Good News: The Debt And Border Are Totally Not Biden’s Fault

I mean, they must not be, nor be important, since Brandon blew out for Delaware yet again today

On Debt Ceiling and Title 42’s End, Biden Boxed In by Outside Forces

Joe Biden is in the midst of an incredibly consequential stretch of his presidency and remarkably little of it will be under his sole control. In fact, much of the coming weeks—and, perhaps, months, if not his total legacy—is contingent on the engagement of other players and their openness to being good-faith collaborators, and just dumb luck.

It is precisely the worst imbalance of power that any White House can face. The West Wing can fight a battle on plenty of fronts, just so long as the barbs are going out from inside the White House; taking incoming is far tougher to handle when no one knows where the next hit is being fired from, who’s the target, and what it’s blowback.

There’s a good reason that Campaign 2024 isn’t getting much real estate in Biden’s daily briefing books. Even in the best of cases, the presidency is an exercise of triage. Nothing less than the global economy is at risk if Biden can’t strike an agreement with Republicans in the House to, frankly, pay the bills that have piled up from Presidents in both parties over the last few years.

Joe could have negotiated months ago. Like politicians have always done, at least before Obama

Separately, the U.S.-Mexican border is a fresh hellscape as pandemic-era policies expired at midnight, and extreme poverty and violence in Latin America are triggering historic waves of migrants to head north. Those Trump-era policies allowed the US to turn away more than 2 million would-be asylum-seekers. Biden’s replacement rules, at least on paper, are harsh, but in different ways; instead of instant processing of asylum cases, there could be instant expulsions.

See? The border is not Joe’s fault. It’s Trump’s fault! Surprise! I really do not have to spend any words explaining why this is nutsbar, right?

And those are just the top two domestic challenges on his plate. Look abroad and things get precipitously worse—hostages, spycraft, disinformation. Look inward, and Republicans’ pursuit of first son Hunter Biden looks plenty risky. And then there’s ex-President Donald Trump’s threat to return.

As much as Americans like to lionize the presidency, it is a fragile and fickle institution. Biden can still move headlines when he cares to, and his team is working behind the scenes to reassert some control over moving events. But Biden is, whether he likes it or not, at best a collaborator in the livestream of history, and in some cases a passive observer left to react. No President likes to be cast as a supporting actor, but it’s undeniable that, at least right now, Biden is at the mercy of outside forces.

Not Joe’s fault, it’s all those icky outside things that no president has ever had to deal with in the history of the U.S. But, you know, maybe if he spent the time doing the actual job, rather than working 30 hours a week and spending almost every weekend off he could be in charge. And if he had his mental faculties. In the meantime, as things get worse and worse, you’ll have media outlets like Time Magazine to absolve Biden of responsibility for the job he *checks notes* voluntarily ran for.

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