With inflation heading toward the 9% mark and gasoline at record-high prices, President Joe Biden risks going down in history as the man who both surpassed former President Donald Trump’s general disapproval ratings and whose stewardship of the economy ranks lower than Presidents Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover.

Biden might complain that history dealt him a poor hand. He exaggerates. The pandemic caused a sharp recession, but booms follow busts unless poor government decisions interfere. Biden also inherited not one but three vaccines. He can blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for sharp inflation, but Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine did not occur in a vacuum: Biden’s self-inflicted humiliation in Afghanistan surely played into the Kremlin’s calculus and sense of impunity.