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Global leaders in China, Russia, and in the United States are under the microscope like no one else on the planet. Their decisions have far-reaching impact on millions, and potentially billions, of people. So identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the people in charge is important in understanding their policies.
In this comprehensive video, Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan shares his thoughts on eight world leaders from the past several decades, including President Joe Biden. While judging his tenure against past presidents may seem premature, Zeihan says Biden’s penchant for asking questions and willingness to not always be the smartest guy in the room stands in sharp contrast to recent American presidents.
Now, commenting on a sitting president is always dangerous, because no matter what I say, I’m gonna piss everybody off. So let’s just get to it knowing that that is where this is going to go. In terms of previous experience, the only president that we have ever had that is kind of in the same league as Biden for actually having a real grown-up job is Barack Obama. Sometime around the fall of Rome, Biden was a legal clerk for about a year and a half. And he hasn’t had a real job since.
He has been in the Senate since about the time of the Crusades. And so he’s seen a lot, but he hasn’t really done much of anything except for sit on meetings. Now, the negatives of this are obvious, he’s guided more by ideology than most presidents because he really doesn’t have a lot of real world experience. On the flip side, dude knows how to run a meeting. And when you bring that attitude, that sort of, for lack of a better word, wisdom into a room, it means you realize that you’re not going to know everything.
And so you’re okay with asking questions. You’re okay with showing your belly a little bit. And that means unlike Donald Trump, or Barack Obama, Biden is the most engaged president we’ve had in, you know, 13-14 years. You can even make the argument that when it comes to shaping of policies even better than Clinton or W. He’s only two years in. I’m not willing to say that he’s better or worse than W. or Clinton, I think the jury’s still out.
But he’s clearly better than Obama or Trump, simply because he’s willing to use the information that’s provided, and the tools of state. Now, that doesn’t mean that I or anyone have to agree with him. I’m simply talking about managerial competence at this point. And in fact, in economic policy, whew, say what you will about Trump, he had a number of people on his cabinet, especially in the first year, that really knew their way around. And say what you will about W, he had some serious leading lights and intellectual heavyweights, Clinton was able to pick people and throw them at problems fairly effectively. And even Obama, while his cabinet was highly ideological, had very little real world experience, they’re all clever people who understand that if you wanted to get something done, you have to use actually, the tools of state.
Biden’s superior to all of them in that regard, and that he understands and trust in the power of government. But his cabinet is not all that. He really doesn’t have anyone on the Cabinet who I would consider a leading light in the space that they’re supposed to be regulating. But that is not just a negative. There is a positive to that because there is an understanding throughout his cabinet taking cues from a boss who doesn’t claim to know everything and for the first time, since at least the W administration, cabinet ministers are actually reaching out to industry to ask questions. And that degree of humility is something that I think will bode well for what comes for the next two years.
