Joe Biden should not be renominated by the Democratic Party in 2024, particularly when there are other potential Democrats who could perform well against any Republican rival. Of course, President Biden would do well in the primary against the two declared fringe candidates. Robert Kennedy Jr. has supported conspiracy theories and been accused by many of antisemitism, while Marianne Williamson’s past abusive behavior toward her staff has caused alarm. However, Biden’s record of domestic and foreign policy leaves much to be desired.
Room for Improvement
On domestic policy, Biden claims success with a record low unemployment rate, an infrastructure bill, and economic injections that were roughly 10 percent of the American economy. However, the math behind Biden’s optimism is rather gloomy. The $1.2 billion infrastructure bill, which aims to improve roads, bridges, airports, and ports, as well as create electric vehicle charging stations across the country, isn’t as big of a success as it was first made out to be. Biden’s cautionary, if not slow, management of inflation had the effect of eating heavily into the costs of infrastructure development. Material costs soared as inflation hit 8.3 percent in April 2022. Building costs rose by more than 20 percent over 2021 and increased by 70 percent since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the most pressing issue of our time—the catastrophic effects of climate change—Biden’s pragmatic, fence-sitting approach has put him at odds with his own party. While the Administration likes to tout America’s rejoining of the Paris Climate Agreement, Biden contradicts himself with the contentious approval of a $7 billion proposal by an oil corporation in Alaska’s rich North Slope, an area reported by the Department of the Interior as extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. While attempting to lessen Europe’s dependence on Russian oil in the near future via liquified natural gas (LNG) exports from vulnerable Gulf states, Biden has hurt American energy security by exposing energy markets to additional insecurity while price gouging the same European consumers it aims to benefit. Most importantly, LNG creates almost as much climate pollution as coal, with studies showing that large amounts of methane are released with LNG (60 percent higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency thought).
Even though the Alaska and Gulf LNG export deals represent just a fraction of America’s fossil fuel dependence, it also demonstrates Biden’s lack of a clear climate change strategy. Biden can’t have it both ways. His administration cannot urge a limit of global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change without serious policy reversal on fossil fuels. And it cannot allow greed, corruption, and hypocrisy to exist while aiming to help European allies in the short term. Biden should encourage Europe to have a more proactive approach to an energy crisis of its own making.
The Democratic Party Needs New Leadership
In this brief contribution, I have addressed just two issues that should give Democrats pause in renominating Biden in 2024: the economy and the environment. But the list of failures is long. Healthcare is another burning issue, at the top of the list of the biggest worries for Americans. For example, states have pushed millions off of Medicare rolls, but Biden has refused to criticize any of them because his administration fears damaging its relationships with them. Without even addressing Biden’s major foreign policy blunders, America is in need of new leadership. Until a reasonable candidate, such as Arizona Senator Mark Kelly or Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, steps forward, an undervote in the primary appears like a legitimate choice. The general election, however, is another story.
