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Biden is now a lame duck President. What can he do to help secure his legacy in the small remaining time he has left? Here's a couple ideas:
End the Ukraine War. The war is coming to end soon in the next year anyway (65% chance). Trump might get credit. Why not strike a deal now and make a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize? Obviously, there are pitfalls here. But in the end, it will be seen in the same light as U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Messy, but ultimately necessary. Normie-ish people are starting to reach the same conclustion.
National parks. This is a common thing that Presidents do to secure their legacy. Biden is the first President not to create a new National Park since Truman. Surely they can dig one up (hopefully better than the St. Louis Arch).
Move a department to the heartland. Move the Department of the Interior to... the interior. Build a new "Joseph Robinette Biden Building" for its HQ. This shows his commitment to the common people and sticks a finger in the eye of the DC insiders who shanked him. It also might take the wind out of the sails of the Republicans who would be more loathe to axe jobs in Kansas than in DC.
I hope he resists the urge to issue a bunch of unpopular ultra-left executive orders before he leaves. No doubt his staff will want him to do that, but ultimately this is going on his permanent record, not theirs.
On the other hand, Biden has a chance to soften and improve his reputation by doing something that is non-partisan and magnanimous. (Example: G. W. Bush helping to stop the AIDS epidemic in Africa).
What can he do to salvage what will no doubt be seen as a bottom-tier Presidency?
Nothing.
He’s known he wouldn’t be president again since August. If he had an uncontroversial, good-vibes project in mind, why not start it earlier?
For 1, he’s not going to get anything resembling a compromise. Not without something bringing Putin to the table.
Trump has already tarred 3 for Democrats.
I guess digging up another park would be a decent option. It doesn’t involve him giving MAGA exactly what they want, though, so I assume it’s dead on arrival. Maybe that’s too pessimistic.
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One thing that might be likely is for him to get to appoint a SCOTUS justice. Sotomayor could and probably should retire and let Biden appoint her replacement while the Democrats control the White House and Senate, since there's no telling how long it might be before they control both again. A quality pick would be a good legacy.
Sotomayor is 70.
Oops. That'll teach me to trust the Google summary.
Google summary is the most hallucinatory AI I've ever used. For topics on which I have any familiarity, it seems wrong more often than it is right. It sets off sanity check alarms way too often. I'm frankly shocked they thought it was in a state to put front and center on their primary product.
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And, according to former staff, has poorly controlled diabetes.
She’s gonna pull an RBG isn’t she?
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Trump would likely respond to this with a call the end the Senate filibuster.
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If it were as simple as just ending the Ukraine War then he would have done it already. Every peace proposal I've seen ends with Ukraine ceding massive amounts of territory and agreeing to never engage in any kind of security agreement. In other words, give up a bunch of shit now, and leave the door open for another invasion when Russia gets around to it. These terms wouldn't be acceptable to Ukraine, wouldn't be acceptable to Biden, and wouldn't be acceptable to Trump. If Biden tried to end the war on these terms Trump would immediately excoriate him for being weak, and he'd be right. I think Trump has deluded himself into thinking he can sweet talk Putin into a deal that would be acceptable to Ukraine, or at lease so reasonable that Ukraine would lose international support if they didn't take it. It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.
As for the National Parks, all of the ones that have been designated since Clinton have been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Take New River Gorge for example. I go there at least once a year, but there isn't a ton to do unless you're running the river. the park only owns up to the top of the hill in most places, which means that most of the park is a steep mountainside that isn't really suitable for any kind of development. There's an overlook at the main visitor's center, a short hike along the rim, and a couple old mining sites with varying degrees of accessibility and preservation (e.g. Thurmond is accessible by car and has a well-done museum, while Lower Kaymoor requires descending 800 steps to the bottom of the gorge on foot, and is just old mine structures). There's some climbing, and probably a few more things I'm not familiar with, but that's it. It works as a National River or Recreation Area but not so much a park.
The only large tract of Federal land that's an obvious location for a National Park is the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The problem is that this is owned by the Forest Service, and transferring it to the Department of the Interior would result in a bitch fight over timber rights, mining rights, and all the other mixed-use things that aren't allowed in National Parks. Even in New River Gorge, they limited the park to a minority of the available acreage so that hunting would be able to continue. Hence, it's technically New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, with the park itself only being about 8% of the total unit. National Park designations also require the approval of congress, which isn't going to happen. See the ongoing fight over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monuments, which can be created by executive order. They keep getting expanded and pared back, but neither area has anywhere near the facilities for congress to just designate a new park and be done with it.
What is the reality of Ukraine's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of the US's position in Ukraine? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of Russia's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one?
Ukraine wants to retake their territory. Below is a war map. Ukraine has not had control of Donestk, Luhansk and Crimea since 2014. And everything not those areas, basically from Mariupol to Kherson, is separated from Ukraine by the Dnieper River. Ukraine has not taken much ground, when the US gave them a bunch of our equipment it did not move the needle. A lot of it got blown to bits. So a weak position to get what they want.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
The US wants Ukraine to retake their territory. And from the above, they are in a weak position as well. I do not see much of a will for escalation. It does not seem all of the sanctions crippled Russia. And from a strategic prospective, we have driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. I do think that we will get them into NATO if a deal is cut, but that is just my guess. So overall a weak position to get what we want, at least out of the war.
