New York: Starting as a local councillor 54 years ago, Joseph Robinette Biden reached his lifelong ambition of becoming the leader of the most powerful country only to see his career melt in a pool of pathos, his mental and physical capabilities called into question.
The 81-year-old President’s achievements in his 36 years in the Senate, eight as Vice-President and nearly four as the 46th President were dimmed by one television debate last month when he stumbled going against his Republican adversary Donald Trump.
His performance raised questions about his mental and physical ability to run for re-election and on Sunday he quit the race after his support seemed to seep.
Standing firm in 2020, he fought off Trump’s unrelenting vicious attacks against him in the most divisive election campaign of modern times and had his election certified by Congress — a process temporarily disrupted by hordes of violent Trump supporters invading the Capitol building.
His selection of Kamala Harris to be Vice-President — the first woman and the first person of Indian and African descent to hold the office — is one of his marks on history.
“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential Presidents,” said Barack Obama, who had picked him as Vice-President, summing up many Democrats’ view of Biden’s legacy.
“Today, we’ve also been reminded – again — that he’s a patriot of the highest order,” he added, referring to his decision to leave the presidential race to avoid hurting the party’s standing.
When he was sworn in as President in 2021 alongside Harris, the nation was in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, virtually shut down and caught in an economic downturn.
He steered the country through the last days of the pandemic to a semblance of normalcy, but ironically a bout of Covid confirmed the doubts about his capacity to lead as he hunkered down to heal while questions about his physical abilities swirled stronger.
His economic policies to pull the nation from the economic doldrums also sent inflation spiralling to about 20 per cent becoming one of the issues ranged against him in his bid for re-election.
But employment was back up reaching historic levels, and the stock markets boomed, which were his campaign points.
His signature achievement in his presidency was the adoption of packages totalling about $1.6 trillion for an economic resurgence that included massive infrastructure projects, plans for increasing middle-class jobs and building self-sufficiency in key technology, particularly computer chips.
Immigration was a weakness of Biden, who in the heat of the 2020 campaign gave the impression that he would welcome illegal immigration in a bid to differentiate himself from Trump’s harsh rhetoric.
About 10 million people surged through the borders till he adopted Trump’s tactic to stem the tide that was becoming an electoral millstone.
Biden made more of a mark on foreign policy by actively re-engaging with the world, raising the level of Indo-Pacific involvement and trying to extend it, rejoining UNESCO, repairing the damage to NATO ties from Trump’s rhetoric, and keeping a conflagration from engulfing the Middle East.
On the foreign policy front, Biden faced three challenges: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Palestine crisis, and China’s challenge.
One of Biden’s successes was in rallying NATO, and other countries, in support of Ukraine and against Russia that invaded it, making it an existential issue for Europe.
But domestic support for financial and military support was turning shaky as the war verged on a stalemate.
And Moscow continues to be a consequential adversary, acting in concert with China.
Palestine pulled him into a vortex of controversy, his unconditional support for Israel soon after the Hamas attack dividing his party and making him harden his attitude toward Israel, pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, as the Palestinian toll rose to about 30,000 and protests broke out across the US.
In confronting China, Biden invested in relations with India and the Quad, the group of four countries that includes Japan and Australia.
He lifted the Quad interactions to the level of Prime Ministers and a President.
In facing China, the most contentious adversary, he took a two-pronged approach: Building up a coalition against Beijing and limiting its economic power by cutting access to technology and the market.
He also has challenges from North Korea, an unstable nuclear and missile power, and Iran, a nation close to achieving nuclear capability and an instigator of troubles across the Middle East.
He tried to make India the fulcrum of a regional policy extending the Indo-Pacific strategy towards the Middle East, setting up I2U2, another Quad with Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Under Biden, the US built up defence and technology relations with India aimed at boosting it as a counterweight to China and an alternative supply chain source, especially in hi-tech.
The high point was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit last year to Washington, high on White House symbolism with pomp and ceremony, but matched by substantive policy agreements.
Tragedies have seared Biden’s personal life but he has overcome them, soldiered on in politics.
