Is Joe Biden the most progressive president ever? Is he maybe even the second coming of FDR? Will he permanently change the face of the nation?
These are all actual questions that I've seen highlighted in recent articles or op-eds. I say: settle down, folks. So far Biden has passed a big stimulus bill and hired a fairly progressive bunch of folks to run the government. That's it. And he's had the good fortune to face no new crises during his first couple of months, which has kept his approval level high.
But the hard stuff comes next. Republicans aren't going to allow any further legislation to pass, and there's a limit to what Biden can do via executive order. Anybody's who's expecting the dawn of a new age really needs to think again.
Historically, there's one thing that determines how effective a Democratic president is: the size of his majority in Congress. Wilson, FDR, and LBJ all had huge majorities and got a lot done. Obama had a big majority and got a few things done. Biden, by contrast, has a 50-50 tie in the Senate and a bare majority in the House. Filibuster or no, this is just not the makings of a progressive revolution.
It's remarkable to me how quickly people can overreact to political news. Is it because they're bored and feel like they need to write something exciting? Or do they really believe this stuff? Either way, take it with a huge shaker of salt. Biden may turn out to be a pleasant surprise for progressives, but he's not the leader of a revolution.
OMG Kevin you are such a Debbie Downer 🙂
Here's what I think will go down. The GOP will continue on their path of insanity blocking as much legislation as they can. Much teeth gnashing will occur. Pressure builds in the senate to reform the filibuster. Biden and senate leadership will meet with the Democratic holdouts hat in hand and see how they can get them to a yes on de facto filibuster elimination. Expect lots of political theater about how the GOP made us do that.
The senate will then pass a few substantial centrist bills on voting reform, maybe infrastructure and tweaks to Obamacare. DC statehood as much as I want it won't happen this term, Manchin will not get on board for that and filibuster reform.
Then if the 2022 cycle is kind to the Democrats and they increase their seats in congress, especially the Senate, Biden will be able to get more of his wish list (which is not necessarily the same as the progressive wish list) accomplished.
Pretty much agree, but: In 2010 Democrats ran away from ACA and got ‘shellacked’. Joe Biden is nothing if not a quick study, and meantime ACA has become much more popular, and maybe Congressional Democrats have become less stupid. I think Biden wants more than tweaks, I think he wants to put his stamp on ACA. With Covid in the rear-view mirror (we devoutly hope), health care could be a strong issue for Democrats.
ACA reform depends on how far Joe Manchin wants to go. Given his past history and ties to Big Pharma I don't think he's on board with major changes. But I agree the class of 2020 Democrats aren't running away from the ACA anymore.
Pharma ain't too upset with the ACA from what I know. 30 million more people are filling prescriptions!
Yes but they might get upset with Joe Biden if ACA reforms include cost controls on pharma prices!
Whereas 2010 was Democrats -- like Manchin -- attacking Obongocare from the Right, 2022 will be Democrats -- like Always On Camera -- attacking Obongocare w/ Demento Joe Subsidy Sweetener from the Left.
Electoral result will be the same.
Fillibuster "reform" won't happen till 2023 at the earliest, depending on how well Democrats do in Congress. If they gain Senate seats and keep the House, sure. If they lose both or one? Then no point.
If "reform" doesn't happen until 2023 it will not happen. It's now or never. The GOP is not going to allow any progress whatsoever to happen in this session of congress by any means necessary so the only way to pass something other than the renaming of a post office is either reconciliation or "reform" so that it will only take 51 votes to pass.
"Is it because they're bored and feel like they need to write something exciting? Or do they really believe this stuff?"
It's all about the clicks, baby!
THIS. Truthfully, in these days of zero latency, the news just doesn't happen fast enough. So they gotta make it into a comic book.
I'm wondering if maybe we're all so on-edge from four years of being constantly on the brink of potential crises at the hands of corrupt and sociopathic leaders (Trump, McConnell, et.al.) that many aren't still in a sort of flight-or-flight mode ready to panic or overreact to everything, however middling or to-be-expected.
