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Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment so far is . . .

I was thinking once again about the myth of deadlock the other day, and in particular I was thinking about what Joe Biden has managed to get done in his first 18 months. Here's a list of big things, ranked from top to bottom:

  1. Afghanistan withdrawal
  2. $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus
  3. Infrastructure bill
  4. Climate change bill
  5. Rallying the world to assist Ukraine
  6. More than 40 federal judges appointed—a near record rate
  7. CHIPS Act
  8. PACT Act
  9. Student loan forgiveness
  10. Electoral Count Reform Act (probably)

The bill at the bottom will move up the list when it passes. For now, however, Republicans remain an obstacle to enacting it.

But the one that really gets me is #1. For years liberals have been saying that we can't do any more good in Afghanistan and we need to withdraw—even if it's ugly and allows the Taliban to take over.

Well, it was ugly and the Taliban took over. But even now, a year later, it seems like we remain traumatized by those pictures of the first day, as if a rescue operation of this size under these circumstances could possibly start up without problems. The truth is that everyone showed monumental courage throughout the entire month of the airlift. The military risked their lives daily and rescued 124,000 people—including all but a few hundred Americans—under the worst circumstances imaginable. Since then nearly a thousand more people have been quietly flown out. The State Department moved their desks to the Kabul airport and dealt with a huge crush of work made harder by sabotage from the Trump administration. Biden stuck to his guns despite enormous pressure to cave in and stay longer.

Nothing is perfect. Big operations conducted under difficult circumstances always have a rough start. Desperate people always create chaos. Plans never survive contact with the enemy. The US certainly underestimated the incompetence of the Afghani army; the speed of the Taliban's takeover; and the cowardice of Ashrif Ghani and other senior Afghani officials who abandoned their country during the airlift.

But in the end, this was the biggest and probably most successful air rescue in history. It isn't surprising that Republicans criticize it. That's their job. But it's stunning that even Democrats have mostly stayed quiet, refusing to full-throatedly support Biden and the withdrawal. It's an act of both moral gutlessness and political stupidity.

UPDATE: The climate bill was signed into law on August 16th, so I've moved it up to the fourth spot. If and when ECRA is passed, it will move up too.

68 thoughts on “Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment so far is . . .

  1. realrobmac

    Thank you. I agree 100% about Afghanistan. Dems and the Biden admin should be shouting from the rooftops about the huge success, the competence and bravery of our troops and so on. They say a liberal is someone who won't take his own side in an argument. During the withdrawal I watched John Oliver and he was giving the same conventional wisdom "scenes of chaos" critical take as the rest of the news media and I was so angry I literally have not watched his show since. Don't miss it.

    1. Jerry O'Brien

      I agree, too, about Afghanistan.

      I like John Oliver more because he's a good comedian than because he offers well-considered political takes. He'll usually take the easy laugh.

  2. clawback

    Yeah, all of this. You really have to wonder what the critics would consider to be a successful ending of a war while under fire. Were they all born yesterday?

    The only thing I'd disagree with here is that no, it's not the Republicans' job to criticize the withdrawal. That they're doing it is shameful and unpatriotic.

    1. KenSchulz

      It would have been OK to quietly review the operation in coöperation with State and the DoD, to learn lessons for future. What the GOP did was far out of line with the tradition, ‘politics stops at the water’s edge. But trampling norms is what the Greed Over People Party is all about now.

  3. Master Slacker

    Concur completely. Compared to what happened in 1975 it would seem we actually learned something, at least enough to get most people out this time. The RNM has made such a do of Afghanistan, I could only wish Bernie's crowd could get behind the success just for contrapuntal balance.

  4. iagredo

    Amen. The non-news of non-dead US servicemembers in a non-useful war doesn't have the impact it should. I bet there are a lot of ground pounders who have thought to themselves 'Thank god I'm not facing another tour in that #$%@-hole" One can feel for a large number of suffering Afghans without committing the US military to an endless occupation. As the years go by, Biden will increasingly get the proper credit for not doubling down on the sunk cost of that war.

