With his characteristic dyspeptic vitriol, Donald Trump scorns Joe Biden as the “worst president in the history of America”. The historian Robert McElvaine hails him as a “great president”, arguing that his accomplishments rival those of “both Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, the two most effective of 20th-century presidents”, and since Biden didn’t enjoy the congressional majorities of those giants, he had to do it, “as was said about Ginger Rogers doing everything that Fred Astaire could do, backwards and in high heels”.
What is clear is that after four contentious years, Biden leaves Washington as a remarkably consequential one-term president.
