Biden looks to climate and past presidents to shape his legacy
Given his first moves, Biden is challenging future historians to define his presidency through a climate lens.
Amid a deadly pandemic, growing fear of radicals and terrorists, and the fallout of a racist commander-in-chief, an incoming president promised a return to normalcy.
“America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration,” spoke the candidate on the campaign trail.
Those words were not from Joe Biden, though. They were spoken over a hundred years ago by Warren G. Harding, the United States’ 29th president. Unfortunately for the latter, that rhetoric never paid off—most historians mark Harding’s short time in office as unremarkable, if not a total failure.
The Harding administration, plagued by corruption, failed to stabilize a country maimed by the fallout from World War I, significant labor and racial unrest, and the deadliest pandemic in the nation’s history (until 2020). Biden will face similar challenges, plus a new one in climate change.
It’s that last issue that Biden is putting at the center of his new administration. It’s too early to predict Biden’s legacy, but given his first moves, he’s already challenging future historians to define his presidency through a climate lens. And to ensure success on that front, Biden is using the playbook, not of Harding, but of another president.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt won the U.S. presidency in 1932, he inherited America’s worst economic crisis from a president that seemed largely incapable of solving it. Roosevelt used this landscape to his advantage, rolling out expansive federal programs, putting millions back to work, and, in the process, reshaping the modern American presidency.
Biden obviously fancies himself more an FDR than a Harding. Like FDR, Biden faces significant social, political, and economic strife. And like FDR, Biden aims to overcome these challenges with federal policy. The added layer in today’s world is the climate crisis, which isn’t just a one-sector challenge but an issue that affects all aspects of the nation.
Though Biden is unlikely to get his $2 trillion climate bill passed through Congress, his sweeping executive orders echo FDR’s New Deal, which was grounded in the belief that the federal government is central to the health of the nation’s economy and its citizens.
Green New Deal or not, Biden plans to use pages of FDR’s playbook to combat climate change. One particularly expansive executive order signed last week creates the Civilian Climate Corps, a not-so-subtle shoutout to Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which FDR too passed by executive action. The new order from Biden also aims to move the country to entirely clean electricity by 2035 and electrify the federal government’s fleet of nearly 650,000 vehicles.
Altogether, these executive actions signal that Biden plans to bolster the federal government’s role in tackling the climate crisis. And by aggressively rolling out so many climate-related orders in his first week, Biden is looking to define his presidency, at least early on, by climate action.
Most presidents are remembered by one crucial success — Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, FDR’s World War II — or one underlying failure — Harding’s Teapot Dome, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam, Richard Nixon’s Watergate.
Biden may not face a global war or secession of southern states, but he does face a climate crisis that threatens humanity’s very existence.
Should Biden avoid scandal, prioritize action, and put Americans back to work, he may be able to use his response to climate as the centerpiece of his legacy and, in the same breath, create a more sustainable, healthier, and safer country.