    1. shadow

      This. American interest in foreign politics is never high and largely dictated by how much they have to worry at home. Afghanistan long feel off the top 10 list, and so Dems have no reason to bring it up.

      That said, it is an indictment how well the Biden administration handled the withdrawal and how it was reported in the media. 24-hour news is the bane of actual accountability in government.

  5. OverclockedApe

    Sadly it's too easy to target the downsides, but has the Right still be active in their silo? It'd be hard for the D's to overcome the initial reporting so it's not surprising they don't want to take time away from other topics but the R's seemed to have moved on as well since Trump deflated this a bit while in office.

    That said Biden's campaign should be primed for the 2024 season when voters will be listening more.

  6. jte21

    The decision to leave Afghanistan like we did was Trump's. He left Biden with a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation: We agreed to leave by a certain date. Moving that date or pulling out of the agreement would have triggered a ferocious response from the Taliban and simply intensified a war most Americans wanted to see end. If we pulled out like Trump wanted, the government was going to collapse within days or weeks and everything would go pear-shaped. Biden bet the latter would be less of a clusterfuck than the former. Was it? That's a hypothetical, but at the end of the day, if he'd gone with the first option, we'd still be fighting and dying in Afghanistan with no end in sight and now we're not. And we're still taking out Al Qaeda leaders despite not having boots on the ground.

    Good on him.

    1. kennethalmquist

      Actually, Biden did move the date, but your basic point is correct. If Trump had been a normal President, when Biden took office the United States would have already had a plan in place to withdraw from Afghanistan by May 1 deadline specified in the treaty. Instead, it was left to the Biden Administration to deal figure out how to do the withdrawal, and the Biden Administration concluded that the end of August was the fastest that this could be accomplished. So Biden moved the date but otherwise stuck with the treaty.

      1. DButch

        The Taliban tacitly agreed to that date. Also don't forget that TFG pulled US troops out of other bases without even telling the Afghan government or it's troops what we were doing. But TFG did announce an agreement turning things over to the Taliban - also without consulting with the then current government.

        That greatly contributed to the speed with which the government and military of Afghanistan collapsed to the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban started making side deals with government groups and troops - surrender on the installment plan, so to speak. By May, it was pretty much done for all practical purposes. If Pres. Biden had tried to stay beyond August, there very well could have been a major disaster.

  7. different_name

    I really don't get (D) behavior on Afghanistan. OK, well, I do, but it is pathetic.

    Even if you get your paycheck from The Blob, you should be supportive. I'm not even talking about the Republican Omerta thing. The war had to end at some point, and "4 years from now" is a coward's answer.

    Even in strictly poitical terms, there's an easy answer. "Trump did it, I had to abide by our nation's treaties. Even is an animate poop-emoji was president at the time, the US keeps its promises" is a great answer.

    Once again I'm reminded of the words of Will Rogers: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

  8. D_Ohrk_E1

    Most of the time, you apply your moderate filter. This time, you've decided to apply your liberal one. There is no way Biden should be touting the US pullout of Afghanistan as his top accomplishment. If he brings it up, most Americans will complain about the rapid collapse of the Afghan gov't and the chaotic scenes of people hanging onto the planes as they lifted off. On top of that, we did not evacuate all of our allies.

    The United States has evacuated only about 3 percent of Afghans who worked for the American government and applied for special visas, leaving behind an estimated 78,000. -- https://bityl.co/Dbzp

    Biden's polling took big hits between July and September -- https://bityl.co/Dc0w-- with August being the tipping point where he went underwater -- https://bityl.co/Dc1m -- and the biggest newsmaker during that period was the Afghan pullout (well, that and Delta). Even though a majority of Americans wanted to pull out of Afghanistan, they hold him responsible specifically for the chaos they saw on TV.

    If Americans and the world expected Ukraine to fall within hours or days, look to Afghanistan. Everyone saw what happened in Afghanistan even after the US had spent decades trying to stabilize and train its forces, and applied that reality-check to expectations of Ukraine going up against Russia.

