Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: White House photograph, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Joe Biden
- Country
- United States
- Era
- b. 1942
- Tradition
- New Deal liberalism, industrial policy
President who returned the Democratic Party to large-scale public investment — infrastructure, semiconductors and the biggest climate spending package in American history — while keeping tariffs on China and tightening border enforcement.
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in United States history
- Signed the bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS Act, subsidising domestic semiconductor manufacturing
- Retained and extended tariffs on Chinese goods introduced by his predecessor
- Appointed antitrust enforcers who reversed decades of permissive merger policy
- Rejoined the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization on his first day in office
- Supported federal codification of abortion rights after the reversal of Roe v. Wade
- Tightened asylum restrictions at the southern border by executive action in 2024
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
Evidence: Well documented
The state in the economy
Evidence: Well documented
Personal liberty
Evidence: Documented
Tradition and change
Evidence: Well documented
Nation and the world
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
Evidence: Well documented
Environment and growth
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Religion and the state
Sources
- United States Congress, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 · 2022
- Biden’s Industrial Policy and Its Limits · Foreign Affairs · 2023
Last verified: