On July Fourth last year, President Biden ignored the fact that he had missed his goal of having 70 percent of American adults vaccinated against COVID and took a victory lap anyway. The event last Independence Day was billed as "Celebrating Independence Day and Independence from COVID-19." The White House's celebratory declaration and Biden's words didn't leave much wiggle room to hedge promises, but they plunged ahead anyway.
"While the virus hasn't been vanquished, we know this: it no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes our nation. And it's within our power to make sure it never does again," Biden proclaimed in what can only be considered his version of stating "Mission Accomplished" aboard an aircraft carrier.
Just two months later, President Biden was again addressing the American people to unveil his "robust plan" to defeat the virus he had declared America's independence from in July — one that included breaking another earlier promise not to mandate vaccination for American to continue full participation in society.
By November 2021, even NBC's Chuck Todd was calling out Biden, saying the president "declared our independence from the virus prematurely."
The Associated Press ran a particularly devastating summary of the year that's passed since Biden delivered his celebratory "Independence from COVID-19" speech last year. Even AP's biased evaluation of the president's last 12 months couldn't sugarcoat how adrift Biden and his administration have become:
The pandemic’s resurgence was swiftly followed last summer by the debacle of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, when the Taliban seized control of the country faster than the administration expected as the U.S.-backed regime collapsed. Then, negotiations over Biden’s broader domestic agenda stalled, only to collapse altogether in December.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February caused a worldwide spike in gas prices, exacerbating inflation that reached a 40-year high. Another blow came last month, when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion under Roe v. Wade and curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Suddenly a reactive president, Biden has been left trying to reclaim the initiative at every step, often with mixed results. The coronavirus is less of a threat than before and infections are far less likely to lead to death, but Congress is refusing to supply more money to deal with the pandemic.
Despite adopting Biden's woe-is-me victim messaging that refuses any accountability for his own policy failures, the AP paints a pretty damning picture.
During his 2021 Independence Day address, Biden appealed to Americans to "just think back to where this nation was a year ago" and "think back to where you were a year ago."
It's unlikely he'll want Americans to remember what's happened to their country in the last year — especially with the midterms barely four months away.