    If anything, our support and the success in Ukraine to withstand a Russian invasion should be tops. And OMG I can't believe you left out al-Zawahiri. His death is the capstone of 9/11, not the pullout of Afghanistan.

    But if you adamantly believe leaving Afghanistan is his top achievement, it's just too soon to be touting it as a success. We don't know the full consequences of that withdrawal, good or bad, in the immediate aftermath to ascertain whether or not it was a successful policy goal. For now, at best, it only counts as a neutral achievement.

    1. zaphod

      I think he should tout it. His approval rating will probably not sink lower as a result. I'm sure if this happened with Republicans in power, they would not hesitate to spin it as a win. And likely succeed.

      But of course, with Biden as prez, Republicans spun it the other way. The fact that the press went along meant that Americans also went along. This has led me to question the seriousness of the American polity.

      I have discovered another American who has written about this; a guy by the name of Tom Nichols. He wrote a book which was reviewed here:

      https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55332376-our-own-worst-enemy

      "Nichols traces the illiberalism of the 21st century to the growth of unchecked narcissism, rising standards of living, global peace, and a resistance to change."

      At first glance, Nichols echoes my fear that America is becoming an unserious, extremely selfish country.

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        His approval rating will probably not sink lower as a result.

        That depends on what subjects one talks about.

        Fighting for abortion rights? Check.
        Closing out 9/11 by getting al-Zawahiri? Check.
        Defending democracy at home and abroad? Check.
        Taking big steps to tackle climate change? Check.
        Cutting future debt and inflation? Check.
        Stabilizing Medicare and capping prescription drugs? Check.
        Getting the first Black woman on the Supreme Court? Check.
        First Black Vice President? Check.
        Females making up 50% of his cabinet? Check.
        Bringing home chip manufacturing? Check.
        Strongest economic recovery and shorted recession in US history? Check.

        Leaving Afghanistan? Ehh, let's not bring it up.

  9. bluegreysun

    “even Democrats have refused to full-throatedly support Biden and the withdrawal.”

    If I had to guess, it might be because you’re talking about a war the US lost. Politicians like to talk about, and home-teamers like to cheer for, winners.

    I don’t think image consultants would agree that “talking about competently managed the wind-down to a losing war” is a vote-getter. Biden and almost all asshole politicians consistently get cheers from saber rattling and actually blowing people up. The past two days for instance.

  10. cld

    In responding to any complaint of a Republican Democrats need to start every statement with

    'That ugly freak is a lying whore.'

    Anything else is a losing position, in every case.

  11. jharp

    A no brainer.

    Biden’s biggest accomplishment was to send Trump packing.

    One of the most significant events in the history of the country.

    Anything after that is gravy.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      & after all the talk in 2021 that El Jefe was losing weight in his first postpresidency without all those Air Force One M&Ms, meaning he was tanned, rested, & ready to reclaim his rightful office in the White House in 2024, the latest pictures from the LIV Tour: Bedminster show El Jefe is in his Fat Boi Summer in 2022.

      1. xi-willikers

        Honestly thought until told otherwise that the picture of decrepit “Jefe” was an old woman with a MAGA hat on. Really shocking

        I’m not sure he’ll make it to 2024. Maybe 50:50 odds

  12. Justin

    I live in Michigan and just voted in the primary. The new congressional district boundaries are such that the Democratic Party didn’t bother to have a candidate on the primary ballot in the 4th. Had to do a write in. I guess that’s not gonna flip from republican. Oh well.

  13. kenalovell

    Trump frequently brags that he ended America's forever wars, even though he didn't. His fans bellow their approval.

    Trump brays that he "had a plan" to leave Afghanistan with "dignity". His fans whoop'n'holler, and never think to ask to see the non-existent plan.

    Biden observes quietly that the withdrawal went pretty well, all things considered, and half his supporters respond "you have to be kidding!"

    Demanding the perfect while dismissing the good has become a liberal cancer. We saw it in 2010 with the ACA and we're seeing it again now. Trump Republicans, on the other hand, are relentlessly triumphal and optimistic regardless of the facts. It's become a startling difference between the parties.

