President Joseph Robinette Biden is a decent, well-intentioned man.

Yet, holding office little more than a year, he finds himself under unrelenting assault by Republicans for his domestic and foreign policies.

Unfortunately, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. And they can be resolved only by his taking ruthless action against his sworn Republican enemies. 

According to Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics:  A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good.  And therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.

Niccolo Machiavelli

For example, in his January 19 press conference, Biden said: “I actually like Mitch McConnell [the Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader]. We like one another.” 

In reality, McConnell refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy as President-elect until December 15, 2020—more than one month after Biden’s election on November 3. 

Biden is convinced that his low ratings have resulted from being in Washington, D.C., so much: “I find myself in a situation where I don’t get a chance to look people in the eye, because of both COVID and things that are happening in Washington, to be able to go out and do the things that I’ve always been able to do pretty well: connect with people, let them take a measure of my sincerity, let them take a measure of who I am.” 

President Joe Biden

This is a fallacy. Americans facing high prices at the supermarket and a continuing COVID-19 plague don’t want Biden to “feel your pain,” as Presidential candidate Bill Clinton assured voters in 1992.

Voters want to buy groceries at an affordable price—and to walk streets and enter stores without wearing a mask. And they want Biden to give them concrete reasons to believe that these can become reality.

Biden does command powerful weapons that will enable him to do this. But to use them he must be willing to abandon his “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” nature.

Among those weapons:

WEAPON #1: STOP THINKING OF  REPUBLICANS AS “OUR FRIENDS”

The President should stop referring to “our Republican friends.” He has no friends among men and women dedicated to overthrowing Constitutional government and imposing a lifelong criminal and tyrant in his place.

Just hours after the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, 147 Republicans lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to overturn then-president Donald Trump’s election loss, following months of his baseless claims that the November election had been stolen.

January 6, 2021 attempted coup

And more than a year after that treasonous attempted coup, many Republicans still refuse to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s win.

Would Franklin D. Roosevelt have referred to his Right-wing enemies as “our Nazi friends”?

WEAPON #2: BLAME DONALD TRUMP AND HISTORMTRUMPERS FOR COVID-19 DEATHS

Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he

• Publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing;
• Attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus;
• Incited his followers to defy those orders; and
• Secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and has only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.

His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms are unvaccinated.

As a result, countless victims of crime, accidents, heart attacks, strokes and other debilitating conditions find their surgeries/treatments canceled or indefinitely postponed. And doctors and nurses treating these patients are nearing the breaking point of exhaustion.

President Biden and the health officials of his administration should blame the unvaccinated for their egotistical selfishness in causing this crisis. This will put Republicans on the defensive and divert attacks on the President.

He should also propose a national law allowing hospitals to stop admitting unvaccinated anti-vaxxers. These people need to face the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior. Only then will hospitals be free to care for those who deserve medical treatment.

WEAPON #3: BLAME TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS FOR THE CURRENT CRISIS IN UKRAINE

Republicans are blaming President Biden for Vladimir Putin’s latest aggression against Ukraine. They claim that Biden has been weak and confusing in his foreign policy. 

In July, 2019, Trump tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.

Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.

Biden should cite this incident—and incidents where Trump groveled before Putin. Example: Siding with Putin against the FBI and CIA when they agreed that Russia had interfered in the 2016 Presidential election. The words “traitor” and “treason” should be routinely used when he discusses these incidents.