“It has been a year of difficulty but also a year of enormous progress”: studded with questions in a crowded press conference in the East Room on the eve of his first year at the White House, Joe Biden tries to revive his presidency, marked over the past six months by a series of debacles and a slump in polls, which now give it around 40%, worse than Donald Trump after the first halfway point. A thud shared with his increasingly evanescent deputy Kamala Harris, who in these first 12 months has failed to stand out as his possible heir but with whom the president has promised to run in 2024. For this Biden has tried to proudly exalt the glass half full, lining up all the successes of his administration and dispensing optimism on the unsolved problems. So here are the “historic advances” in the economy that a year ago “was on the verge of collapse” and which now boasts an unemployment rate of 3.9% (versus 6.4%) and a record 6, 4 million new jobs (against the loss of 9.4 million). Or the turning point in the pandemic, with 74% of adults fully vaccinated (up from 1% a year ago) and 95% of schools open (up from 46%).
“Now we are in a better situation, we will not go back to lockdowns and school closures, but we must vaccinate and protect ourselves,” he stressed. The successes also boasted are the 1.9 trillion anti Covid aid plan and the 1.250 billion one on infrastructures. And, on the international level, the relaunch of the American leadership, of alliances, of the defense of human rights, facing autocrats and tyrants. But by the time he took office, amid the still-open wounds of the assault on Congress, Biden made more ambitious promises, including that of uniting and pacifying America after the tumultuous chaos of the Trump presidency. His staff had even suggested comparisons to Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society. Now, on the other hand, he finds himself dealing with the frustrations and disappointments of a country even more divided than before, partly due to a predecessor who decided to stay on the scene and continue to ride the false accusations of electoral fraud. But he denies making “excessive promises,” while admitting he did not anticipate such a level of Republican opposition.
The decline began in the summer. The first mistake was to promise that July 4 would be the holiday of independence from the virus: then the Delta and Omicron variants arrived, which plunged the country back into the emergency with record data. And in recent days the Supreme Court has canceled the vaccine requirement in large companies. Now Biden is betting on home tests and free masks, but that’s not enough. In August there was a flop on the international arena, where the commander in chief had guaranteed that “America is back”: the chaotic withdrawal of Afghanistan, followed by the submarine crisis with France. All the main foreign policy dossiers remain open with no prospects on the horizon: the new cold war with China (with the uncertainty still over the removal of tariffs), the stalemate in nuclear negotiations with Iran (“but it is not yet time to abandon them “), the resumption of missile launches by North Korea. And, first of all, the dangerous tug-of-war with Moscow over Ukraine, in which he warned Vladimir Putin: “I think he does not want a large-scale war but that he is testing the US and NATO”, he said, hypothesizing a minor raid. “However it will be a disaster for Russia if it invades Ukraine”, he warned, evoking “severe sanctions” and “human losses”. The economic recovery, on the other hand, is poisoned by supply chain bottlenecks, expensive gasoline and 7% inflation (at most after 40 years): the recipe is to make the economy “more productive”, he explained, also appreciating that the Fed recalibrates aid. The latest setback are two Democratic senators who, due to the small majority of the party in the upper house, block the rest of the president’s agenda: the 1,900 billion plan for welfare, education and climate (but he is “confident that it will pass much “), the electoral laws to protect the vote (he expressed optimism on these too), as well as the restrictions on weapons, police and immigration reforms, which have returned to record levels on the border with Mexico. The president was elected for four years, not one, he gets his hands on the White House. But Biden has just over a month to change course and launch a reset: up to the State of the Union speech on March 1 in front of Congress. Then it will be too late to avoid a rout in the November Midterm election, where Republicans – already ahead in voting preferences – could take over both houses of parliament by turning it into a lame duck.
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Source From: Ansa
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