When U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the United States had just witnessed four of the most turbulent years in recent memory, culminating in the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Without a doubt, American democracy had been shown to be far more fragile than it was when Biden left the vice presidency in 2017.
The picture abroad wasn’t much brighter. Populist parties with xenophobic and antidemocratic tendencies were gaining momentum in both established and nascent democracies. The world’s autocracies seemed newly emboldened.