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Biden is now a lame duck President. What can he do to help secure his legacy in the small remaining time he has left? Here's a couple ideas:
End the Ukraine War. The war is coming to end soon in the next year anyway (65% chance). Trump might get credit. Why not strike a deal now and make a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize? Obviously, there are pitfalls here. But in the end, it will be seen in the same light as U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Messy, but ultimately necessary. Normie-ish people are starting to reach the same conclustion.
National parks. This is a common thing that Presidents do to secure their legacy. Biden is the first President not to create a new National Park since Truman. Surely they can dig one up (hopefully better than the St. Louis Arch).
Move a department to the heartland. Move the Department of the Interior to... the interior. Build a new "Joseph Robinette Biden Building" for its HQ. This shows his commitment to the common people and sticks a finger in the eye of the DC insiders who shanked him. It also might take the wind out of the sails of the Republicans who would be more loathe to axe jobs in Kansas than in DC.
I hope he resists the urge to issue a bunch of unpopular ultra-left executive orders before he leaves. No doubt his staff will want him to do that, but ultimately this is going on his permanent record, not theirs.
On the other hand, Biden has a chance to soften and improve his reputation by doing something that is non-partisan and magnanimous. (Example: G. W. Bush helping to stop the AIDS epidemic in Africa).
What can he do to salvage what will no doubt be seen as a bottom-tier Presidency?
If it were as simple as just ending the Ukraine War then he would have done it already. Every peace proposal I've seen ends with Ukraine ceding massive amounts of territory and agreeing to never engage in any kind of security agreement. In other words, give up a bunch of shit now, and leave the door open for another invasion when Russia gets around to it. These terms wouldn't be acceptable to Ukraine, wouldn't be acceptable to Biden, and wouldn't be acceptable to Trump. If Biden tried to end the war on these terms Trump would immediately excoriate him for being weak, and he'd be right. I think Trump has deluded himself into thinking he can sweet talk Putin into a deal that would be acceptable to Ukraine, or at lease so reasonable that Ukraine would lose international support if they didn't take it. It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.
As for the National Parks, all of the ones that have been designated since Clinton have been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Take New River Gorge for example. I go there at least once a year, but there isn't a ton to do unless you're running the river. the park only owns up to the top of the hill in most places, which means that most of the park is a steep mountainside that isn't really suitable for any kind of development. There's an overlook at the main visitor's center, a short hike along the rim, and a couple old mining sites with varying degrees of accessibility and preservation (e.g. Thurmond is accessible by car and has a well-done museum, while Lower Kaymoor requires descending 800 steps to the bottom of the gorge on foot, and is just old mine structures). There's some climbing, and probably a few more things I'm not familiar with, but that's it. It works as a National River or Recreation Area but not so much a park.
The only large tract of Federal land that's an obvious location for a National Park is the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The problem is that this is owned by the Forest Service, and transferring it to the Department of the Interior would result in a bitch fight over timber rights, mining rights, and all the other mixed-use things that aren't allowed in National Parks. Even in New River Gorge, they limited the park to a minority of the available acreage so that hunting would be able to continue. Hence, it's technically New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, with the park itself only being about 8% of the total unit. National Park designations also require the approval of congress, which isn't going to happen. See the ongoing fight over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monuments, which can be created by executive order. They keep getting expanded and pared back, but neither area has anywhere near the facilities for congress to just designate a new park and be done with it.
If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
It's a cynical use of Ukraine to allow us to hurt Russia without declaring war. The well-being of Ukraine was never per se pertinent.
and yet when people say that we shouldn't be doing it, the argument is that we've got to protect the poor Ukrainians. There's this maddening bullshit arbitrage between "protect the Ukrainians from the evil Russian Orcs", and "We should harm the Russians as much as possible, who cares what it costs the Ukranians."
Almost like some kind of motte and bailey?
You know when you’re watching a movie and a line of dialogue includes the title of the movie?
Same energy as this comment.
There's another level, which is that actually the thing I just said is the bailey and the real motte is spending money for the sake of it (for those who become enriched).
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