The Spire

Bryce Maloney ’26

Opinions Editor

As the first primaries and caucuses of the 2024 United States Presidential election get underway, much has been discussed about the possibility of a rematch between former President Donald Trump, and the current President of the United States, Joe Biden. The 2020 election cycle brought one of the most highly contested and bitterly challenged presidential competitions in the history of our country. Ultimately, President Biden denied President Trump a second term, securing a whopping 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million, and leading in the Electoral College with a win of 306-232. When President Trump left office in January of 2021, his approval rating sat in the mid thirties, and if some current polling is to be believed, President Biden lies precariously just above the 40 percent mark. As we face a rematch of two of the most definitive and seemingly unpopular characters in the epic saga that is modern American politics, I think an assessment of the record is necessary. Firstly, we needn’t discuss the reasons each of these candidates is disliked by the majority of American voters. It seems clear enough now that the majority of American voters are likely going to renominate both of them, it would therefore be hypocritical of us to assume otherwise. Besides, I feel as though Biden’s age and verbal prowess, as well as Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, and role in Jan. 6 are exhausted topics that have been covered many times in the past and will be covered many times again up until (and I expect past) this November’s election. So, without looking at the less than reputable aspects of each President’s record, how are we to determine which candidate to vote for? If you are a Republican, a Democrat, or somewhere in between, and still haven’t quite made up your mind between the two former Presidents, I think it is important to look at both of these leaders based on their successes, rather than shortcomings. The easiest way to do this, in my opinion, is by looking at the number of campaign promises made by each President, and assessing how many of them each candidate has been able to fulfill during their tenure. An easy way to track this can be seen on the website Politifact, a website run by the nonpartisan Poynter Institute and has fact checked our leaders since the Bush era. It even won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for its reporting on the previous year’s election. 

In this article, I want to assess what Politifact describes as the 5 biggest promises made by each administration. For Biden, this includes getting Covid under control, getting bipartisan support to uplift the economy, using a national commission to address policing issues, putting the US on track to attain net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and improving/expanding Obamacare. Trump promised to build a wall along the Mexican border (and have Mexico pay for it), implement his ban on immigration from largely Muslim nations with a history of terrorism, cut taxes for everyone (including businesses), and to drain the ‘swamp’ of Washington DC insiders. In terms of accomplishments, President Biden far outweighs President Trump. Biden’s economic recovery package has seen the largest creation of new jobs in the first 36 months in office of any president in history, with nearly 14 million new jobs added. Many would say that these statistics come as a result of a post covid economic boom largely spurred by President Trump, however these numbers have remained strong even after Covid, with Biden adding 409,000 new jobs to the economy on average per month – with 353,000 jobs being added in January of 2024 alone. These job statistics, produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, place Biden ahead of Trump, Obama, Reagan, and even the former champion, Bill Clinton in terms of his job performance. 

On top of this, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted by President Biden in 2021, boosted the economy by making the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in history. Furthermore, Biden’s administration raised vaccination rates and increased the number of vaccine sights, ultimately successfully bringing Covid in the United States under control. Biden’s environmental policy, including our re-entry into the Paris Climate Accords, as well as deals with the automotive industry which placed massive investments into electric vehicles, all help to ensure that we will have a carbon neutral economy by 2050. Furthermore, President Biden has worked via executive order and with Congress to expand Obamacare. President Trump’s campaign promises have been brought to fruition far less than those made by President Biden. President Trump never finished his border wall, and Mexico certainly never paid for it. John McCain’s now famed thumbs down on the Senate floor killed any hope of President Trump repealing Obamacare, and he spent most of his tenure battling lawsuits to keep his self described ‘Muslim Ban’ afloat. He certainly didn’t drain the swamp, but reinvigorated the cycle of corruption by placing Republican donors into high profile positions, even when they had no qualifications for those roles whatsoever (ie. Ben Carson as HUD Secretary, Rick Perry as Energy Secretary, and Betsy Devos as Education Secretary). His only notable accomplishment was eeking out tax cuts for the wealthy, and for businesses, although not as large as he had originally hoped. Considering both Presidents have had a time period in which both Houses of Congress were controlled by their parties, and both have had middling levels of popularity during their time in power, and have (thus far) only served one term, the comparison being made is quite interesting.

In understanding the fullness of these statistics, it begs the question — who in their right mind can still vote for President Trump? Many voters you meet would tell you they vote for Trump not because of what he says, but because of his policies. That argument would have made sense in 2016, but in 2024 one has to question its validity due to the fact that the privilege of hindsight would tell us that he was ineffective in executing almost every one of his major policy platforms. As the election nears and the prospect of one of these two men leading our nation for the next four years becomes increasingly more likely, we must ask ourselves — what kind of president do we want — one who is effective or ineffective? When given the option (which we will be given this November), I think it is abundantly clear what our answer should be.

Copy Edited by Sabine Hinkaty ’26