Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
The moniker “Genocide Joe” is well deserved and one that Joe Biden can never live down, along with any other names that describe the damage he brought to the country and to the world. His legacy is that in every position he held, he was a happy servant for imperialist and neo-liberal interests, like all of his white house predecessors.
On January 20, 2025, Joseph R. Biden will no longer be president of the United States. Unlike other one term presidents he was not defeated in a re-election effort. He was undone by the same wealthy donors who rigged the process to make him the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2020. Biden was already not up to the task of running in 2020 but his obvious state of debility had noticeably worsened by 2024. He could no longer rely on claims that he only had a stutter when there were so many strange outbursts, verbal miscues, handshakes with invisible people, and wandering off as a toddler would do.
The June 2024 debate with Donald Trump sealed the deal and the forces who had previously been reluctant to say the emperor had no clothes, moved against him. He was forced to stand down. The attempt to shoehorn Kamala Harris in at the last minute failed spectacularly and Donald Trump will be president again.
At this moment it is important to remember Joe Biden’s racism, slavish devotion to neo-liberalism and imperialism, and to a genocide in partnership with Israel, which he committed to carrying out until his last days in office. Serious ceasefire negotiations, now in place were the work of the incoming Trump team, while Biden, with bipartisan congressional support, assisted in every atrocity and war crime.
Joe Biden was nothing if not consistent during his career as a senator, vice president and finally president. He was a reliably conservative Democratic Party senator, one who often expressed himself using insulting and racist language when discussing government policy. No one should have been shocked when Biden had one of his famous angry moments in a meeting with Black leaders as president elect in December 2020. The group’s modest requests for voting rights protections and the need for federal intervention to address police brutality were dismissed by the man that millions of Black people helped to win the presidency. At one point the notorious Biden temper rose up and he chastised the group. “If it doesn’t count for y’all to hell with y’all!”
He meant the words and governed accordingly, only living up to his promise to rich funders during his campaign in 2020, assuring them that in his administration, “No one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.” He was true to his word, refusing to take any action that the oligarchy didn’t want to see realized.
In foreign policy he was always hawkish and always a zionist. All of the machinations that made Biden the democrats’ nominee in 2020 and eventually president brought disaster to millions of people. In 2022 he instigated a war with Russia, using Ukraine as a U.S. proxy. Three years later the war rages on but Biden failed to as he said, “reduce the ruble to rubble.” Instead, the futile effort to sanction Russia’s energy sector increased consumer prices in the United States and internationally. He then pivoted with the forgettable phrase “Putin’s price hike” in hopes that struggling people wouldn’t blame him for worsening their lives. The foolish phrase soon disappeared but popular discontent didn’t and helped to defeat Kamala Harris.
Biden was maniacal in his commitment to using Ukraine to weaken Russia. On September 26, 2022, two of the NordStream pipelines which connected gas lines from Russia to Germany mysteriously exploded. The U.S. was the suspected perpetrator from the very beginning and in February 2023 investigative journalist Seymour Hersh provided solid evidence that Biden and his foreign policy team were responsible for the terrorist attack on an ally. Without inexpensive Russian gas, Germany was forced to buy more expensive U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) and in the process has ruined its own economy but like a good little vassal, has not dared to speak about what is obvious to anyone who is paying attention.
Bipartisan support for the war in Ukraine has cost $183 billion in public funding and thousands of Ukrainian lives. The administration is even forcing Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 and send very young men into battle as cannon fodder. Any stated concerns about that country’s fate are fake as the Biden administration scuttled a tentative peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia which took place shortly after the war began. The continuation of death and destruction there are all the fault of the U.S.
While money was sent to Ukraine in a hand over fist fashion, people in this country were always told that they had no needs which their government needed to address. The outpouring of spending during the covid era provided stimulus payments and increased eligibility for Medicaid and SNAP nutritional benefits. But it all ended and millions of people were asked to vote for Kamala Harris despite being made destitute. Nearly seven million who had voted for Biden in 2020 chose not to in 2024 and Harris and Biden will be spectators at Trump’s inauguration.
There were a reported 771,480 homeless people in 2024, an 18% increase over the previous year. Once again we see that the ending of pandemic programs which included eviction moratoriums, rental assistance, and tax credit programs had devastating impacts. The Biden administration responded by blaming an influx of migration and natural disasters, never mentioning its own role in perpetuating this crisis of low wages and lack of affordability.
But the one issue which seals Biden’s eternal disgrace is his support of Israel. Immediately after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood began on October 7, 2023, Biden raced to Israel to publicly declare his support for the apartheid state. Since that time more than $17.9 billion in military aid has gone to Israel, with a new $8 billion sale announced just one week ago. The term sale is a misnomer, Israel actually spends money the U.S. allocates to buy more weaponry.
As of July 2024 there were an estimated 186,000 people killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza and none of those deaths would have occurred without U.S. support. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former defense minister in November 2024 but Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan should also be threatened with arrest. Of course congressional leadership should also be on that list because they too are culpable in the crimes which included targeted assassination of journalists and public officials, destruction of hospitals, destruction of homes followed by the bombing of tent camps where people were then forced to live.
In real time the world has seen people burned alive, and watched as Israeli civilians and officials blocked food aid from coming to needy people. The IDF has committed rapes and soldiers rioted when there was a possibility of punishment of the perpetrators. All of these crimes can be laid at Joe Biden’s feet. Now it is Donald Trump who can take credit for moving a ceasefire proposal forward, a proposal whose provisions were accepted by Hamas months ago.
Of course it was Black people who first warned Biden that his policy regarding Israel might lead to defeat. Black clergy spoke up first. “Black faith leaders are extremely disappointed in the Biden administration on this issue,” said Rev. Timothy McDonald of Atlanta. “We are afraid. And we’ve talked about it — it’s going to be very hard to persuade our people to go back to the polls and vote for Biden.” The most loyal demographic for the democrats foretold the eventual outcome.
Black politics is in a weakened state with prominent misleaders and surrogates urging support for democrats. But all of the people can’t be fooled all of the time. In 2024 fewer of them could be corralled into holding their noses and voting for Kamala Harris.
Joe Biden is truly Genocide Joe. He is also Austerity Joe and Militarism Joe. All of the worst imperatives of the duopoly have been prioritized by a one-term administration to such a degree that victory became impossible.
It is strange that when Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump was announced, there was quite literally partying in the streets in cities across the country. But there is no fond memory of him now. The words “But Trump!” that were used to silence anyone questioning Biden’s actions now ring hollow. Trump may indeed live up to the worst expectations about him. He may have the “mass deportations” that he pledged, but Biden deported more people in his one term than Trump did in his first.
As always historians will whitewash a president’s actions and find ways to sing praises of some kind. The words will ring hollow however, and the homeless in the U.S. and in Gaza will have the final say. Joe Biden’s legacy is one of immiseration, war making, and death. During Jimmy Carter’s funeral he fell asleep in a perfect denouement symbolizing a presidency which ends in ignominy and disgrace.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
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