The Legacy of ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden

Photograph Source: Becker1999 – CC BY 2.0

I wish I could say the sheer lack of action with the Biden administration was surprising, but it was hardly unpredictable and there’s a reason Cornel West refers to ‘Genocide Joe’ as “neoliberal milquetoast.” Biden did exactly what he told campaign donors he would do. He said he wouldn’t “demonize” the rich and “no ones standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change” with regards to him getting elected. He proved that very well as nothing significantly changed from the Trump administration to the Biden one. However, I will say there were at least a few minor differences and wins, albeit minimal.

First, Biden did finally pull the US out of Afghanistan, which should’ve been done ages ago. Though it’s important to remember he only did this as the war wasn’t politically feasible anymore and it was a chaotic withdrawal that didn’t show care for ordinary Afghan citizens one bit. Not to mention the exit plan got 13 American soldiers killed but that was something that went down over the course of both administrations and there is blame to be shared. Trump planned the general withdrawal and Biden did little to course correct it.

Also worth noting is that, from an imperial perspective, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has largely been viewed as an American defeat—a la Vietnam—and has allowed China room to expand in the Middle East, bringing the war-torn country into its sphere of influence (empire). China and Afghanistan signed agreements relating to the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative in recent years. This is Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure development program that’s intended to place China at the heart of a new global economic order, which conflicts with US imperial objectives of dominating the international financial system and the majority of the world. Though I agree with the US pulling out—as defeating an idea is impossible and it isn’t our country or fight—from the standpoint of empire building, Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan will be viewed in history as a setback.

Secondly, there were some climate wins.

Biden did end the troublesome Keystone Pipeline—largely due to pressure from climate and indigenous activists—and this likely would’ve continued under Trump. Biden also passed the largest climate and environmental bill in world history, though climate activists and experts stress that the several hundreds of billions pledged are a far cry from the $5-6Trillion needed to make a fundamental impact. Also worth noting is that immediately after promising during his campaign to end fossil fuel drilling in the US, he did the exact opposite in practice and approved more contracts for extraction than even Trump’s administration did. He also rammed through the massive Willow Project in 2023—the $7Billion oil and drilling endeavor in Alaska sure to negate any positive impacts from his supposed historic environmental bill. Biden spoke good publicly on climate but did as little as possible to pass by his voters. The democrat way.

And though Biden did pass the much discussed infrastructure bill, virtually all the “human infrastructure” or social programs were removed or defanged, much to the delight of neofascist Republicans and corporate America. The legislation did allocate funding for badly needed projects that will create a substantial number of jobs and Medicare has finally been allowed to negotiate drug prices, though these cheaper costs won’t take effect for a couple more years and only a limited number of drugs apply. However, the bill had been attached to many other programs designed to tackle inequality and poverty. And instead of forcing the GOP to choose between sinking the infrastructure spending they wanted or accepting the progressive measures they didn’t, Biden simply surrendered to their demands. Again, this isn’t surprising—this is how they rob us through “negotiations” which are really meetings between co-working political parties who ask themselves: “how little can we give the American people without them literally rioting?”

As for the once in a lifetime disease in COVID and the mess that Biden inherited in 2021, his administration did finally mass produce N95 masks and tests—at least enough masks to be available in stores and enough tests to provide four per house—which was something I suppose. Though there’s simply no way it should’ve taken over two years into a pandemic to do that. Biden’s legacy will also have the misfortune of being tied to the administration that ended emergency COVID funding. Meaning a great number of Americans are now paying out of pocket for tests, vaccines, etc. His administration also saw the complete dismantling of the biggest social welfare system created in the US since the New Deal era. There’s no studies estimating how many people ending that funding and safety net has killed, but it’s surely not an insignificant amount of people.

As far as anything else significant the administration did, it’s hard to find much outside of symbolic messages like Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday, Maya Angelou being placed on US quarters, and the non-discriminatory/police reform executive orders—which I appreciate as I fully support marginalized groups—but these do little to improve the quality of lives for the people in these communities. Meanwhile Biden’s gun reform bill—like his measures on police reform that did nothing to end qualified immunity—didn’t address the root of the issue, or much at all really. No ban on semi-automatic assault rifles, no raising the age to buy them, etc. So in actuality, no gun reform.

Now onto how nothing “fundamentally changed,” nor will it outside direct action from concerned citizens. The Biden administration didn’t deliver a $15 minimum wage (this number is horrendously outdated as a real living wage in the US sits at or above $25/hr when factoring in life necessities like healthcare, car expenses, ever increasing housing costs, etc), $2k stimulus relief checks, abolish student loan debt, secure voting rights or women’s reproductive rights but rather lost the latter in half the country. Biden also never even considered a public option during the pandemic—let alone universal healthcare—and didn’t deliver an eviction moratorium, refused to expand the Supreme Court to counter the very obvious neofascist hold on it and, as mentioned, significantly gutted his own “Build Back Better Plan.” They cut Child Tax Credits, investments in clean and renewable energy, guaranteed paid leave for moms and every worker in America, universal and free community college, expansion of Medicare, lowering childcare costs, historic and massive investments in affordable housing and a laundry list of provisions designed to benefit the working class in what would have been the most substantial investment in ordinary Americans since the New Deal by a wide margin.