I'd love to see a full swing to more compassionate and sustainable governance (universal healthcare, environmental issues and infrastructure, law enforcement reform, social justice, tax the rich, etc. etc. etc.) but I know that's not going to happen overnight. My most pragmatic hope, I think, is that Democrats manage to thread the needle and show that, yes, government intervention can be a good (and affordable) thing, while painting Republicans as the reactionary hucksters and stonewallers they are, to stave off attacks and make some gains in the 2022 election and hopefully keep that ball rolling, finally marginalizing the right wing once and for all.
Will Republicans and MAGAhats put up a fight? Hell yes. Will Democrats manage to pull this off? God, who knows.
My ultimate "realistic" hope is that Republicans dwindle to nothing, the Progressive wing continues to gain numbers in local, state, and national offices and splits off into a new left-wing part, leaving the Democrats as the new centrist/right wing. We'll see.
How do new parties get created these days? By old ones fissioning. That is to say, the alternative to the Republican Dunwich Horror will come from inside the Democratic -- not the Republican! -- party.
Present-day politics is not a left-right thing, hasn’t really been since Reagan. The GOP has abandoned policy and gone full blood-and-soil. They combine single-cultural-issue voters (school prayer, anti-abortion, ‘gun rights’), white resentment and ethnonationalism (“take our country back”) and dehumanization of opponents (baby-eating Satanist pedophiles) into a toxic cult that needs deprogramming before any appeal to enlightened self-interest, let alone communitarian feeling, could get through.
Republicans are globalist . Simply say their religion is anti-white. Start a civil war. History of the Info-European people is on the side against their Zionism.
Shootie fall down!
The sauce ain't going to hit itself.
>> And he's had the good fortune to face no new crises during his first couple of months,<<
Wait, what?!! No crisis?!!! What about the border!!! Why, the situation at the border is a crisis of enormous, stupendous proportions. The worst ever! Hordes of people infected with Covid from all over the world are crossing the Mexican border as we speak. It’s an organized attempt to infect us and swamp our country with ill eagles. I know this for sure because Fox News told me so.
You forgot about the millions of mooslim terrorists on no-fly lists who swam across the Atlantic so they can cross the Mexican border.
I’m not sure either way but right now the only obstacle to Biden’s becoming the next FDR is the filibuster and the movement to abolish it seems to be picking up some real momentum. I think there’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear on two assholes who are holding up everything in the interest of performative centrism. At this point the entire Democratic leadership seems to be understanding what’s necessary and they are reflecting on just how little the beltway obsession with bipartisanship has gained for them.
If they can get rid of the filibuster and commit to doing popular stuff that improves the economy and improves people’s lives, there’s a good chance that the Democrats can hold on to at least one and maybe both houses of Congress. But if they backslide into centrism and/or can’t abolish the filibuster, the Democratic Party is almost certainly doomed.
Agree. But to use a rock climbing term, the face isn't steep. It's an overhang. I say this not out of pessimism, but with an all too painful familiarity with the democratic party.
I agree. Doing popular stuff that improves peoples lives and the economy -- and selling it -- will determine who wins in 2022.
In re: backsliding: I think Kevin id's the problem yesterday (?), when he wrote about how Republicans will try to split progressive and centrists split on social issues. Implicit in his argument is that progressives and centrist, at the moment, are not split on economic issues as much.
What do you think? How much should we push social v economic improvements to peoples lives? Part of me thinks, for example, Trans issues are a red herring. And the other part me thinks: "Just leave these people be!"
I am firmly in the camp of letting people be as long as they aren't harming others. But the progressives I know in the real world tend to be comfortable financially. Economic issues are not on their priority list. But trans rights are.
Actually, it's the most comfortable fleftists, like the Unusual Gang of Idiots at the Jacobin, who are most dismissive of a push to try for a social left agenda as an allegedly fiscal left agenda.
I would focus primarily on economic issues and getting people back to work. I think the Democrats need to push very hard on that and voting rights. Everything else needs to take a backseat for the moment.
I won't throw trans folks under the bus. They are people too. Black lives matter, Asian Lives matter and yes Trans lives matter.
Welp! I guess you don't want Meficare4All.
I think filibuster reform is more likely than abolition, but I agree that there is real momentum now to get some initiatives passed over what will undoubtedly be intractable Republican opposition. I think there will be a lot of theater over this — the Dems need for the GOP to be seen as the no-compromise party.
I don’t think there’s time for that. It was part of Obama’s rationale for avoiding confrontation or doing anything to antagonize the Republicans. He did that for roughly seven years.
