Many Americans believe the Biden administration brought four of the worst years we have encountered in the past half century, if not longer, for the nation and the American spirit. The purpose of presenting here the most damaging actions of those four years is to recall how we allowed ourselves to go off the rails for that time, and the effects wrought, so as to not repeat them or anything similar in our future.

These five failings are presented in the order of significance regarding harm to America: financial, psychological, and social effects.

1. COVID Mandates. Many books will be written to document all the mistakes made in addressing COVID, but the focus here is on specific government mandates and actions to support their positions, at the overt cost of freedom. Here we must trust in your memory all the events the government created to lead to virtual panic in the citizenry and shutdown of the economy in overreaction to a virus that primarily threatened the elderly and those with multiple co-morbidities — an estimated 1% of the population.

Some of us were stunned at the startling overreach of government mandates, mask wearing, social distancing, vaccination, and enforcing compliance potentially with termination of employment or even arrest. Tens of millions of Americans were displaced by government shutdown orders, including massive job losses due to shuttering, relocations, and school closures.

Yet the resulting economic devastation is routinely blamed on the virus itself, instead of the government’s heavy-handed response. Hopefully, we, the citizenry, learned a number of lessons from this nightmarish experience.

2. Mass Unvetted Migration. We do not know the exact numbers, a reflection of how chaotic the inflow from an estimated one hundred countries was. Eight million migrants, according to CBP data and independent estimates, entered illegally during 2021–2024, unfettered, virtually welcomed, during the Biden administration. No country in modern history has allowed that level of mass migration.

It is interesting that questions regarding the reason behind the Biden administration’s policy seem never to be asked. The disruption is massive, broaching all social spheres from education to public welfare, healthcare, and crime. But beyond those quantifiable impacts lies the problem that these illegal immigrants demonstrate no evident desire to adopt American civic values, language, or have any intention to assimilate or to have pride in becoming an American. Instead, we compound our multicultural divisiveness issues in a now overflowing “salad bowel” approach instead of the historically effective “melting pot.

3. Multiple Trillion Dollar Government Spending Programs. When Democratic leaders pretended they wanted to put Biden on their imaginary Democratic Mount Rushmore, the reason was all the additional government spending he got the Democrat Congress to pass.  As Ted Kennedy said, “The answer is more money. Now, what is the question?”

• Between Trump’s COVID relief and Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” programs, intended to clumsily correct the government shutdown of the economy, the givebacks cost $4.1 trillion dollars. This, like the other programs, was effectively a wealth transfer from taxpayers along with a permanent increase to the national debt.
• Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act claimed $1.2 trillion in funding, including $550 billion in new spending. Have there been any notable actual infrastructure programs?  Biden’s plan to pay for it was 87,000 new IRS agents to enforce compliance with the vast tax code, mostly directed at small businesses.
• Biden’s “American Families Plan” cost $1.8 trillion. This is also almost entirely new welfare programs and again, a wealth transfer from taxpayers to non-taxpayers in the administration’s move toward “crib to grave” socialism.
• The ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act,” called for $891 billion in total spending — including $783 billion on green energy, and three more years of Affordable Care Act subsidies, that is, more welfare.

Together, these come to about $8 trillion dollars of new government expenditures in its endless quest to expand its reach at the expense of those 50% of families that pay taxes.

If even one of these programs had resulted in tangible benefits to the public good — like real infrastructure — we might forgive the cost. But instead, all we have is debt.

4. The New Treatment of Crime and Justice.  This is a manifestation of the “social justice” movement, precipitated from the George Floyd death in Minneapolis in 2020. In the ensuing riots and “mostly peaceful” protests in 140 cities, there was an excess of unpunished crimes. These riots resulted in at least 25–30 deaths, caused over $2 billion in property damage, and were followed by widespread prosecutorial leniency in the name of “social justice.” They also triggered the “defund the police” movement and in some jurisdictions the apparent end of prosecuting many crimes, such as shoplifting.

Another turn involved lawfare against political opponents originating with district attorneys aided by the Department of Justice. Efforts in particular were focused on preventing a Trump second term by means of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, unconstitutional exorbitant fines for fabricated offenses, and the effort in numerous states to take him off ballot for the next Presidency.

Now we have a dilemma the Supreme Court must address: setting a boundary on the jurisdiction of any single district court judge, of which there are 677. Can one halt the efforts of the Executive branch in executing Executive branch functions? SCOTUS must quickly fix this.

5. The Biden Administration Executive Order to Focus on DEI. It was with immense pride that Biden announced that a newly invented diversity, equity, and inclusion policy would be the central effort of all his 440-plus executive agencies.

This policy embraced fringe social fads, centered on identity politics as some sort of moral high ground, and was favored over meritocracy. To enforce the policy, many agencies adopted de facto standards that discriminated against white men, prompting numerous lawsuits, including one filed by air traffic controller applicants overtly rejected due to their race and gender.

This policy, and the focus on pronouns, identity language, and fringe gender ideologies, became a cultural flashpoint, alienating the broader public from a government meant to serve all.

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