    1. xi-willikers

      Agree. Wish we didn’t have the recession denial stuff either. Just say “yes we’re in a recession. Now watch this be the weakest recession of all time and we’ll add jobs the whole way through”

      For all the nostalgia for “the Trump years” from right wingers (mostly economically speaking) the economy has been pretty good the past couple years. For a post COVID recovery, damn this has been easy

      1. Jasper_in_Boston

        We may soon enter a recession, but it's not "denial" to state we're not in one yet. That's what the evidence states. Neither the US nor the EU nor the OECD uses the "two quarters in a row" definition. With good reason, if you've looked at job numbers lately.

        (I'm guessing we probably will be in a recession—hopefully a mild one—before the year is out. But I think the odds have probably increased a bit —to 30%?—that we may avoid one altogether in favor of a period of slow growth.)

        1. xi-willikers

          My argument was more of a political one than an economic one. I think Biden occasionally suffers from feeble branding. I agree by the technical definition we are not in a recession

          So in other words they ARE denying it, in this case they might just also be right haha. But there might be political value in acceptance so that Biden can take credit for its mildness and the “recovery” if you can call it that. Then again, things get spun pretty hard these days, might not work

  14. west_coast

    "But it's stunning that even Democrats have mostly stayed quiet, refusing to full-throatedly support Biden and the withdrawal."

    Kevin, if you'll recall, the press was hardcore about "yes we should leave, but not like *this*," without ever saying what the "right way" to leave would've been. Democrats were helpless in the face of this, and it's smart politics to not bring it up.

    This is not a topic that the press would treat as a "both sides" topic; rather, there would be headlines like: "democrats are touting Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal that many say was a disaster."

  15. Leo1008

    Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment so far is . . .

    Defeating Trump in 2020. Biden should go down in US and world history as an extraordinary figure just for that one accomplishment.

    There was no single issue in 2020 more important than getting rid of Trump; everything else depended on that outcome: the fate of democracies around the world, the struggle to deal with climate change, the fights for greater economic and social justice, all of it depended first and foremost on getting rid of trump.

    2020, in fact, may have been the biggest inflection point in my own lifetime. Fortunately, it's really not all that often when the world's most powerful country, and, therefore, the fate of humanity, stares so directly into a looming abyss. But the astonishing thing is that we pulled through with the best result possible: the resounding defeat of wannabe-autocrat trump.

    And, in regards to Biden, the most important fact to keep in mind is that there is no guarantee, and very little evidence that I know of, that a different Dem candidate would've also been able to defeat trump. Biden (and here I'm just speaking from memory) more or less correctly defined the 2020 election from the start: a battle for the soul of the nation. While many of the other Dem candidates were flocking towards bizarrely far-Left positions that would've been easy to caricature, Biden stuck to his centrist positions and continued to tout his main appeal to a majority of the country: he was the one who could beat trump.

    Biden came out of retirement to assume an astonishing risk. An incumbent president had not been denied reelection in almost 30 years. At his age, Biden took on a role that he knew would lead to crushing remorse and wide-spread condemnation should he fail. It was heroic, and, despite whatever happens in the rest of his presidency, we should not forget that.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      Defeating Trump in 2020. Biden should go down in US and world history as an extraordinary figure just for that one accomplishment.

      i like this president a lot. And you're right, ejecting Trump was an accomplishment. But he (or some other Democrat) needs to seal the deal with four more years, or history won't remember that accomplishment very fondly. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but that's just the plain truth.*

      *That is, if Trump gets back in, or if it's some other Republican who proceeds to eviscerate our system of free elections more efficiently than Trump was capable of.

      I suppose there's some chance—call it 15%—whereby DeSantis gets in, but proves to be merely a standard issue right winger and not an anti-democratic autocrat. Here's to hoping! But I fear this is very unlikely because MAGA has worked so assiduously to set up a system of elections nullification, a GOP president wouldn't himself really even need to be an enthusiastic autocrat. He'd simply need to sit back and accept the "help" of the democracy-haters and elections thiefs in his own party. Also, the anti-elections nullification bill before Congress A) hasn't passed yet, and B) isn't guaranteed to work as intended, especially given the existence of a hostile, right wing court majority that seems likely to embrace a crackpot theory about the omnipotence of state legislatures in the electoral process.