I think everyone already knows the score. The ball is in the Democrats court and they’re going to be judged on what they accomplish between now and November of 2022. Outside of the beltway and the sabbath gasbags, I don’t think anyone values bipartisanship over results.
Split the difference - I think there will be a lot of theater but in a short period of time. They need to play the game to convince the crucial set of low into voters that it needed to go.
I don’t think there are any voters who genuinely care about bipartisanship. And certainly too few to make a difference in 2022 or 2024. Ow is the time to show that Democrats are capable of getting things done. In political terms, the next election is right around the corner.
Ever the realist, Kevin. But in this case I agree completely with you. The comparisons with FDR, LBJ in particular are ludicrous at this stage.
But Kevin! Of course Biden MUST be the second coming of FDR, because I voted for him and I am special, and it is the achievement of the resistance, so Biden must be special...
In the vein of seeking to under-promise and over-deliver, I would be quite content for Biden to simply not be Jimmy Carter Mk II, as in a one-term wonder.
Well, neither can walk, really.
Regardless on how sound and predictive the Party System paradigm may be, it seems clear that we are in the midst of a punctuated realignment. I don't see how the Republicans can embrace populist nativism (and White Christian Nationalism) while continuing to promote big business.
Biden may be as transformative as FDR after all...
Because Nationalism it's not, it's called zionism. Pure and simple. Heck, Nationalism was the first globalism the bankers created.
Fox news will assist.
Oh, and yes: Many really believe this stuff. You either gotta be skeptical by nature or a student of history to not fall for facile historical comparisons.
'Cause otherwise you're just like Hitler...
Besides the obvious repair job ahead of him, the President needs to do only one other thing - destroy the mutant virus that is the Republican party. He can accomplish this by putting up no-brainer, basic pieces of legislation and let the party bonk itself by trying to stop it. They've already proven themselves suicidal with the attempt to stop Relief Plan One - let them continue.
Biden is not FDR. For one thing, Biden is as dull as lima beans. While I don't think Joe has dementia (as is common on the crazy GOP side), I do think Joe's mental facilities are waning and he clearly struggles sometimes with names. That's normal for someone almost 80. Biden doesn't have the communication skills of an FDR or a LBJ.
My predictions: efforts to eliminate the filibuster will fail. DC and PR statehood will fail. The $15 minimum wage will fail. There will be modest investments in renewable energy, but no Green New Deal. Republicans will regain their Senate majority in the midterms. America is a very divided nation. The last election was close (51-47) despite the GOP running the worst candidate in our nation's history. The American public has zero appetite for a progressive revolution.
Well, keep a good thought.
Lol, most of those things Americans don't support. When Biden passes a 3-4 trillion infrastructure plan, let's see what happens in the midterms.
Social Nationalism replaces "progressives"
Recent voting patterns favor the Democrats hanging on to control of congress, maybe even picking up a senate seat or two. There's two different set of voters, those who only show up to vote when Trump is on the ballot and those who show up for most elections. A lot of the voters who showed up in 2016 and 2020 won't show up in 2022 but the pissed off suburban women and voters of color will be showing up as they did in 2018.
Also you are wrong about Joe - it's not declining faculties, it's the stuttering. And lima beans are NOT dull, you just have to prepare them properly, bacon is always good as are hot peppers, onions, some garlic maybe a few chopped tomatoes.
Voters of color don't mean much this election. WWC gotv in Wis, Penn, Iowa, NC will decide control of the Senate.
+Ohio, where Republicans got side tracked, goes on the map.
"Mm-hmm."
I suspect Kevin is just being a little sly here. It seems like he's setting this up as a 'Great Men' vs 'Vast and Remorseless Psychohistorical Forces' test of the two main divisions of history theorists.
QAnon cooked up as a means of driving traffic to dingbat website,
https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-ron-watkins-q-hbo-storm-1577318
It's remarkable to me how quickly people can overreact to political news.
Overreact? OVERREACT?! Just whom are you accusing of overreacting? And what exactly do you mean by saying something like that? I really have to say, that is the worst, most personally insulting thing I may ever have heard from anyone, EVER! You libruls aren't just trying to destroy America as we know it, you're trying to end polite civilization forever!!
