This is my biggest issue with Biden, & it has nothing to do with him being a squishy “moderate.” I fully recognize that his platform, such as it is, would make him the most leftwing president in history if he were to win; he’s clearly not as left as Warren and Sanders, but much more left than Obama and HRC.
The thing is, none of his stated agenda will matter because a Biden presidency will not accomplish anything substantial. Responding to the radicalism of Trump requires an equally radical leftwing counterattack, otherwise the GOP will just become ever more insane and in 4 years we’ll get a Tom Cotton presidency or some other such craziness. Put another way, right now the highest order issue for Democrats when they regain power should be a scorched-earth push to enact institutional reforms that would militate against the likelihood of another Trump. Even now, leftwing pundits are arguing for such ideas outside of the direct political space - see David Faris’s ‘It’s Time to Fight Dirty’ or Dan Pfeifer’s ‘Untrumping America’ for examples. Things like SCOTUS expansion, DC/PR statehood, filibuster abolitionment, mandatory voting, etc. are so critical to that endeavor, yet Biden will be oblivious to them.
To be fair to Biden, though, even Bernie Sanders does not want to eliminate the filibuster, so some reforms are a tall order even under a more leftwing standard bearer. Still, Biden would never, ever carry out the sort of scorched-earth, steamroll-the-opposition tactics above because he does not view any of those issues as genuine problems. Instead he is out there making such asinine statements like how the GOP will have an epiphany after Trump is gone and how kumbaya bipartisanship will make a magical return as a result.
So, what will more likely happen in a Biden presidency is some marginal improvements to Ocare - assuming SCOTUS doesn’t strike it down in a year based on the cockamamie argument in the TX case - and he will continue to talk about his agenda while never getting Congress to actually pass anything. Voters will be disillusioned because nothing will have changed and there will be a Democratic annihilation in the 2022/24 elections.
I’d love to be proven wrong, but that’s how I see a Biden presidency panning out.
If Trump is deposed, no one in my circle is expecting any “accomplishments,” whether the new president is Biden, Gabbard, or a potted plant. We recognize it might take a couple years to get back to a baseline of decency and normalcy. The obstructions of a Republican House and/or Senate are worrisome, to be sure, and we do have to think about coattails and down-ballot races in November, but first things first. Maybe it’s just as well that the mess clean-up as directed mainly from the Executive branch must occur during a time when the Legislative branch is in a poor position to move forward from the status quo of 2016.
Many voters are simply seeking a return to normalcy at this point. A rebuilding of American norms, a guy who doesn’t spend his day mean-Tweeting, some restoration of squandered alliances. People who believe in science leading science-based departments and someone who doesn’t actively hate public education leading the Dept of Education.
I see disillusionment as a bigger issue with Sanders. Those people will expect free healthcare, free college and the rest of it and there’s a zero percent chance of that happening. Think they’ll all come out to support Sanders a third time?
I assume any Democrat will work to restore some of the programs that matter to the country’s wellbeing. You don’t just elect a president, but their infrastructure, staff, and party expectations.
Certain things are highly probable to be accomplished.
Court picks high on the list. Hiring competent people to run agencies. Re-entry into the world’s climate change programs. Reversal of various executive orders including on the treatment of migrants and immigrants. The rest depends on getting things through the Senate. A simple majority will likely get him enough to reverse much of Trump’s tax cuts to the wealthiest, and maybe some shoring up of the ACA, possibly even some expansion of the public option.
An “equally radical leftwing counterattack” would however lose the Senate and maybe even the House … none of that “scorched-earth push to enact institutional reforms” would have any chance of happening, hell NOTHING would.
I am dubious about that. The GOP stole a SCOTUS seat and were rewarded with total government control a year later. Similarly, they confirmed a credibly accused sexual assaulter to SCOTUS and were rewarded with an expanded Senate majority in the 2018 midterms.
Keep in mind that Trump himself is ineffective and doesn’t really do anything as a president. It’s his ass-lickers who are doing the damage. Trump just makes the context for corruption possible. (His only real effectiveness is in enriching himself and his family by way of power.)
Without that context, ideally much of the damage could be corrected, with Biden, or anyone else
The left-most progressive wing of the Democratic party appears to have been roundly rejected by the majority of lib/prog/dem voters, i.e. Biden vs. Sanders. To continue to insist that a very progressive candidate (like Sanders, for example) would have better luck in advancing progressive policies faced with a mixed Dem/Rep congress and electorate is simply a denial of reality.
It’s a bit sad and ironic that the wokest of progressives refuse to accept “no” for an answer.
