WASHINGTON – As Biden’s presidency nears the end of its first hundred days, Biden’s team has made itself comfortable in the White House. High off of the back of his first legislative victory, a 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package which guaranteed Americans in need $1400, he and his team have completed a victory lap (as people on Twitter have pointed out, the Biden team is quite fond of posting photos of cabinet members busily walking).
However, many criticize the optics of the current presidency, with several extenuating issues pervading the newly-inaugurated president. For example, Biden seemed unwilling to fight for a $15 minimum wage, a campaign promise his team made. $2000 stimulus checks soon became $1400 stimulus checks, with outlets like Politifact editing history in real time to remove the notion that Biden ever promised $2000 (a bold faced lie, given that on the eve of Georgia’s special election, Biden boldly asserted that $2000 checks would go “Right out the door”), and Biden’s neoliberal background seems to have caught up with him. If Biden’s first week was the most progressive, his first months seem to have reasserted that Biden is only interested in returning America back to its Obama-era status quo.
Biden, despite sharp criticism from both his right and left, moved to bomb Syria. Everyone, from Illan Omar to Donald Trump, Jr., criticized the president for undertaking this action. “I’m surprised it only took about 33 days to get back into Middle East conflicts. Didn’t think Biden would make the Military Industrial Complex wait that long to start dropping bombs,” Trump stated on his Twitter, with Illan Omar responding, “Great question,” to a tweet from Biden press secretary Jen Psaki in April 2017 which asked, “Also what is the legal authority for strikes? Assad is a brutal dictator. But Syria is a sovereign country.”
Biden’s administration currently faces one of its largest crises yet: an influx of migrants on the Southern border. A combination of lax border policy ordered from the top down and a disastrous pandemic ravaging less developed nations across Central and South America has driven incredibly high numbers of migrants to seek asylum on the Southern border. Unable to hold this many immigrants, detention centers and ICE facilities are overflowing, with hundreds of migrants being forced to stay in tents. COVID, tuberculosis, lice, and several other infectious diseases make their way through these communities as they face less than sanitary conditions. Though the Biden administration maintains that there is no southern border crisis, most reports indicate otherwise. The Biden administration as a whole seems unprepared to deal with a crisis of this nature, with no policies to alleviate the situation having been proposed.
Though Biden’s administration faces several challenges, they have shared a few successes. As mentioned earlier, the Democrat party has passed their first major legislative victory of the current session in Congress in their stimulus package (though it did not meet all campaign promises). Vaccine distribution is also going far better than expected, with Biden promising all adults will be eligible on May 1st. Biden has also seen a ripple effect with his statements concerning transgender inclusion, particularly in sports, as states across the nation move to adopt the agenda he set out.
But all these issues are overshadowed by serious questions about Biden’s mental state. Throughout his campaign, Biden faced down concerns of dementia. He promised his flubs were just flubs and not the signs of a 78-year-old brain shutting down. However, past his inauguration, Biden has rarely been seen by the public, and even more rarely allowed to answer questions. In one instance, after a meeting with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer, the White House cut Biden’s feed when he offered to take questions. Vice President Harris also seems to be taking a larger-than-anticipated role in the administration, even going so far as to call foreign leaders and be placed in charge of the pressing border crisis. In Biden’s first address to the public since his inauguration, critics claimed he looked tired, old, and lost; and indeed his speaking seemed to reflect these claims. Biden meandered in his statements, getting lost in thought and sometimes switching subjects abruptly.
Looking back at these first 100 days, and across the political spectrum, people feel as if Biden is on his last legs, especially considering his promise to be a “one-term president.” Perhaps the next 100 days will only confirm these suspicions.