Delivering his last address to his fellow citizens on January 15, outgoing 46th U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned only one of his predecessors in the White House – the country’s 34th leader, Dwight Eisenhower. Biden referred to Eisenhower’s famous farewell speech of January 17, 1961, in which he warned of the threat to American democracy from the growing military-industrial complex. Drawing transparent parallels, Biden spoke of the dangerous rise of high-tech giants capable of effectively manipulating public consciousness and imposing their political choices on Americans.
Any comparison with Eisenhower must surely flatter Biden’s ego: the general, or Ike, is still one of the most respected American leaders, to whom, incidentally, an impressive memorial was unveiled in downtown Washington a few years ago. But can the 46th president of the United States take a similarly prominent place in American history?
Of course, America is no longer the same as it was in the middle of the last century. In 1960, the country’s population was less than 180 million, nine-tenths of its residents were white, and African-Americans were the only visible ethnic minority. Today, nearly twice that number (344 million) live in America, of whom only 57 percent are white, about 20 percent Hispanic, 14 percent African American, and more than 6 percent Asian. In another 20 years, whites will be a minority in the United States.
In 1960, the U.S. share of the world economy was two-fifths, and now it is less than one-quarter. In purchasing power parity terms, this share is estimated at 15%. When Dwight Eisenhower left the White House, the U.S. national debt had reached $286 billion (54% of GDP), and this was considered a serious problem at the time. Joe Biden leaves behind a national debt of $36 trillion, significantly higher than the country’s current GDP ($29 trillion).
There is no doubt that Americans today live much more comfortably than their grandparents did in the middle of the last century. In 1960, the average life expectancy in the U.S. was just under 70 years; today it has increased to 78.6 years. But what has happened over the decades to the “American dream”? In 1960, there were 213,000 people in American prisons, and today the total number of prisoners is 1.9 million, which, by the way, is more than any other country in the world. In 1960, there were about 45,000 drug addicts in America, and today 3.5 million Americans use hard drugs alone.
Not everything in America depends on the President of the United States. Besides, Eisenhower simply had more time – he spent two full presidential terms in the White House, while Biden had only one. Nevertheless, we must admit that “sleepy Joe” looks rather pale against the background of his great predecessor.
Just after coming to power, Eisenhower made vigorous efforts to end the war on the Korean peninsula. Even though the conflict did not end in a triumphant victory for the United States, Kim Il Sung failed to unite the peninsula under his rule. But Biden in the summer of 2021 was forced to recognize the crushing defeat of the U.S. in Afghanistan. During the Suez crisis in the fall of 1956, Eisenhower found the strength to exert hard pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and his European allies, which made it possible to stop the bloody war two months after its beginning. Faced with an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October 2023, Biden was unwilling or unable to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu from an all-out sweep of the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians (with Israel now far more dependent on the U.S. than it was in 1956).
Domestically, Eisenhower developed and launched a grandiose program of 40,000 miles of interstate highways, which eventually completely transformed not only the U.S. transportation system, but also the American economy and even the American way of life. In the spring of 2021, Biden plotted his $1.2 trillion infrastructure modernization program, but so far there is no talk of any transformation of America. Donald Trump claims that only 11% of Biden’s allotted budget went to actual infrastructure construction.
But the main difference between the two presidents is probably not even that. Dwight Eisenhower sought to unite America. For example, being a Republican, he gave key posts in his administration – the ministers of labor and finance – to prominent representatives of the opposition Democratic Party. To unify the country, Eisenhower consistently fought McCarthyism and defended black voting rights. Joe Biden, contrary to his campaign promises, has done much to further divide an already divided country. Suffice it to recall at least his sensational statement about Trump supporters as “garbage.”
Biden is probably really concerned about the rapidly growing role of the information business in U.S. political life. But for some reason this problem did not bother him too much in 2020, when such giants of this business as Microsoft, Google and Apple supported the election campaign of the Democrats. Apparently, Biden’s current concern is primarily related to the activity of Ilon Musk and his social network X (formerly Twitter) on the side of Donald Trump.
Dwight Eisenhower was not a professional politician, something he always readily admitted, as well as his incompetence in many matters of government. Joe Biden was not involved in anything but politics throughout his long life. Perhaps it was this narrow professional experience – or, as Karl Marx would say, “professional cretinism” – that prevented him from becoming a truly great president.
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