Attribution: Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
How can a president of the United States be so ignored, overshadowed, and underappreciated? How can the monumental accomplishments of this man, our current commander-in-chief, be so quickly forgotten? He almost single-handedly lifted our nation out of the Covid crisis and jump-started our economy. But he gets little or no credit. It’s as if he’s invisible.
President Biden passed the American Rescue Act, a huge infrastructure bill, reduced—and tried to eliminate—student loans, pushed through The Inflation Reduction Act (which—among other things—lowered drug prices and allowed Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies), lowered the unemployment rate to its lowest number in decades, protected marriage and other rights for LGBTQ+ citizens, and appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. And there’s even more. Yet he rarely gets credit. It’s as if he is invisible.
He cannot seem to buy a kind word or a pat on the back from his constituents for supporting them. His approval rating in the polls has been hovering around forty percent for months. Of course, he is eighty-one years old, and seniors are, almost by definition in our culture, invisible. And he looks old. He shuffles, he takes his time, and sometimes he rambles. He seems fragile. And yet, like many seniors, he is shrewd, intelligent, experienced, and aware. He knows what he’s doing—especially compared to his predecessor.
This president speaks softly and does not bluster, pontificate, or rant. He does not wrap himself in the flag. He is a unifier who always seeks to collaborate, to find common ground across the aisle. He’s even managed to work with this particularly perverse and inflexible Congress, negotiating a budget bill with them in time to stop a government shutdown a few months ago. He often speaks of his background, growing up as a working-class family, and the pain his family suffered when his father lost his job. He endured horrible loss when he lost his first wife and child in a car accident.
Mr. Biden has forged policies that reflect his background, attacking price-gouging by drug companies, battling inflation, and working to create jobs for every American—most of which he’s succeeded at. He supports affordable health insurance, labor unions, Social Security and Medicare. He’s been working to make higher education more affordable, cancelling thousands of excessive student loans.
And yet, in today’s volatile political climate, he almost seems like an afterthought, like the wise old grandpa sitting in the corner during a heated family argument—the wise old grandpa who has the wisdom and experience to solve our problems if we would only listen to him. But this old man remains an afterthought, invisible sitting in his Lay-Z-boy in the corner. He only shines in the national spotlight when the opposition attacks him.
His detractors say he’s too old for the office (even though the leading Republican candidate is only a couple of years younger than him). They malign and harass his son Hunter, who is under indictment for a number of crimes, alleging that he and his dad are political conspirators trying to take over the government, which has led to a mostly bogus impeachment inquiry of President Biden—an inquiry that some Republicans themselves say has no merit.
Part of the problem is today’s toxic political atmosphere. Personal attacks, rants, tirades, and even physical violence have become part of our political discourse. Marjory Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and—of course—Donald Trump, have engaged in—and reveled in—verbal violence, attacking their opponents and riling up their base to the point of inciting real physical violence. Mr. Trump has been put under a gag order to prevent him from attacking court officials in his New York fraud case after his tweets resulted in threats of physical harm to court staff. Members of school boards nationwide have been threatened and harassed by members of the MAGA faithful.
This sort of elevated anger and toxic discourse has resulted in high drama, which, in turn, has focused the national news spotlight on the antics going in our nation’s capital. From the Republican (self-imposed) difficulties in choosing a Speaker of the House (twice) to ex-president Trump’s myriad legal difficulties to the Republican House’s attempts to discredit Hunter Biden in closed-door hearings to Representative Boebert’s juvenile misbehaviors at a public theater, the American public has been distracted from the real work being by President Biden, the grown-up in the room.
In other words, the far-right wing of the Republican Party has, like the drunk at a karaoke party, grabbed the microphone and refused to give it up. Following the lead of ex-President Trump, they rant, they tweet, they refuse to negotiate, and they bully and harass the opposition, which does not make for good politics but works as great TV. Because the President and—for the most part—other Democrats do not engage in these sorts of juvenile histrionics, they are crowded off center stage.
President Biden comes from an entirely different era, a time when public servants actually served the public. His main concern as a representative for the people seems to be serving the middle-class. He believes in working together to improve the common good. He doesn’t cherry-pick items from or misinterpret the Constitution (as some Christians use the Bible) to serve his own political ambitions.
Joe Biden is invisible precisely because he is public servant doing his job. He doesn’t seek the limelight, public approval, or establishment of a personal brand. He is a politician, and he has to deal with the realities of campaigning and public opinion, yet he excels at working behind the scenes to—and I quote the Preamble to the Constitution, “promote the General Welfare”.
President Biden may be overshadowed by the garish and tacky tactics of the MAGA Republicans, and his accomplishments have been underrecognized by the American public (a transgression that will hopefully be fixed—and soon), but he has been an excellent president. As gas prices drop and groceries become more affordable again, even as corporations that have been gouging consumers are brought to task, Americans will hopefully see that the wise old man in the corner, sitting quietly in his La-Z-Boy and smiling, has been an able, shrewd, and compassionate leader who deserves our respect. And our gratitude. Which is exactly what he deserves.