After almost 100 days, Biden has outwitted critics on the right and left. In fact, he’s doing great! | Opinion

Now that President Biden is about to observe his first 100 days in office — April 30 — here’s my scorecard: He is doing great on virtually all fronts.

While I have some fears about the future, he has done an outstanding job by dramatically ramping up COVID-19 vaccinations, getting the country’s economy back on its feet, taking bold actions against the global climate crisis, opposing gun violence and police brutality, and restoring America’s defense of democracy and human rights around the world.

It’s no coincidence that Biden has a 54 percent popularity rate, compared with former President Trump’s 40 percent rate at the same time during his first year in office, according to a mid-March Gallup poll.

Part of Biden’s success, so far, is that he’s no Trump.

After four years in which Americans saw a toxic president spewing venom on a daily basis against immigrants, minorities, political rivals and traditional U.S. allies abroad, most Americans are feeling an immense sense of relief by having a president who has restored a sense of normalcy. Biden does not insult people, nor spend his time picking fights with almost everybody.

But, that aside, Biden already has scored key accomplishments:

▪ COVID-19: During his first three months in office, Biden has tripled the number of daily COVID-19 vaccinations, from 1.1 million a day when he took office on Jan. 20 to 3.3 million a day in mid-April. Conversely, Trump had repeatedly promised vaccination targets, which he consistently failed to meet.

In addition, Biden is leading by the example. While Trump minimized the pandemic, rarely wore a face mask and mocked those who did, Biden wears a mask wherever he goes, urges all Americans to do the same and constantly warns the public about the severity of the virus.

▪ The economy: Biden has passed an unprecedented $1.9 trillion stimulus package to get the country back on its feet and is calling for an additional $2 trillion infrastructure plan. As a result, the economy is roaring back.

Goldman Sachs investment bank is predicting an 8 percent economic growth rate this year, the biggest economic boom since 1951. At the time of this writing, the U.S. stock market’s S&P 500 index has reached more than 20 records since Biden took office.

▪ Climate change: Biden re-joined the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office and pledged to reduce U.S. toxic gas emissions by 50 percent from its 2005 levels by 2030. While Trump denied or at best ignored the global warming crisis, Biden convened a global climate summit to get other countries on board.

▪ Gun safety: Addressing the epidemic of mass shootings, Biden has signed an executive decree aimed at banning “ghost guns,” or kits with gun parts that can be assembled into weapons without any serial numbers. In addition, Biden has also called for a ban on assault weapons and for universal background checks for gun buyers.

▪ Foreign policy: Biden has ordered U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, something that Trump promised but did not act upon. Biden has also restored U.S. relations with its traditional European allies and Canada. And instead of embracing North Korea’s tyrant Kim Jong Un and Russia’s de facto dictator Vladimir Putin, as his predecessor did, Biden is publicly denouncing human-rights abuses in North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

Just as important, Biden has resisted calls from the Democratic Party’s far-left wing to resume normal ties with Cuba or to lift sanctions on Venezuela. Good for him.

And while Fox News and other right-wing media are raising alarms over what they call a “border crisis,” I’m not losing any sleep over it. Not only is the influx of undocumented migrants far below what it was 15 years ago, but the United States desperately needs new immigrants to make up for an increasingly aging population and a shrinking workforce.

Of course, I’m not sure whether Biden will continue doing as well. Many things can go wrong. The pandemic might get worse if deadly new strains of COVID-19 arise; his rightful defense of victims of police brutality could backfire if there’s a surge in killings of police officers; and he may be driven by his party’s radical left to make unnecessary concessions to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

But, so far, Biden has disarmed conservative critics who claimed that he would be a “socialist,” and leftist critics who claimed he would be an establishment politician who wouldn’t get anything done.

So far, the president has exceeded expectations.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” tv show on Sundays at 8 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera