Six Months of Joe Biden: What Has the President Wrought?

It has been six months since Joe Biden moved into the White House. His primary campaign promise was to return the nation to what it was before Trump – the Obama days, a glorious era, he seems to think – but Biden had quite a few big ideas of his own as well. After half a year in office, what has the president accomplished?

Legislative Agenda

Thus far, Biden has signed 22 bills into law, and few are major legislative victories. How does that stack up compared to other presidents? Well, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton all beat Biden’s six-month total in their first 100 days. That’s 76, 55, 28, and 24, respectively, for those keeping track. Biden does get some bragging rights, however. Of the laws signed so far, five relate to his COVID-19 recovery plan – and four of those enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Then there’s Juneteenth. Biden will get to be remembered always as the president who signed that federal holiday into existence – another bipartisan movement.

But that’s about where the friendly vibes end. The Democrats got the much-hyped American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to Biden’s desk, but not through bipartisanship. The Rescue Plan was passed in the Senate using reconciliation, a process that bypasses the filibuster in some cases. The bill squeaked by 50-49 in the upper chamber and 219-212 in the House. The willingness to abandon negotiations didn’t sit well with many – including Senate Democrats Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), whose defense of the filibuster may be the only thing between America and a handful of other laws – like another $4 trillion spent in what Dems call “human infrastructure,” voting reform law aimed at crippling the ability of states to secure elections, and the gutting of religious freedom.

Pandemic Panic

The Biden administration hasn’t completely failed in its endeavor to vaccinate the public. Despite none of the COVID-19 vaccines actually being FDA approved yet, around half the nation’s adult population is believed to have taken the jab. That’s no small feat, and Biden does get to claim some credit there. But it hasn’t all been rainbows and sunshine on this front, either. Vaccinations are slowing, and July 4 came and went without the country even approaching that 70% vaccinated status Biden talked about. Now there’s a new variant, which seems to be easier to contract and recover from. People are still catching COVID, vaccinated or not, and there have been many cases reported of people suffering adverse and even deadly reactions to the vaccines themselves.

In the panic to get everyone to comply with the official narrative on the pandemic, Biden has floated ideas like going door-to-door to get folks to vaccinate and monitoring text messages for “misinformation” regarding the pandemic. The administration has even gone so far as meeting with popular social media influencers and platforms to spread the approved message and flag “problematic posts” on Facebook, signaling the company to take action against what the White House calls dangerous misinformation. Biden himself accused Facebook of killing people by not doing more to restrict all but the approved narrative, but had to walk back his comments shortly after.

Media Protection

How has the media portrayed the president these last six months? Even before he took office, the news media and social media alike did all that could be done to hide or discredit any possibility of “widespread” election fraud. The Hunter Biden laptop scandal received the same treatment, of course. They’ve been just as good to him in the months since, ignoring or even covering for his many gaffes, like the time he called Kamala Harris president, or forgetting the secretary of defense’s name – it’s Lloyd Austin, by the way, not “the guy who runs that outfit over there.”

As far as the media goes, Biden – like most influential Democrats – can generally do no wrong. The revelation that the White House was manipulating the COVID narrative through social media came after a press pool reporter basically asked for more government censorship. It’s hard to imagine a more friendly press.

It’s the Economy – It’s Stupid

Most everyone is familiar with the saying “It’s the economy, stupid,” but right now the saying best sums up the administration’s handling of economic issues. Overall jobless claims are down, but there are still around 3.2 million workers unemployed. Why so many? According to a recent poll, more than 1.8 million turned down work because it would have cost them massive unemployment benefits. Inflation – or, as Liberty Nation’s Andrew Moran calls it, Bidenflation – continues to rise with no end in sight. Though the Fed assures us this is temporary, how can it be? As Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) put it, “every single thing Biden has done has pointed in the direction of higher prices, from the trillions in spending, to the unemployment bonuses, to the energy production and distribution restrictions.”

Six Months Down …

In just six months, Biden has presided over all this, as well as the militarization of the nation’s capital, a disaster at the southern border, and the apparent collapse in relations with China and Russia (Biden really does need to work on his habit of calling people killers). He has enjoyed some victories, but at what cost? The bill will eventually come due for most of his legislative success – and with the economy in its current state, that might well be while he’s still in office. What will the next six months – or the next three and a half years – bring?

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Read more from James Fite.