      1. kaleberg

        Shouldn't the press be reporting every election denier's electoral win as "He won the election. Still no evidence of vote fraud. Stay tuned."

  16. raoul

    I don’t agree that liberals are chagrined because of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the point they are is probably driven by the media. Personally, my views shifted immediately after the withdrawal. Yes, I knew the government was corrupt and DOD was selling a bill of goods but I still thought we had developed situational permanence. Turned out that that was not even close: our exit and the immediate consequences were proof of our twenty year folly.

  17. spatrick

    He's the irony. I used to be a Ron Paulite and yet who are the ones who have gotten us out of endless wars? Obama and Biden. You think I'm going to give credit to Trump for putting together a ridiculous peace deal that let 5,000 Taliban out of Afghan prisons and then wouldn't pull the trigger to withdraw U.S. troops when he had the chance? Not on your life, the coward!

    Biden bit the bullet that Trump wouldn't. That's leadership. Biden may be guilty of hyperbole but it's not his fault the Afghan military collapsed.

    One question I had about what happened a year ago? Why did the contractors pull out? Weren't their contracts with the Afghan government? Why break them? Because U.S. troops weren't there? I thought they were relying on the Afghans for security? They pull out and the Afghan air force is grounded and the army just collapsed but can you blame them when the people they were counting on for help and support just bug out on them like that! I mean if they're not going to stick it out, why do you expect the Afghans to do so?

    Now maybe it doesn't matter, given how penetrated the Afghan government was by the Taliban that the whole rickety structure was going to collapse anyways and the writing was on the wall when the deal was signed. Still, though, all the talk about fighting it out for a while their departure made all that moot.

    By the way, since Ayman al-Zawahiri has been reduced to rubble, the Taliban have to know by now there's no place in Afghanistan safe for them from U.S drones. If they try to harbor terrorists, they'll be killed too along with the terrorists. I know drone warfare drives them up a wall but, I like that. Let them wallow in how weak and helpless they look now.

    1. xi-willikers

      Disagree on Obama. Agree on Biden

      Obama did the Iraq surge, dithered on Afghanistan (even in his second term? Why?), pissed about in Syria, and meddled in Libya. Don’t think we can give him passes on forever wars

      Even on Biden, we’ll have to see how the Ukraine stuff plays out. If he shits the bed and nukes come out, he goes into the red. If the nukes come out and it’s not Biden’s fault I’ll give him a pass. But no one has been tested like this since maybe Eisenhower. Great power war is nothing to sneeze at, I’ll take 20 Afghanistans before a war with Russia

      But I take your point. At least Democrats are ashamed of their warmongering. The Republicans are too gleeful about it for my taste

      1. Jasper_in_Boston

        Obama deserves credit on not sending an army into Syria. The Blob wanted that very much. He spent some significant political capital on that one.

        Also, let's not be blinded by the admittedly deserved kudos for Joe Biden on Afghanistan: it wouldn't do us much good to be extricated from Afghanistan only to get in a shooting war with China, and yet Biden has repeatedly gone against the long-time "ambiguity" policy in favor of saying the US would indeed fight China if it moves on Taiwan. Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe you think this situation merits sending US forces to fight the PLA. But whatever it is, it's not an example of a president prudently extricating the US from imperial overstretch. It's the exact opposite: a gigantic expansion of the country's national defense burden (also one that exposes US civilians in a direct way that fighting the Taliban didn't, I'd add).

        1. Anandakos

          You do understand that a fairly unconstrained nuclear war between China and the US, while playing HELL with the environment for a decade, would also remove two billion people more or less from the human foot on the biosphere's neck, right?

          And it would be the two billion most aggressive people. Yeah, azzoles like Bolsonaro and his "opposite" Maduro would still be left in the Southern Hemisphere, but they're just penny-ante Dimestore Dictators like the world has seen for 10,000 years.