Originally it seemed that Russia wanted to either annex Ukraine or set up a puppet government, but now I think they're just trying to secure Crimea and get what as much pro Russia Ukrainian territory as they can. Looks like they are in a very strong position to do this, the have de facto accomplished this, so they are in a strong position.
So if the US and Ukraine are in a weak position, then accepting weak peace terms would be an acknowledgement of reality more than creation of it. Ukraine is going to lose territory, Russia is going to gain it, Joe Biden forcing a deal is just recognizing this fact. I don't see this war as in our interest, or at least in our interest at the price tag, so I think Joe should be weak and sign the deal. That is the right call for US interest, and we should work to drive the Russians and Chinese apart. Obviously team NATO would want the best possible deal they can get, but if they are in a weak position to take (retake) what they want by force then why would they be able to take it through negotiation? I don't think they could.
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If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
It's a cynical use of Ukraine to allow us to hurt Russia without declaring war. The well-being of Ukraine was never per se pertinent.
and yet when people say that we shouldn't be doing it, the argument is that we've got to protect the poor Ukrainians. There's this maddening bullshit arbitrage between "protect the Ukrainians from the evil Russian Orcs", and "We should harm the Russians as much as possible, who cares what it costs the Ukranians."
Almost like some kind of motte and bailey?
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I have been repeatedly told by people arguing for support of Ukraine that our policy is and should be to drag the war out as long as possible to maximize harm to Russia. The fact that this also maximizes harm to Ukraine is waved off as Ukraine is volunteering for the honor. The fact that Ukraine is volunteering for the honor based on their belief that we will help them win, when in fact we have no intention of doing that is likewise dismissed.
And of course, actually providing them the resources needed to win, presuming those resources actually exist, risks escalating into direct warfare with a nuclear power.
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It would be chef's kiss if he could resign and make Kamala the first woman president. From my point of view, this would be great because it removes "make history and elect the first woman president" as a talking point in future elections. From Biden's view, it would have the appearance of making history and being magnanimous while in effect being an absolute humiliation and revenge.
I think Biden is quietly pretty mad at Harris for shanking him, especially now that she whiffed the election. I doubt he would agree to that.
It wouldn't be a favor to Harris, she would get all this press attention and have to smile for the press in order to get an absolutely empty gesture right after suffering an all-timer humiliating defeat. If Biden did it, the smart move for Harris would be to resign herself and pass the honor of first woman president to Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi is not in line for the job.
Woops, totally forgot it was already a Republican house.
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Apparently she's already been the president, for a little over an hour when Biden was under for surgery.
We need more than that. She needs to be officially sworn in, get her portrait on the wall, be listed in the history books, etc.
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This can't happen - particularly the construction of a new federal building - in less than like 3 years. No way on God's green earth a lame duck president could do it.
They could announce the move at least. What's Trump going to do - move it back to DC?
Of course, it might be hard to protect the name. The J. R. Biden building naming could get switched to the Trump Building. A better idea would be the "Cesar Chavez Building" which would pander to the wayward sheep who wandered from the flock in this election.
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I don't think anything of the sort will happen. Biden and Kamala are way too chill and upbeat about this. I don't trust it. They are busy cooking up some Steele Dossier V2 or some new rule making red tape so that Trump will be tied up with bullshit for 4 straight years trying to unfuck their executive orders.
They don’t need this, Trump will do it himself. There was a prescient story in 2018 or something like that where GOP operatives in the Trump White House said the thing they were most scared of was Dems swearing fealty to him, honoring him with big dinners and awards and speeches, calling him great, having big celebrities stop by and pay their respects, and then just quietly whispering in his ear that the people don’t really want all this right wing stuff, why not fire this guy and that guy and just do this and you’ll be loved etc.
And the sad thing, of course, is that it would completely work. Trump loved having Kim Kardashian in the White House. If Oprah and George Clooney and Obama come along and say how impressive he is and how presidential he is, and all he has to do is a couple small tweaks here and there, he’ll do it. The one thing he won’t budge on is tariffs. Everything else is malleable.
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Man. I want to argue with you, but I think you enjoy being miserable.
It's a distinct possibility!
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All of this is premised on the assumption that Biden is capable of exercising any agency of his own. One would like to imagine that the person or people who were calling the shots in the last two (three? four?) years have some kind of investment in Biden's legacy and might hence be motivated to do something nice for which Biden can get the credit, but I don't know if we have any good reason to believe that's the case. Probably the people calling the shots are some anonymous DNC staffers who have more important things to worry about, like making sure everyone knows that that Orange Man sure is Bad, huh?
Yeah, probably.
I think there's still a man inside their somewhere. I'm on the record saying that Biden's physical decline is worse than his mental decline based on my interactions with other older people with Parkinson's.
But, even in his prime, Biden was always kind of a non-entity who twisted with the political winds.
I just know that there's a window here and maybe there's someone on his staff with a whiff of guts and creativity. Who knows, maybe someone posts here, it gets tweeted by someone important and it reaches someone who matters? (<0.1% chance).
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