Biden finds it much easier to put adjectives than nouns. It can be said that he is calm, that his presidency is friendly, his urban style. On the other hand, words such as ‘leadership’, ‘vision’, ‘transformation’ or ‘symbol’ do not come to the language.

Within ten months, his popularity is falling apart like a sugar cube. What is more, is that there is no reason to justify it. The economy is bad, yes, but it was already weighed down by a cyclopean deficit and a debt that came out of a story to scare children rather than state accounting. And, while having reversed one of the few things Trump had done right (like deregulating).

Certain activities trapped in a labyrinth of regulatory Crete) has contributed to slowing the recovery, it is not Biden who must be blamed for the essence of the state of affairs but inertia that takes years. The fact that only 194,000 jobs were created last month instead of the expected 500,000 has more to do with a structural heritage contributed by Democrats and Republicans than with Biden’s presidency.

But what Biden is contributing considerably to is what is brewing: a financial mess. Because despite a fiscal deficit amounting to 13.5 percent of GDP, the president wants to approve an infrastructure spending package of one trillion dollars and another of social and climate welfare of 3.5 trillion, which is equivalent, in economic terms, to three Spains! A financially deranged country cannot endure such barbarity.

But what Biden is contributing considerably to is what is brewing: a financial mess. Because despite a fiscal deficit that amounts to 13.5 percent of GDP, the president wants to approve a package of spending on the infrastructure of 1 trillion dollars and another for social and climate assistance of 3.5 trillion. A financially unhinged country cannot bear an outrage like this.

Biden thus intends to insert a mentality of the 30s (Roosevelt) and the 60s and 70s (Lyndon Johnson) in a context of the 21st century in which inflation is already the highest in a decade and repressed interest rates have destroyed savings of millions of people under a torrent of artificial money creation that has multiplied the balance of the Federal Reserve at a dizzying rate and started to skyrocket inflation. What all this shows is not a wayward presidency but a return to basic principles of prudence and a sense of limits.

Biden would not have won the election if it weren’t for the fact that Democrats, fearful of being defeated by Trump, came to him at the last minute as a lifeline despite the fact that they had ignored him during the first part of the primaries, and because then the Independents gave him support for similar reasons that they would not have given him in other circumstances. His victory calmed the country and temporarily contained the left-wing populist beast in his party, which in turn appeased the opposite populist beast for a time. But the United States is going through a stage where it takes much more than calming down. Overly sedate presidents serve normal times. That’s why Harding (1920s), Ford (1970s) and Bush Sr. (1990s), three other quiet men, did not do very well.

The country needs to put its fiscal and monetary house in order, and clear the dusty business climate that today slows investment and job creation. Also, to give back to the country international leadership (I am not talking about ‘hard power’ but about ‘soft power’, in the happy and helpful expression of Joseph Nye): liberal democracies are disheartened, self-conscious about the pugnacity of Xinping, Putin, Erdogan and Mohamed Bin Salman (the bizarre North Korean is a bit ashamed to even name him) and waiting to see if Merkel’s successor exercises leadership in Europe that Macron cannot exercise because his country does not have the weight of the Germans. These liberal democracies need the United States that knows how to lead.

While the Chinese, who know well where they are going, ask to join the alliance of Pacific countries known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Treaty of Trans-Pacific Partnership from which Trump withdrew the United States and which originally aimed precisely to counter Beijing, Washington boils down its response to a stealthy agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom that will provide Australians with nuclear submarines but that has left European allies with the feeling that they matter very little (and the French have had their pockets pierced).

I am not saying that it is not convenient to do certain things with stealth and among a few (Europe tends to act with a pachydermic slowness and an unclear sense of its role in the free world), but we must demand that Joe Biden relaunch the idea, that is, the values, of the United States in a world where authoritarian populisms have gained too much space and the countries that represent freedom walk like intimidated. Taking refuge in the Anglo-Saxon world and leaving Afghanistan are things that could be understood and justified somewhat better if Biden’s foreign policy complemented such selective initiatives with a bold and comprehensive effort in defense of the liberal values that are in question by the rise of authoritarian populisms and the identity plague.

The irony of all this is that Biden’s presidency deep down doesn’t stray much from the isolationist legacy of Trump or even Obama. He would respond to this assertion by saying that he has made a commitment to multilateralism, but there are two ways to exercise multilateralism: as an adjective or a noun. Biden has opted for the former, that is, nuancing and coloring what others do, rather than pointing the way, setting goals, being someone. Saying a few platitudes about climate change cannot be a substitute for the leadership of the free world that one expects from the United States as long as there is no other country in a position to exercise it.

The irony of this unwashed presidency is that the Democratic Party that had momentarily united around Biden has cracked again in the midst of the struggles over the gigantic fiscal spending initiatives proposed by the Government and stalled in Congress; the atmosphere has begun to heat up as before. Not to mention an even greater irony: that the Republicans are already tied with the Democrats ahead of the midterm legislative elections and that Trump – yes, the ineffable Trump – begins to rise from the ashes to the astonishment of his own and strangers. Meanwhile, Biden floats with a clueless air in the turbulent currents that are beginning to shake his presidency.

Written by: Journalist Álvaro Vargas Llosa

Image Credit: Getty

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