Biden could’ve had the legacy of a transformative President who steered the country in the right direction in a time of great peril. Instead he’ll be known as the guy who proceeded with business-as-usual and was woefully behind the curve regarding future global trends by shelving a plan to transform our electric grid with hundreds of billions in investment for renewable energy. As mentioned, fossil fuel production in the US has expanded the last 4 years and has never been higher than under Biden’s rule. His subsequent expansion of the US military budget also served to offset any reduction in emissions from the aforementioned “historic” climate and environmental bill. A damning example of why his legacy will be horrendous when history has its say.

Regarding the dismantling of Biden’s own supposed economic agenda, of course everyone predictably blamed Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin for this— the senators who were peddled by corporate media as the two hold ups supposedly tanking the entire Biden administration’s plans. In short, this kind of propaganda allows corporately funded Democrats like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the vast majority of the party (the Democratic establishment) to get to appear to fully embrace the more bold or progressive measures while simultaneously understanding they’ll never come to pass. Biden and his administration officials fully understood the senators they had, what can and can’t be done, and he had to make his promise true to his campaign donors (owners). Notice how we always have money for corporate bailouts, weapons of war, and things that make the wealthy even wealthier. But social spending on domestic priorities and programs designed to benefit the masses? That’s deemed “socialism” and brings “inflation,” the typical trigger words, because we can’t have things that benefit the poor and working class—that goes directly against Biden and his donors’ class interests.

As far as Covid goes, besides the minuscule improvements previously mentioned, Biden’s administration completely let down the American people. Not only did he refuse to take steps like enacting simple mask mandates, but his administration turned down a mass testing plan from top healthcare officials in Fall 2021 thinking the US could just vaccinate its way out of the pandemic, and that the US Government didn’t have the capacity to mass produce tests, which doesn’t hold true even remotely. This led to a massive surge of COVID hospitalizations and deaths in early 2022, costing the lives of many Americans unnecessarily. And this isn’t even getting into the vaccine inequity worldwide. Sure, we’ve been getting boosters but many others in third world countries haven’t even gotten a single dose or had to wait several years. It was vaccine apartheid so American and western corporations profited as much as they could from the crisis. Democrats, Biden supporters and liberal centrists cannot blame Trump for any of this. His covid response was as poorly prepared and ill conceived as Trump’s was.

As far as Biden’s handling of Roe v. Wade being overturned, he was particularly spineless. This has everything to do with most Democrats simply using women’s reproductive rights as a fundraising tool for their campaigns and the fact that Biden himself voted to block abortion rights becoming the law of the land in the early 1980s. Specifically voting against federal funding for abortion even in cases of incest and rape. Make no mistake—Biden is Catholic and anti-abortion. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the humane response would have been to take the matter out of the court’s hands and pass federal legislation guaranteeing the right to abortion. This, as we know, did not happen. Biden chose to keep the archaic ‘filibuster’. Better known on Capitol Hill as a tool designed simply to prevent progressive policies from ever passing and cause legislative gridlock.

If he’d been willing to end the undemocratic filibuster rule, which only requires a simple majority, Democrats could have passed federal legislation guaranteeing abortion rights without a single republican vote, and there’s been many other opportunities in the past for the Democrats to do so when they had full control of the government. Short of this step, Biden could have taken bold executive action in response to the Dobbs decision. Including setting up abortion clinics on federal lands in states that have enacted bans or even declaring a public health emergency that would bypass the anti-worker Hyde Amendment and allow Medicaid funds to cover the cost of abortions. Instead, Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party were content to use abortion rights as a rhetorical tool to boost voter turnout in the midterm and Presidential elections.

Biden’s legacy is also tied to austerity economic measures and preventing workers from exercising their fundamental rights. Which is interesting considering he’s largely viewed by liberals and his supporters as the most “pro-Union President in history.” The propaganda is devastatingly effective in the US. More accurate is that Biden hates workers, only rhetorically supports unionization and is no different than any other President in that they support corporate American interests. His administration deliberately intervened in late 2022 when US rail workers were set to strike and cause massive disruption in the economy. Biden signed a bill to squash the strike and decided any disruption to the American economy during his Presidency was more important than workers’ collective bargaining power.

