John Davis Consulting

Biden Executive Orders Revoke Trump Legacy; Will He Avoid the First Term Disasters of Clinton and Obama?

February 23, 2021         Vol. XIV, No. 4       7:13 am

32 Biden executive orders show power to circumvent Congress

Nothing says presidential power like the power to revoke the executive orders of your predecessor. Case in point: Last week, President Biden signed his 32^nd executive order since his January 20, 2021 Inauguration, Executive Order on the Revocation of Executive Order 13801. Here is the link to all of President Biden’s executive orders as maintained by the Federal Register.

Just like that, with each stroke of President Biden’s pen, the residual power of President Trump’s pen weakened. “America First” nationalism swapped for global reengagement; the World Health Organization, the Paris Climate Agreement. Travel ban reversed on certain Muslim countries.

Just like that, domestic priorities reversed. Obamacare marketplaces reopened, construction of President Trump’s border wall ended, and the Keystone XL pipeline shut down. With the stroke of Biden’s pen, certain restrictions on abortion funding lifted, LGBTQ community protections expanded, climate change now a national security priority, and collective bargaining for federal workers restored.

So, how do Biden’s 32 first-month executive orders compare to the executive orders issued by all other US presidents? Per The American Presidency Project, President George Washington issued only eight executive orders in his entire eight-year presidency.

• The first 15 presidents, Washington through Buchanan, issued a combined total of 143 executive orders, an average of 9.5 orders during their entire tenure as president.
• The next 15 presidents, Lincoln through Coolidge, issued a combined total of 6,452 executive orders, an average of 430 during their entire tenure as president.
• The next 15 presidents, Herbert Hoover through Donald Trump, issued a combined Total of 9,152 executive orders, an average of 610 per administration.

As to 21^st Century presidents, George W. Bush issued 291 executive orders for an average of 36 per year; Barack Obama issued 276 for a 35-per-year average; Donald Trump issued 220 for a 55-per-year average. Though Biden’s 32 orders in a month may seem excessive, he knows what he is doing.

What sets President Biden apart from former presidents is that he is beginning his tenure with almost five decades of experience in Washington. He knows every trick in the book, including how to accomplish his policy objectives by using executive orders to circumvent the legislative process.

First term political disasters of Clinton and Obama

If the Biden Administration allows its priorities to be set exclusively by urban voters, those who live in the 551 counties he won in 2020 — out of the nation’s 3,139 total counties — he will pay the same political price paid by former Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama. While true that only 18% of all U.S. counties gave him the win and 7 million more votes than Trump, ignoring the 82% of the counties that voted against him risks disastrous political consequences in next year’s elections.

Metropolitan counties are the home of the Biden coalition. More diverse. More college-educated. Younger. Upper-income liberals. And home to most of the nation’s economic activity. Think about this: per Brookings, 71% of U.S. economic activity is in the 18% of American counties carried by Biden. Only 29% of the nation’s GDP is generated in the 82% of counties carried by Trump.

These facts help explain the partisan estrangement in America. The great divide between Biden and Trump voters is not just about the nation’s cultural and policy differences, it is as much about the availability of income opportunities in the very counties we call home. All 3,139 of them.

Joe Biden knows that rookie mistakes made by the last two Democratic presidents were responsible for catastrophic losses in Congressional seats. The mistakes? Rushing to appease the demands of urban liberal voters at the expense of moderate and conservative voters in non-metropolitan counties.

In 1994, early first-term mistakes made by President Bill Clinton fueled the loss of the Democratic majority in the US House, held by Democrats for 40 years, as well as the US Senate. In 2010, mistakes made by President Barack Obama during his first two years cost Democrats a net loss of 63 seats and control of the US House, the greatest loss of seats since the GOP lost 75 seats in 1948.

President Biden is not likely to make the same mistakes.

Biden is a wise old hand in the wily ways of Washington

President Biden is a wise old hand in the wily ways of Washington. He has served for 47 years in the nation’s capital: the US Senate, 1973-2009; the Vice Presidency, 2009-2017; and now the US Presidency. He starts every negotiation with the advantage of unmatched political experience.

Biden has seen how Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, Obama, and Trump used their authority to accomplish great things. And he remembers their mistakes.

Odds are Biden knows exactly what he is doing with his record-setting pace of 32 executive orders in his first month in office. It is also likely that Biden plans to govern closer to the nation’s ideological center this year, much to the chagrin of left-wing Democrats, all in the effort to avoid a political disaster during the 2022 elections, much to the chagrin of right-wing Republicans.

Will President Biden avoid the first term political disasters of Clinton and Obama?

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John N. Davis

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