          China, especially, is a profoundly reactionary society armed with AI and the Panopticon. If they were ever to gain control of the Earth, human freedom would be smashed permanently. There would be nowhere to run, no place to hide.

          So maybe "the nukes" SHOULD come out.

        2. xi-willikers

          I agree that I don’t like the way things are trending with China. Realistically though, Biden has done a fairly good job recently when working with them. For example, getting them to sell Russia down the river during their Ukraine adventure (your usage of Blob makes me think you listen to Robert Wright, he talked about this on his recent podcast)

          I agree we need a better policy of de-escalation. Chinese history is filled with blunder after blunder on foreign policy. And now they have an autocrat whose public perception is always at risk. I’ll give those Taiwan remarks to Biden since he’s an old fart with a history of gaffes, but on the ground he’s been somewhere between de-escalation and staying the course. On those fronts, Biden has been doing a little better than his predecessors

      2. kaleberg

        A lot depends on whether Putin considers Moscow, Petrograd, the oil infrastructure in the south and so on expendable. When someone starts rattling the nuclear sabers, they are raising the table stakes.

  18. galanx

    I was having a conversation with a Republican about Biden letting the Taliban kill those Americans at the airport.
    "The Taliban disn;t kill them; ISIS did"
    "They're all the same."
    "Actually the Taliban and ISIS are enemies who kill each other."
    "The Taliban and ISIS and Iran are all working together!"
    "Actually.. Iran is Shia and" why bother?

  19. George Salt

    Add the PACT Act to that list. Senate Republicans caved and it passed 86-11.

    Kevin will have to find something else to obsess over.

  20. ProgressOne

    Remind me why the US, Afghanistan, and the world are better off now that we've withdrawn? We saved some money on defense spending and ... something else I guess.

    Trump wanted out fast. That should be a hint that it might not really be a good idea. Trump also wanted out of NATO, he exchanged love letters with the NK murderous dictator and gave the guy photo ops, he tore up the nuclear deal with Iran, he withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, and so on.

    I like Biden, and voted for him, and I'll admit it took guts for Biden to actually withdraw our troops. History will sort out if he did the right thing.

    1. xi-willikers

      Staying without winning was the wrong thing

      Maybe the Taliban will surprise us all and liberalize a little? If Vietnam is a lesson it’s that the presence of American troops has a good way of turning potential allies (the Vietnamese beat on China in 1980, makes you think) into enemies via nationalism. Letting the pot simmer for a few years might result in something good for the region

      I wonder about a world where we decided to help the Vietnamese independence movement and turned them against China rather than provoking a war. Ho Chi Minh was our buddy for a while until Kennedy got in with the French

      Taliban needed their nose bloodied after helping Al Qaeda but they seem to have learned their lesson at least a little on that front. Maybe they’ll turn things around? Weirder things have happened

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        I think Sammy "the Bull" Gravano retutning to life of crime after snitching on Gotti is the obvious analog to the Sons of Mullah Omar.

        Turning into Vietnam, but (more) Muslin isn't very likely.

    2. kenalovell

      Simple. If America hadn't withdrawn, it would by now be engaged in another full-scale war with the Taliban, having been forced to send thousands more troops back to Afghanistan last year to avoid being wiped out. The question is never why America should end the military occupation of another country, it's what extraordinary circumstances justify it continuing
      .

  21. Silver

    Just a minor reflection from a non-American: Number 4, "rallying the world to assist Ukraine". This wording is unnecessarily arrogant, insinuating that the rest of the world would not have gotten the idea, or wanted to, support and assist Ukraine if not for the Great Leader of the Importantest Country in the World. Of course the open support and initiatives from the American president are important, but it's not as if Europe would not have acted with or without the Americans in such a war in our own part of the world. This is the kind of rhetoric that annoys the rest of the world, unnecessarily perpetuating the view of Americans as arrogant and unaware of the rest of the world. The rest of the world is not dependent on the approval or encouragement of the American president to act.

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