How did Biden’s Presidency go so Wrong? by Lucas Krueger

It is amazing the difference a few months makes for a president’s reputation. While I criticized many aspects of the COVID Relief Bill, it was very popular and even as a conservative it was nice to see congress pass something that benefited working people. More importantly, the vaccine rollout was downright impressive as within a month nearly everyone I knew went from unvaccinated to vaccinated. It was jubilant, a time I will never forget and masterfully handled by the Biden administration. His administration then made the intelligent decision of making the clear choice, “masked or vaxxed.” It was genius messaging that encouraged people to get vaccinated, followed the available data, and made me impressed. To say this administration has fallen off the rails would be an understatement.

My warm feelings began to wear off when the administration failed to provide aid and support to Cuban protesters clamoring for freedom through the streets of Havana. Then the Biden economy began to tarnish when phenomena like inflation, resource shortages, labor shortages, and increased regulations choked the middle class and forced small businesses to close. The inflation rate nearly doubled from Trump to Biden which has led to weakened purchasing power from the middle class. Then the Biden administration’s DOJ failed to investigate the catastrophic failure of Andrew Cuomo to protect nursing homes like my grandmother from COVID, so that was personal to me. Additionally, it showed that Merrick Garland was just a puppet of the Biden Administration rather than an independent attorney. The same cannot be said about Trump’s AGs and Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions often dissented with the President much to his dismay. Garland and Biden then perpetuated the lie that Georgia and Texas’ voter integrity bills are in any way similar to the Jim Crow era voter suppression bills. It is incredibly disrespectful to the victims of the time, and untrue as Texas offers 14 days of early voting while Biden’s home state of Delaware offers only 13.

There are even more scandals to dissect including the administration’s failed policy in regards to Iran, the Southern Border, and infamously Afghanistan. Now Biden’s approval rating sits at 43% which is lower than Trump’s during his first August, and down from 60% back in May according to The Hill. This presents an interesting question for future historians, at what point did the administration fall apart. Some could argue that it was when he made the announcement to pull out of Afghanistan, however that was wildly popular at the time and only fell apart due to the administration’s incompetence. I would say the day the president lost America was when he and Anthony Fauci stood up and told Americans to remask as a result of the Delta Variant.

I remember watching as my jaw dropped, shocked that the president would jeopardize his pandemic recovery. It was completely removed from science as 99% of the people dying from COVID are unvaccinated. The administration used no credible data, as they cited an uncredible study out of Bangladesh and a single case example in which 17 vaccinated people were infected in Cape Cod.

The reality is that vaccinated people are at no higher risk from the delta variant than the old variant. While one could catch it easier, the hospitalization rate is 1/20,000 while the death rate is 1/200,000. In comparison, the death rate for the flu is 1/50,000. Joe Biden failed to read the data and understand that this is only a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The public health experts he listens to are so focused on getting to zero COVID cases that they fail to account for the social and economic harm that is done by encouraging people to socially distance and mask for a virus that is less deadly than the flu if you’re vaccinated.

This move caused the travel industry and leisure industry to come to a crashing halt. Unfortunately, African American jobs are most hurt by all of this as the African American unemployment rate rose from 8.8% in July to 9.1% in August while the national unemployment fell. Tragically, 45,000 people, nearly all unvaccinated, died from the delta variant. In comparison though, 81,000 people died in nursing homes in liberal states last year. Biden and the Democratic Party said nothing when their own politicians implemented policies that killed 81,000 elders which is nearly double the amount of people that died from delta. In fact, Biden and Fauci both called Andrew Cuomo, the governor who clearly handled the pandemic the worst, the model on how to beat the pandemic.

Biden’s and Fauci’s decision to reimplement mask mandates for vaccinated people also caused less people to get vaccinated. One of the main arguments for vaccine hesitant people was to not wear a mask. That was what the administration promised the American people in May. Joe Biden saying “masked or vaxxed” was one of the great lies of American history. Since their announcement the US vaccination rate has only increased by 4%. While there is some blame on Republican leaders not promoting the vaccine more, the blame falls more on Biden’s hands.

COVID restrictions now have no limiting principles. For months we waited for the vaccine after it came, Americans expected normality. The reality is, there will always be a small percentage of the population that is unvaccinated for whatever reason. As a result, variants will pop up that will be scary to whoever is unvaccinated. That is not an excuse for government bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci to mandate that Americans take precautions forever. The positive news is that Americans have mostly been living their lives as they normally would ignoring mandates from pathetic politicians. No people have been doing this more than Democratic politicians themselves like Lori Lightfoot, Nancy Pelosi, and Muriel Bowser all of whom reimplemented mask mandates only to be seen in large groups of people without masks on.