The absolute best case scenario that seems reasonably possible is a Dem President, hold a majority in the House (maybe even grow it a little), and a slim majority in the Senate. Under these conditions it will still be a slog to get a lot of serious legislation passed; I would expect the Republicans in the Senate to do everything they possibly can to obstruct a Democratic President’s agenda. Adding to this is that I would expect a Dem President (either Biden or Sanders) to be a one-term President, given their ages.
Given these constraints, the most I am hoping for in a Dem administration is a rebuilding of the norms, institutions, and staffing of the Executive branch. I think all we can reasonably expect is something of a reset. I would expect a replacement for RBG to be installed on the Supreme Court, and maybe one other Justice. I would hope for some rebuilding of trust and good working relations with a number of our allies, particularly in Europe, but I would also expect those governments to be justifiably wary.
If the Senate remains in Republican hands, I expect even less of this. I would not be at all surprised to see Mitch McConnell simply refuse to consider a Supreme Court nominee, even if it happened in the first year of the new President’s term (“Well, this will be a one-term Presidency, so we really should wait to see what the voters want for the next President before we consider new Supreme Court nominations.”). I would expect many other nominations for administration positions to get dragged through the mud and slow-walked, further hampering the new President’s efforts.
Given all of this, my gut tells me that Biden would be a little more effective at this than Sanders. He’s got long-term relationships with a number of Senators, and he’s got eight years of working inside the White House. I understand the desire for the more progressive agenda Sanders has, I really do, but the odds that he will be in any position to implement that agenda seem extremely low to me. I also think (again, this is intuition) that Biden would prove more of a boon to down-ballot Democratic candidates than Sanders would, slightly increasing the chance of flipping the Senate.
But, who knows? I suspect either one will be relatively ineffectual without help from the Senate; my feeling is that Biden would be able to accomplish more, albeit on a smaller scale, than Sanders within those constraints.
Beautifully said. And the extremes on both left and right will flay him for failing to do “enough,” same as they did to Obama at the end of his 8 years.
Why is the OP bagging on Biden, particularly? Do you believe there is some magical Dem candidate out there who would be exempt from these same obstacles?
Judging from social media, Bernie’s supporters seem to think that electing him is all it will take to get Medicare for All or their student loans expunged. I just recently saw him pledge that he would make marijuana legal on day 1.
This is batshit insanity that shows absolutely no appreciation for how our democracy operates.
For those who are thinking “SCOTUS over POTUS” please keep in mind that Biden is basically the reason we have Thomas on the court. I’m not thinking Biden will be any more help with that than he would be with any other issue. This article is pretty comprehensive regarding the massive problems Biden poses to anyone thinking of voting the guy in–up to and including that “return to normalcy” bullshit.
An unfounded rumor like that would ensure Trump’s reelection. As much as I respect Hillary, the prospect of her in the White House bothers people. However irrational, we need to just let her quietly fade away.
To the extent I disagree with him, I’ll get over it. I’m sorry we don’t have better choices, but since it’s Bernie or Biden left, I firmly believe Biden is the best choice to beat Trump. I doubt he’ll be a great president, but he’ll be a relatively normal one.
This. Getting rid of Mitch McConnell is *at least *as important as getting rid of Donald Trump. This despicable piece of shit has put party above country, Trump above party, and his personal power above everything.
That said, I don’t really expect much from Biden, with or without McConnell.
A Bernie supporter told me that one of the ways Bernie would be more “effective” is that as president he would actively help primary disobedient Democrats in congress. Has he actually said that or is it just a theory floating around the Sanders camp?
If Biden defeats Trump, he can take a nap for the next four years and still have accomplished a great deal. He will have stopped Trump from making things worse, which is what he will do in a second term.
Beyond that, I feel the most effective thing the next Democratic administration can do is make voting rights a priority. We need to lock in voting rights so the Republicans can’t keep stealing elections.
Three basic principles we need to establish:
Democracy: the person who gets the most votes wins.
People have a right to vote. Any proposal that would disenfrachise any voter must be subject to both a due process standard and a strict scrutiny standard.
What an incredibly bad plan! We will elect President Placeholder until we can come up with a stronger future candidate and some kind of actual program plans.
This is how you intend to replace an incumbent president with a strong economy and high approval rating? That is what you got?
Losing control of the House of Representatives, no hope of gaining control of the Senate, and four more years of Trump is a more likely outcome.
Out of a large pool of Democratic candidates we now have the most senior, old white guy of the party, who doesn’t even seem to know why he is running.