Not to mention that a couple months after doing so, Biden’s administration was completely inept at responding to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Which, ironically, was the type of accident that rail workers were trying to strike in order to prevent. Maintenance on US rail lines is well known to be inadequate and rather than force the billionaire ran corporation Norfolk Southern to make substantial payments to residents and the communities affected, or charge them for their criminal negligence, they’ll be paying a few hundred million dollars while everything else remains the same structurally. Can’t wait to see where the next accident dumping toxic chemicals onto unsuspecting residents will occur in the US and the complete lack of accountability that follows.

Referring back to Biden’s austerity policies, the deals his administration made with their republican counterparts in a manufactured debt crisis were also particularly shameful. Despite having the power and authority to simply raise the debt ceiling, Biden instead worked with Kevin McCarthy and the GOP fascists to cut federal spending on supposed “entitlement programs.” Meaning things that work for ordinary and working class people rather than highly concentrated wealth and US corporations. Political commentators, analysts and experts all agreed Biden had essentially 3 realistic options for resolving the supposed crisis: default, unilateral executive action, or austerity.

1. A default would likely have lasted several weeks and the ensuing result of this action would’ve been a severe recession, much higher interest rates and a long-term curtailment of the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency (how the US Government dominates the international financial system or the world). In other words, it would’ve meant the collapse of the American empire, or at the very least its position as the leading imperial power.

2. Unilateral executive action would’ve been Biden invoking the 14th amendment and simply raising the debt ceiling. Something even Democrats admitted was well within his power. If Biden was actually concerned about sparking a constitutional crisis, which is simply rhetoric, then he still could’ve instructed the US Treasury to mint a trillion-dollar coin, deposit it to the federal reserve, and then draw it down to pay the governments bills, resolving the crisis and preventing economic damage.

3. Austerity measures would’ve been Biden implementing the ideas that Republicans in Congress were suggesting, including cutting both Medicaid and nondefense-related spending. The result of this policy was known to include a likely recession and reduced economic growth for the next decade, with people with lower incomes being more likely to suffer financially due to losing both government benefits and jobs.

The Biden administration of course opted for austerity measures, surprising only the most faithfully devoted liberals who don’t understand the fundamentalists and war lords who are in charge of this country.

It should not be forgotten that Biden was also willing to carry on with his dead in the water presidential campaign until major financial donors to the Democratic establishment pulled their funding and support from him. Prior to this he’d been pressing forward, intent on winning reelection and maintaining his power in the White House. Surely with tons of “Yes” men and women sitting around him wondering who they are if he’s not President anymore. This also includes his family who sought to mask Biden’s increasing cognitive decline. While the man himself was likely motivated by securing his place in American history as a two-term President. How is this any fundamentally different than Trump being after power and the prestige that comes with it?

Speaking of Trump, and the impending mass deportation plan of his fascist regime, these efforts received a significant boost from the Biden administration per an investigation from the Guardian. Biden has reportedly been seeking to expand the capacity for detention centers, extending contracts with private prison companies, and doing so despite the well known reality of inhumane conditions that permeates these prisons. Biden has systematically targeted vulnerable migrants at an even greater rate than Trump did during his first term, increased the amount of people in detention overall, and laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s plan to deport millions of hard working migrants who pay upwards $100 billion in taxes a recent study found. Though Biden’s border bill failed due to partisan politics and domestic infighting between the corporate duopoly, he did in fact in install some of harshest measures on immigration ever declared by a modern Democratic president. Giving the federal government power to temporarily shutdown the border whenever they see fit, deny asylum to migrants who do not cross into the US via ports of entry, and limit the number of requests to no more than 2500 per day. This executive order flies directly in the face of US law that allows people to seek asylum regardless of how they cross the border or what their status is.

But besides domestic politics, Biden’s most egregious crimes were in his handling of international issues and foreign policy. The moniker “Genocide Joe” is sure to be a defining phrase of Biden’s presidential legacy to those who are actually concerned with assessing history using a critical lens. He gave more support to the Israeli’s as they commit naked genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians than any other President before him. Nearly $30Billion has gone to Israel since October 7th even as Biden and his administration officials spoke publicly of the humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza. They’re sorry that so many innocent civilians (mostly women and children) are dying as they send Israel the means to continue killing more civilians indiscriminately. Absurdity is the norm in Washington, unfortunately.

