Biden's 2021: early wins eclipsed by pandemic, policy setbacks and party ruptures

Cascading setbacks point to a difficult 2022 for US president and his domestic agenda

President-elect Joe Biden as he is sworn in as the 46th president of the US. EPA

President Biden receives his coronavirus booster vaccination in Washington on September 27. Reuters

President Biden gives remarks on the worsening crisis in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House on August 16. Getty Images

Desperate Afghans struggle to get into the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August to escape the Taliban. EPA

President Biden delivers remarks on the bipartisan infrastructure law during a visit to Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount, Minnesota. Reuters

For months, the fate of Mr Biden's presidency seemed to be in the hands of Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat who rebuffed pleas for support a key spending bill. AP

At his January 20 inauguration speech, President Joe Biden promised to heal a divided, pandemic-stricken America and to lead the world “not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example".

Nearly a year later, Mr Biden's political agenda is stalled, Covid-19 is surging, inflation is spiking and the “uncivil war” that he warned was pitting Americans against each other shows no signs of easing. And that is only on the domestic front.

It all amounts to a dizzying set of challenges for Mr Biden as he looks ahead to 2022, when November's midterm elections may well undo his congressional majority as voters punish his Democratic Party for failing to enact key legislation.

A poll conducted by FiveThirtyEight shows the president's approval ratings have slumped from an early high of about 55 per cent to less than 44 per cent currently. Of recent presidents, only his predecessor Donald Trump has fared worse during his first year.

Mr Trump's term was marked by scandals, divisive rhetoric and contempt for America's allies. His final year was defined by a disjointed government response to the Covid-19 pandemic and a lack of empathy for the 400,000 lives lost to the virus while he was in power.

He finished his term by spreading misinformation and claims of widespread election fraud that fuelled the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol, where pro-Trump loyalists attempted to overturn Mr Biden's win.

After all the chaos, Mr Biden promised a different vision for the presidency.

“This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward,” he said during his inauguration.

“We have never, ever, ever failed in America when we have acted together. And so today, at this time and in this place, let us start afresh.”

A new beginning

2021 started well enough for Mr Biden and his Democratic Party, with many Americans breathing a collective sigh of relief at Mr Trump's departure.

He quickly mandated mask wearing in federal buildings including airports and promised to steer America through the pandemic, saying: “We will get through this together.”

On March 11, Mr Biden signed a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill called the American Rescue Plan, aimed at hastening the US recovery from the pandemic.

The economy rebounded, unemployment dropped and millions of Americans found a lifeline in the form of direct payments, tax credits, expanded unemployment benefits and grants to schools and small businesses.

A razor-thin majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives meant the Democrats were able to pass the legislation with zero Republican support.

That same month, Mr Biden announced his administration had surpassed its goal of having 100 million Americans vaccinated within his first 100 days in office. Instead, it had taken only 58 days. The president's polling remained favourable and the roll-out of the vaccine won plaudits.

Darkening skies

But as 2021 ends, those early days seem like a high-water mark against what came next.

Mr Biden's credibility at home and in the eyes of allies unravelled overnight as he oversaw a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that stranded thousands of Afghan allies who had helped the US over two decades of war.

He was following a deal put in place under Mr Trump, but Mr Biden would be blamed for the ignominious end to America's longest war, which after trillions of dollars spent and the deaths of tens of thousands of people, returned Afghanistan to Taliban rule.

Mr Biden's handling of the fiasco was condemned by politicians from both parties. He has struggled to regain an image of competent authority ever since.

The old-school politician who insisted he could get deals done by negotiating with Republicans saw some success in November when he signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. The bipartisan act frees up $1tn to address America's crumbling infrastructure.

But that win was overshadowed by eight bitter months of Democratic infighting over a larger and arguably more consequential spending plan called Build Back Better.

Joe Manchin, a conservative Democratic senator from West Virginia, along with Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, had held up passage of the $1.75tn bill over cost concerns and funding “gimmicks".

Despite intense personal lobbying from Mr Biden himself, Mr Manchin on Sunday announced he could not support the legislation, in what well may be the bill's fatal blow.

Democrats have also failed to pass legislation that would protect Americans from “voting integrity” laws being ushered in by Republican-led states across the country.

Introduced following Mr Trump’s debunked claims of election fraud, these measures place restrictions on voting by mail, mandate new voter identity requirements and change voting hours.

“I've never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote,” Mr Biden told a graduation ceremony at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.

Other Democrat priorities have fallen flat on their face in Congress, unable to overcome the filibuster.

An attempt to reform police practices, introduced after the police murder of George Floyd, is stalled with no obvious path to becoming law.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said the Senate would consider voting rights legislation in January and would look at changing procedural rules if Republicans “continue to abuse the filibuster” to block the bill.

But Mr Manchin and Ms Sinema have already said they will not tinker with the filibuster, making federal voting rights protections unlikely to happen before the midterms.

The Biden administration has also been unable to quell inflation, which is now at 40-year highs, and has led to increases at the supermarket on any number of basic goods.

Add to this the surging number of Covid-19 cases, with deaths from the virus likely to surpass one million in the US by about March, and 2022 looks ominous for Mr Biden.

Nicholas Creel, a political scientist and assistant professor of business law at Georgia College and State University, said it was a bit soon to write Mr Biden and the Democrats off.

“That said, Democrats do face significant headwinds in that the party in power tends to suffer losses in midterm elections,” he told The National, and added that any degree of loss would effectively seal Mr Biden's fate as a lame-duck president.