Just as Biden was about to start his Senate career as a 29-year-old, his first wife Neilla, their sons Beau and Hunter, and daughter Amy were in an automobile accident.
Neilla and Amy died, while the sons were hospitalised with traumatic injuries.
Beau Biden, who survived the crash and was seen as his father’s political successor, died in 2015 while Joe Biden was considering a run for President in next year’s race.
After serving in the military in Iraq, Beau Biden was making a mark in politics after being elected the Attorney General of Delaware, when brain cancer felled him.
Joe Biden attributed the cancer to the risks his son took during his military deployment.
The other son, Hunter Biden, became a drug addict trailed by personal and political scandals and was convicted of gun charges last month adding to his woes.
Biden had overcome physical issues, starting with a stuttering problem, which he has said he conquered by reciting poetry, and becoming able to make political speeches.
Joe Biden suffered two brain aneurysms and underwent separate surgeries for them and also had a pulmonary embolism in 1988, putting him out of action for about half the year.
Through his sorrows and joys, his second wife Jill whom he married in 1977 has stood by him — a counsellor and an anchor.
She has been politically involved and campaigned for him in elections and likely had a say in his decision to leave the presidential race.
They have a daughter Ashley Blazer, who is a social worker.
Jill Biden, who has a doctorate, is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College and continues to work as the First Lady.
Biden was born in a family mostly of Irish descent in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and speaks of his childhood and family’s struggles there.
His father, also Joseph Biden, was a man of modest means who went through several financial setbacks and periods of unemployment, which Biden said has made him empathise with the problems of the middle and working classes.
He is only the second Catholic to be elected President, after John Kennedy.
Biden received a Bachelor’s degree from Delaware University and followed it with a law degree from Syracuse University in New York State and briefly practised law privately and as a public defender, a government-funded lawyer for the poor.
His political career spanning more than half a century, began when in 1970 he won election to the Newcastle County Council in Delaware state where his family had relocated.
Two years later he ran successfully for the Senate, starting his 36 years as a member and eight years presiding over it during his vice-presidency.
After leaving the vice presidency, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Centre for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, an institution named for him.
As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he pushed for ending sanctions against India for its 1998 nuclear test and worked with Congressional colleagues across party lines to get the landmark India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement approved by Congress in 2008.
That recognised India as a nuclear power in practical terms, effectively ending its international isolation over the tests.
His first attempt at becoming President disintegrated in 1987 amid allegations that he had plagiarised a speech.
As vice president, he should have run against Trump in 2016, but he was outmanoeuvred by the Democratic Party establishment which disastrously pushed Hillary Clinton’s candidature.
Biden had several stumbles during his political career, but his views and policies have evolved.
Along with many Right-wing and racist politicians, he opposed the school desegregation plan known as busing which involved transporting children across de-facto local racial lines of separation to schools in other areas to end racial exclusivity of schools.
Biden supported the Iraq War over false claims that it had weapons of mass destruction but claimed during the campaign that he had opposed it from the beginning. He later admitted that he “misspoke”.
He has repeatedly defended his vote for the war, but also said it was a “mistake”.
He, however, criticised how President George W. Bush conducted the war and its aftermath.
Biden was one of the promoters of the controversial Crime Control Act which ended up disproportionately hurting Africans and while it was being debated he talked of “predators” and young people “born out of wedlock, without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing”.
He later backtracked on the support for the law and has said during his campaign that it was a mistake.
He pulled back his immigration position and after criticising Trump as “anti-immigrant”, adopted Trump’s strategy to stem the influx of illegal immigrants threatening his election prospects.
After denigrating Trump’s warnings and policies towards China, Biden took strong economic and strategic measures against Beijing.
He recently said that India’s economy was stagnating because it was not allowing immigration while the US was prospering. In reality, India is the fastest-growing major economy, with a growth rate of seven per cent against 1.7 per cent for the US, according to the International Monetary Fund.
In a gaffe involving Indian-Americans, he had said, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
It was seen as stereotyping Indians, who face derogatory comments about working in such occupations.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)
–IANS