An oil crisis, Middle East unrest, creeping inflation, unexpectedly high unemployment… where have we heard that before? Americans familiar with the Jimmy Carter malaise of the 1970s are feeling some serious deja vu under President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump has taken notice.
Trump noted that Biden’s struggles echo those of his Democratic predecessor, but Trump also explained why Biden’s crises are worse than Carter’s were.
“I see that everybody is comparing Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter,” Trump noted. “It would seem to me that is very unfair to Jimmy Carter. Jimmy mishandled crisis after crisis, but Biden has CREATED crisis after crisis.”
“First there was the Biden Border Crisis (that he refuses to call a Crisis), then the Biden Economic Crisis, then the Biden Israel Crisis, and now the Biden Gas Crisis,” Trump noted. “Joe Biden has had the worst start of any president in United States history, and someday, they will compare future disasters to the Biden Administration—but no, Jimmy was better!”
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Ouch! That’s got to hurt.
Carter famously lost reelection amid the malaise of inflation, relatively high unemployment, the Iran hostage crisis, and the 1979 oil crisis (mostly spurred on by the Iranian Revolution). Ronald Reagan promised “Morning in America” after this “malaise,” and the American people voted accordingly.
Similarly, the last few days have seen another oil crisis, Palestinian rockets hitting Israel (protected by the impressive Iron Dome) and Israel’s response, consumer prices reaching 4.2 percent (the fastest inflation spike since 2008), a 21-year record of immigrants stopped at the southern border, and an unexpected rise in unemployment that suggests the Democrats’ COVID-19 unemployment checks are stalling the post-pandemic recovery.
Biden shares a great deal of the blame in each of these crises.
Biden canceled construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and ordered a moratorium on drilling on federal lands, chocking the supply of oil. The Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, fell victim to a cyber attack that shut down its entire network last week, leading to oil shortages across the East coast (especially in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia). While Biden is not responsible for the cyber attack, he has delayed critical investments in infrastructure by refusing to work with Republicans to pass a clean bill but instead pushing a bill that only directs about 10 percent of its funds to traditional infrastructure.
Biden has reached out to the Palestinians, suggesting a reversal of Trump’s historic Middle East peace deals that linked Israel with Arab countries in the region by cutting out the obstinate Palestinians.
Biden has spent trillions of dollars on “COVID-19 relief” that mostly didn’t address the pandemic, and he has called for Congress to spend trillions more in social programs that his tax plans cannot hope to fund. Essentially printing money decreases trust in the U.S. dollar and sparks inflation.
Biden rushed to reverse the Trump policies that had gotten the border crisis under control — ending construction of the wall, ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy, dropping Trump’s “safe third country” deals with Latin American countries regarding asylum seekers, and more.
Finally, Biden supported extending the COVID-19 extra unemployment checks, which end up paying some workers more than they made when they had jobs — therefore incentivizing unemployment.
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Biden arguably shares more direct responsibility for his crises than Carter did for his.
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