If you feel as I do about the librul scourge that is destroying America, click here to subscribe to my newsletter!
Lol!
I'll settle for reversing 40 years of "the government IS the problem" Reaganism.
Then let Ezra Klein and the younger generation turn us into Denmark while I observe from my rocking chair. 🤓
(In seriousness though, it's a bit more subtle than as described above because Trump himself already campaigned as an economic populist even if he governed as the usual royalist. That means the 50-50 tie is a bit of an illusion in the sense that the GOP is already showing signs of having to dump its favorite policies because they are so unpopular.)
Excepting tax cuts for the well-off, the GOP has dumped pretty much all of their policies over the past decades, in favor of emotional appeals to white grievance and social/cultural issues.
There is no way any president can be [idealized president from the past]. That was then, this is now.
Biden won't be FDR and that's a good thing!. FDR was willing to sell out African-Americans to get his economic agenda enacted.
FOR was a bourbon Democrat turned Wilson Democrat. Reform liberal, he was not. A rich man, who stoked populism.
Shootie fall down!
Also: FDR, not FOR, twit.
Kindle idiot. I didnt have time to proof it's changing letters
Just for the record: this stimulus deal is a big fucking deal all by itself. This deal on its own will make Biden as transformative as Obama and more transformative than Clinton and Carter combined.
It is the first time since before Reagan that a democratic President and Congress did not fall into the austerity trap. It works like this: Democratic austerity sets the stage for the next GOP tax cut which in turn sets the stage for another round of austerity when the President is a Democrat again.
If a stimulus is all it takes to be transformational, then Trump comes out on top over Biden. Trump's first stimulus in early 2020 was $2.2 trillion.
"Actually, El Jefe Maximo ran to the left of Demento Jose".
A. You're right
B. It's closer than you think--but at a different level.
The chore for both Obama and now Biden was/is to rebuild the ability to effectively govern. The institutions and tools have been broken down, crippled and sabotaged. It's not just about political appointees--the career people just aren't there either. Ok, maybe the ones who passed the "purity" tests of the previous administration remain. The amount of time spent repairing institutions so they can do their job is enormous and unsung.
If this is meant as an injunction to keep the focus on preserving the existing narrow Dem majorities and, ideally, expanding them, I'm all for it: Other things equal, the single most important determinant of how much progressive legislation we will get in the years ahead is how big & enduring Dem legislative majorities are. Kevin is absolutely right about that.
However, as an analysis of what is possible under current conditions, based on historical analogues, this is not very helpful, for one very important reason: the US party system has fundamentally changed since the previous eras of major progressive advance.
FDR's and LBJ's overwhelming majorities will not come again, for they reflected a party system in which the most liberal/progressive social elements were in alliance with the most reactionary ones (the white dominated solid South, which was effectively a one-party section dominated by one issue: the preservation of white supremacy).
But the corollary is also true: the two parties are now far more ideologically compact and programmatic than at any time since the end of Reconstruction. This means that party discipline is stronger, and more can be done with smaller majorities. The fabled "catch-all" parties of the past--ideologically loose-knit, undisciplined, full of "cross-cutting cleavages" and held together by little more than patronage--turn out to have been the result of a historical accident.
Granted, the GOP is *much* further along in this evolution than are the Dems. But the Dems have been doing a lot of institutional learning & psychological adjustment in recent years. Unanimous passage of the huge COVID relief bill is one indicator. The speed with which filibuster reform went from a beyond-the-pale idea to one that is suddenly on the lips of nearly every "moderate" Dem leader--including POTUS--is another.
The problem with an analytical framework that starts from the premise that nothing much really ever changes in politics is that--once in a while--something major really does.
Reading the twice-a-day 'Politico' newsletters would be exhausting if you got swept away by the underlying message that hugely important things are happening in Washington ALL THE TIME. I mean can you believe they haven't nominated a replacement OMB Director yet? It's been almost two weeks! This must mean something!
People get over things. In some cases - for example Republican double-dealing over Supreme Court vacancies - it's unfortunate that people get over things, but they do. In a few years time Americans will have gotten over Trump, just like they got over waging a shameful war of aggression in Iraq, and life will go on much as it did before.
The fact that he can't get anything done makes it easier for him to be the most progressive president ever.
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