I’m not asking about specific policy decisions or political agendas.
What do you hope Biden can do to restore and heal divisions in the country?
It’s a given that he’ll rescind some of the prior administration’s Executive Orders. That happens with every new President.
Can Biden still use his old friends in Congress to restore some degree of trust and get people from both parties talking to each other again?
I certainly hope the unprofessional and crude public statements will end. Civility is so important and political differences don’t have to become personal attacks.
I see Biden filling a similar role as Gerald Ford. The country was badly divided after Vietnam and Watergate. Ford provided a calm and steady hand in the Presidency. He didn’t try to pursue an ambitious agenda. The country needed time to quietly reflect, heal, and recover.
If Biden can do something similar that will be quite a legacy for a single term President.
I hope he never personally uses twitter. It’s OK for the WH to have an account, but I’d rather the POTUS just spoke to us from the press conference podium, oval office or through his staff.
And do I have to say that I don’t want him to lie several times a day.
As you mentioned, I hope he will restore civility to our government.
Debates will return to being debates, not bar fights.
Restore confidence in the USA with our allies.
Find some way to consider the issues that have recently split the country.
I don’t have any grandiose expectations. I expect him to treat the office with the dignity that it deserves and bring an atmosphere of respectability that it hasn’t had since 2016. I expect him to approach the office with the attitude that he is the president of the whole country and should represent everyone, again, much like Obama and totally the opposite of Trump. Let’s just start there.
Expand Medicare down to 60 or even 62.5
Get moving on Global Climate Change
Re-Fund Science & medicine
Build a Green economy.
Rebuild working across the aisle, something he was good at as a Senator.
This, at least, I’m pessimistic about (and I’ve seen some op-eds saying the same). Absent a massive voter repudiation of Trumpism (as a minimum requirement), the world can never trust the Unites States again for the foreseeable future.
As an alternative to restoring civility to our government, we might hope that Biden gets a Democratic Senate in 2022, whereupon he can do some REAL presidentin’ and kick some Republican ass.
This would be great, but it’s going to take serious engagement from Dems: donations not just in presidential election years, getting active within their local Dem party starting in January 2021, actual campaign work come 2022, and GOTV as energized as we just saw.
I’m just worried your average casual Dem sees that we just won the big prize and will sit back and expect good things to now happen, and are disillusioned and surprised when the “Red Wave!” headlines roll in November 9, 2022.
My suggestion for having any kind of hope for a Biden presidency: Figure out an annual donation-to-Dems budget for your household for the next two years (and beyond!) and then reach out to your local Dem office and see how you can get plugged in, people! Donate to Dem candidates and campaign committees and work to get Dems elected to local offices next year and the gears will be oiled to get Dems elected in the midterms. And then we can get some serious work done in a Biden presidency.
I just want a “normal” President again, not some lying raving nutjob. I want to be able to watch/listen to the news and not spend half my time yelling at the TV or radio. And I hope to hell the GOP doesn’t flip the House in the mid-terms, because no doubt their first order of business will be to impeach Biden, and if they control the Senate then he’s toast.
Thirteen Republican women have won seats in the House. I’m hopeful the new blood will be willing to work on bipartisan legislation. Biden will have to work with both parties to get anything done. He knows what it will require. The new members from both parties can offer a fresh start.
I hope that the Democrats give Biden a decent chance before they turn on him. And turn on him they certainly will.
When you become president, you become the repository of your own party’s hopes (like the title of this thread) the way a parent is, a savior, a rescuer, a knight in shining armor. The office of president is where everyone’s projections come to rest. After a short honeymoon, your party will come at you like a pack of angry dogs or children, criticizing you for not doing enough, for getting along with the Other Side, for being weak, for not fighting hard enough for MY special interests.
This happened to Bill Clinton and it certainly happened to Obama-- as the party’s losses in his second term showed. Friends of mine who were passionate Obama supporters began to hate the way he seemed weak before McConnell and the Senate. They wanted Obama to fight back, stand up to the bullies, blahblahblah.
Politics is called “the art of the possible.” It was not possible for Obama to work with McConnell, and the Democrats turned on their former hero for his failure to do the impossible.
I just hope the Democrats cut Biden some slack, because he’s facing more of an uphill challenge than Obama did, even in his second term.
It’s not too much to ask that your president, whether you voted for him or not, will behave like a rational adult. It should be a given that the president will not continually rip off the treasury for his own personal wallet.
This, at least, I’m pessimistic about (and I’ve seen some op-eds saying the same). Absent a massive voter repudiation of Trumpism (as a minimum requirement), the world can never trust the Unites States again for the foreseeable future.
Exactly. Biden will do what he can to mend fences, but the trust has gone and it will take a very long time fr it to return.
Given that it looks that the Republicans will have enough senators to hinder any new legislation, Biden will have his work cut out to clean up the mess. He will have to concentrate on that, so I don’t expect any dramatic changes or improvements. Wait until 2024 for real changes.
First things first: negate all of Trump’s executive orders! Rejoin WHO and Paris accords. De-fund the border wall. Withdraw from all of Trump’s lawsuits. Normalize trade with Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Hell, maybe even move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Kinda this. I just want silence that that corner. We got enough shit to deal with. And a second on the ‘Never Tweet’ thing. That’s grade-school bullshit.
My hopes for Biden are mainly just damage control. I hope he won’t be too pro-China (he’s made his views on China well known before, such as telling Taiwanese officials that Taiwan needed to submit and become part of China.) I hope he will recognize that today’s China isn’t the more-benign version that he was accustomed to in the 1990s.
Internationally, he might restore some of America’s reputation.
I hope he will have the courage to keep the progressive wing at bay while adopting their more-sane policies like single-payer healthcare.
No court packing. Hope he will also appoint Constitutionalist, non-judicial-activist judges. And let’s hope his dementia doesn’t go too far. edited out by What Exit?