political opponents. The indictment of the leading presidential candidate of the opposition party – a first in American politics – is merely one example of the enactment of that plan.
It’s easy to see why Joe Biden plans a negative campaign against Donald Trump. He couldn’t run a positive campaign if he wanted to.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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