America tends to pity the one-term president. Whether denied a second term by the voters or by fate, the commanders in chief who served only a single stint in office have a certain pathos about them.
Consider just some recent one-termers. Gerald Ford? Accidental president remembered for falling down the steps of Air Force One. Jimmy Carter? Used as an epithet for a failed presidency by Republicans for decades. George H.W. Bush? Outshone by his own son’s two terms.
It is this sad fate that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden sought to avoid as they ran for a second term this November. But now that Biden has dropped out, he has definitively joined the club.
Before he ran in 2020, Biden reportedly considered pledging to serve only a single term before deciding instead on a strategy of “quietly indicating” that he wouldn’t run again. (He chose a funny way of going about that.) Republican nominee John McCain also mulled a similar move in 2008.
The lure of joining the pantheon of two-term presidents is strong.
Both dropped the idea in the end because they feared it would reduce their power in the White House, but maybe also because the lure of joining the pantheon of two-term presidents is too strong. The two-termers, after all, get the glory. Mount Rushmore? Two-termers. Coins and paper bills? Two-termers. Prestige Hollywood biopics? Two-termers.
One-term presidents are not remembered as fondly.
When the American Political Science Association released its regular survey ranking the presidents earlier this year, the top 10 had only a single one-termer in it (JFK, who continues to be remembered more for his potential than his achievements); the bottom 10 were all one-termers (including Trump, for now).
Looking at the bottom of the list starts to feel like the old “Simpsons” bit where the kids dress up as the “adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable caretaker presidents,” singing:
We are the mediocre presidents. You won’t find our faces on dollars or on cents. There’s Taylor, there’s Tyler, there’s Fillmore and there’s Hayes, There’s William Henry Harrison. HARRISON: I died in thirty days!
One-termers, all of them.
Some of that is raw skill. After all, as Trump reminded us in 2016, anyone can win a presidential race once if they get lucky. But winning twice shows that it wasn’t a fluke. A second term is also a good proxy for whether you lived up to your promises since voters have a chance to weigh in on how you did with your first four years on the job.
But if becoming a certified member of the One-Term Presidents club is a sad moment for Biden, there is still hope for him. Some one-termers have been rehabilitated by history, especially when they have shown skill in international diplomacy, racked up legislative achievements in a short time or done what was right for the country on a major issue. The exemplar here is James K. Polk, who, admittedly, is not well known today. But as fans of the band They Might Be Giants know, he fulfilled every one of his campaign goals in just four years, including a pledge to only serve one term. Another model is the elder Bush, whose judicious handling of the end of the Cold War and decision to end the first Gulf War without invading Iraq lost him political points at the time but came to look better in retrospect. Historians will largely end up judging Biden based on what happens next. The truth is that it’s still too early to tell, as historians will largely judge Biden based on what happens next. He may be remembered for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, massive spending to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and fight climate change, and appointing the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Or his presidency may be seen as a brief interregnum between Trump’s two terms. Whatever happens, Biden’s decision to voluntarily step down and not seek the nomination that was within his grasp will loom large in the analysis. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the nomination and goes on to win the general election, Biden may be seen as a statesman who understood the stakes and let go of power for the good of the country, a marked contrast with Trump, who still can’t admit he lost in 2020. He will have passed the test of doing the right thing on a big issue. But if she falters and either loses the nomination or the general election, Biden will be remembered more for having held on as long as he did, fatally damaging his party’s chances. Biden’s legacy, then, may come down not to what he did on the job but how and when he decided to quit. He may forever be a one-term president, but, unlike most of the others, it will have been his choice, and he can take some solace in that.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. 
