Joseph R. Biden as a Multi-layered President

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740231171686
• Author: Charles T. Goodsell
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Joseph R. Biden as a Multi-layered

President

Charles T. Goodsell

1

Abstract

A little understood reason for the success of the Biden Presidency is the occupant’s range of role diversity. His multiple forms

of leadership allow him to present himself as the situation warrants at a moment’s notice. This skill refers not just to varied

speaking styles but wholly different personae. Eight of these roles are illustrated and evaluated: Mentor, Commander, Lawgiver,

Warrior, Advocate, Visionary, Preacher, and Comforter.

Keywords

President Joseph Biden, Biden’s leadership roles, a multi-layered president

Mentor

Two days after the frightening scourge of Coronavirus 19

broke out in January 2020, former President Donald Trump

declared, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person

coming in from China.”(Kiely et al., 2020).

This outlook quickly evaporated when hospitals and

morgues across the country became jammed. President

Trump’s reaction was to create the White House

Coronavirus Task Force. It consisted of 23 political f‌igures

and only two experts, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the

National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and

Dr. Deborah Birx, Coordinator of U.S. Activities to

Combat HIV/AIDS. When the pair were largely conf‌ined to

the sidelines, the body essentially became a megaphone for

Trump, who used it to recommend that victims take

malaria drugs or swallow household cleaners. For the rest

of Trump’s presidency, the battle against the disease con-

sisted of multiple agencies seeking parts of the action, indi-

vidual states competing for scarce supplies, and a political

battle between health professionals calling for citizens to

stay home and business interests insisting on reopening the

economy (Goodsell, 2020).

When President Biden began his time in off‌ice on January

20, 2021, he abolished the Task Force, hired Dr. Fauci as

Covid Czar, and signed 12 executive orders to address the

public health and economic challenges posed by

COVID-19. These steps eliminated much of the governmen-

tal chaos by replacing it with orderly delegated action. Close

executive control role was shifted to private mobilization of

scientif‌ic knowledge. The federal government selected two

pharmaceutical f‌irms—Pf‌izer and Moderna—to provide the

means by which the citizenry itself could learn how to

protect itself: wearing masks and social distancing to

reduce contagion; new medical therapies that enabled

doctors to treat the severity of the disease; and new vaccines

that would enable citizens to escape contracting the disease.

From time to time, the administration would publicly encour-

age wearing masks, washing hands, and accepting vaccina-

tions. Finally, in 2022–2023 the casualty f‌igures declined.

President Biden had led not by law or control, but by

setting the stage for societal self-learning.

Commander

On August 15, 2021, Americans stared at the television

image of a cargo plane lifting off a runway at the international

airport of Kabul, Afghanistan. Against the blowback of jet

engines, scores of frantic individuals are running full speed

on the tarmac after the departing aircraft. A few desperately

hang on to the outside of the plane until it is aloft and soon

their bodies plummet back to Earth.

The next day President Biden admitted the situation was

“messy”and accepted responsibility for it. The runway had

not been fully fenced off. Yet he defended his command

that American forces be withdrawn from Afghanistan

without delay. For many years he had opposed stationing

American forces in the country. He felt that prior presidents

were wrong in believing Afghanistan is the better choice

than Iraq as a bulwark against terrorist organizations operat-

ing from Syria. Biden felt Afghanistan, too, would not would

1

Public Administration, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Charles T. Goodsell, Public Administration,Virginia Tech,509 College View

Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.

Email: goodsell@vt.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2023, Vol. 53(5-6) 175–181

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740231171686

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