Biden also portrayed his administration’s proxy war strategy in Ukraine as a “defense of democracy.” But rather than giving $100Billion+ of taxpayer money to weapons manufacturers in order to bring the world closer to WWIII and kill thousands of Russians and Ukrainians, this money should’ve been used to address the cost of living and housing crises in the US to provide relief for workers grappling with the spiraling costs of an unregulated economy. He also bombed everyone from Somalia and Yemen up to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Biden’s administration also included a considerable amount of fear mongering directed at China as well. Rather than seeking peace and cooperation between the two opposing empires and world powers, Biden expanded the Neo-Cold War that threatens the world with the prospects of nuclear disaster. Going so far as publicly declaring American soldiers would defend Taiwan, deploying US special forces to the island permanently as advisors  (https://asiatimes.com/2024/03/us-green-berets-deploying-to-taiwans-front-line/)—a first in history—and sending Taipei the largest and most lethal military aid packages in its time as an American colony. All the talk in the US from corporate elites and their paid-for political mandarins about the supposed danger of China is an excuse to justify the absorbent amount of military spending to maintain the American empire. An empire held together by money diverted from the real threats American people are facing like hunger, rising rents, lack of healthcare, collapsing schools and the list goes on.

This would all be funny if it weren’t so damn sad. Late-stage capitalist dystopia is what one can expect when Americans let corporations run wild (deregulation) and buy public policy (Citizens United). We’re in a vicious cycle where corporate interests buy elections, which affords them the political power to lobby and design legislation to increase their profits, which just further increases their political power to buy elections and maximize profits—the only thing the corporate American regime has ever cared about.

I understand the feeling of helplessness in the country. It feels like no matter what, evil and injustice will prevail. But it’s important to recognize that feeling is how existing inequities are maintained and the status quo preserve. Keeping people apathetic, well adjusted to injustice, and well adapted to indifference. They don’t want people knowing that we can change things. But first it’s going to take some honesty and reflection to see our collective circumstances for what they really are: a duopoly of parties (in practice one single Business Party with separate Democrat and Republican wings) owned by similarly wealthy and corporate interests, who proceed with the same general agenda but divert between cultural and domestic policies that divide ordinary people, which makes progressive changes difficult to obtain and keeps a substantial portion of the population indifferent to the political arena altogether.

Once in tune with our political reality, the next step is feeling compelled enough to get organized, dissent against the corporate state and resist their attempts to subjugate the public to the role of spectator. Going out and engaging the political arena for the heights of Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 was important, but the current state of public affairs will not change for the better if people just show up and pay close attention when it’s convenient and plastered all over the media or public sphere. The fervor has to remain constant and continual as seen by the advances made during the Civil Rights, Labor, Women’s Suffrage and Abolitionist movements, as well as many others throughout history. Social movements must have clearly defined legislative goals, support from similar groups and political organizations, and not stop just because a Democrat was elected.

A Democrat who continued construction on Trump’s wall on the southern border, illegally bombed and committed war crimes in sovereign countries while killing innocent civilians, continued economic warfare and expanded sanctions on North Korea, Iran, Cuba and others—which just harms the general population and further entrenches them under the thumbs of repressive regimes—and denied entry to thousands of asylum seekers from the Caribbean and Latin America that were fleeing conditions the American empire is primarily responsible for. And a Democrat who didn’t close detention centers (internment camps?) for migrants but actually opened new ones built for children that are still being separated from their families, never adjusted immigration policy but instead increased militarization of the Southern border, expanded the US military budget even more than Trump, approved a slew of new military bases in the Pacific, East Asia and Indian Ocean to counter China, and was a hawk in the Neo-Cold War with Beijing, Moscow and Tehran over East Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The most indispensable overseas regions in the American empire.

And a Democrat who used the power of the Presidency to pardon his own son—after showing callousness and indifference to the many people sitting in prisons due to his own excessively harsh crime bills—rather than sticking by his word that he would “abide by the jury’s decision.” In addition to pardoning his son, Biden also found time to pardon a doctor who diluted the chemo of cancer patients, a judge who locked up children for cash, a CEO who led a multimillion dollar fraud scheme, and a local official who stole tens of millions from a small town. Biden literally pardoned fraud, bribery and corruption. There are many people deserving of Presidential pardons. Namely Leonard Peltier, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden to name a few. Did Biden show as much care for these whistleblowers? Of course not. As George Carlin said, “it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

Joe Biden used his time as President to strengthen American hegemony and run the planet head first into the climate crisis rather than seeking diplomacy and beginning a transition away from fossil fuels as is so desperately needed. Aside from being remembered as the American President who oversaw the destruction of Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from its northern half, the lack of action during the climate crisis is sure to have an enduring impact on Biden’s historical legacy. He also didn’t decrease tensions geopolitically or divert from Trump or Obama’s policies—he carried them forward as all administrations do. The US Government operates like a fundamentalist and orthodox-like religion in practice. These people serve to expand corporate America and empire. To maintain the American-led international system and global presence that doesn’t benefit anyone but a small fraction of elites who own the country and make all the important decisions. Nothing has fundamentally changed, indeed.

Grant Inskeep is an activist from Denver, Colorado currently based out of Phoenix, Arizona. He writes on socioeconomics, philosophy and geopolitics on Instagram @the_pragmatic_utopian.