OVER THEIR HEADS

The 46^th President of the United States has a problem, in fact several problems. He got his job, arguably the hardest job in the world, while he is 78 years old, an age at which most Americans are comfortably retired, trying to make the most out of their ‘golden years’ or what is left of those. The only reason why he took the job, in fact pursued it, is out of a sense of urgency, an urgency created by decades of benign neglect of the plight of the ordinary American citizens and the dereliction of duty by his predecessor, compounded by the worst pandemic inflicted on the nation in over a hundred years. The problem is that he is under extreme time pressure and that democracy denies him the tools to simply impose his will and agenda on a divided nation. The time pressure stems less from his advanced age than from the fact that he is at serious risk of losing his majority in Congress in the midterm elections of November next year.

President Biden has concluded that he needs to avoid losing control of Congress if he wants to have a full four years to make good on his campaign promises and he has chosen to make this happen by using the full force of the government to come to the aid of hard-pressed lower income Americans who have been disproportionally hit by decades of governmental neglect and by the devastating effects of the corona pandemic. He made his pitch Wednesday night, at the eve of his first 100 days in office, at a joint session of Congress, but really over the heads of the 200 legislators permitted in the chambers. He bets heavily on the premise that, ultimately, his Republican opposition cannot keep swimming against the tide of public opinion that heavily favors the main components of his agenda. In this he has a distinct advantage in the fact that the Republican party, under Trump, has decided to go without a platform and agenda, other than to oppose anything the Democrats want to get done.

At the heart of his pitch on Wednesday night was this appeal to his audience: “Look, we can’t be so busy competing with one another that we forget the competition that we have with the rest of the world to win the 21^st century.” Biden is keenly aware that the world, friend and foe alike, is watching to see if America can demonstrate that democracy is still the governing principle that can deliver for the people. And, in the prototypically Democratic style of FDR and Lyndon Johnson before him, he is unapologetically moving to use government as an instrument of social and economic transformation. His Republican critics are right in arguing that Covid relief and infrastructure improvements do not have to cost as much as the roughly $6 trillion that the Biden package amounts to. Calling a spade a spade, the Biden package is an ill disguised initiative to disperse the inequality cloud hanging over American society, by using the full force of the government to transform what our market economy and polarized partisan politics have not been able to correct. The economy seems to be recovering nicely with the stimulus put in place by Congress in five increments, starting under the Trump presidency, and does not require the proposed level of further spending, but restoring social equilibrium and peace does, at least in the judgment of President Biden.

He bets on the premise that if he cannot get sixty votes, sixty percent of the Senate, to agree with him on policy, he can still prevail by getting sixty percent or more of the voting public on his side. As it stands, the Monmouth University Poll indicates that with respect to his main initiatives, particularly his proposals for infrastructure investment, expanded healthcare and childcare, paid leave, and college tuition support, he garners more than 60% support from his constituents. The same poll suggests that a large majority also supports paying for these plans by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals making more than $400,000/year.

The question is if this support will last and carry over into the only polls that really matter, the midterm elections of 2022. That, in turn, is likely to depend on how much of the plan can be implemented and provide tangible relief to the people who need it, before the people are called to the polls again.

Herein lies the Gordian knot that President Biden will have to unwind. I think he is right in arguing that America cannot win the competition with China, and democracy cannot win the competition with autocracy, if we continue to compete with ourselves. I also think that America cannot regain its status as the beacon of guidance to the world if it cannot demonstrate that it can overcome its own inequities, specifically its racial issues, its xenophobia, and, most of all, its rising inequality. As President Biden likes to say: “Our greatest strength is not the example of our power, but the power of our example.” He is right when he warns us that the autocrats of this day and age, and no one more that China’s president Xi, think that democracy cannot compete in the 21^st century with autocracies, because it takes too long, or proves impossible, to get consensus. We can only prove them wrong if we stop quarreling among ourselves and either vote to give one of our parties a popular mandate to govern or agree on a compromise agenda that can pass in an evenly divided congress, regardless who carries the majority.

Claiming, as President Biden does, that ‘America is back’ does not convince anyone unless we can demonstrate that we have regained control of a democratic (lower case) agenda. Otherwise, we will wonder, as world leaders do today, ‘yes, America is back, but for how long?’ Will the next election blow us off course again?

What the Biden proposals bring to the surface is that a chasm has developed between the political preferences of the members of Congress and the population at large. Not only, but mostly, on the Republican side of the aisle. This chasm is the result of primary driven moves towards the extreme wings of our two parties. The polls covering the Biden proposals bear out that the population at large is much less ideologically driven, much more practical, than its representatives in Congress would suggest. That is what Joe Biden is banking on and that is why, in his speech outlining and promoting his plan, he went over the heads of the parliamentarians, directly to the people, the people deciding who get to represent them in the legislative and executive branches of government. Will we listen? We will see the answer to that question the day after the November 2022 election.