For many voters, getting rid of Trump’s toxic presidency was an end itself. But Americans, as a whole, expect positive accomplishments from their leaders. CNN calls the infrastructure bill, passed with GOP help, “the largest single infrastructure investment in American history.” It’s important because it will help the economy.
Here’s CNN’s perspective: “After a string of setbacks and delays, Biden emerged having accomplished what many had written off as impossible in a political era marred by dysfunction and mistrust.”
Trump didn’t get it done, and it’s questionable whether any other political leader could have.
This is where Biden’s many years in Congress, the relationships he built over those years, and his long political experience, paid off. It took a lot of bargaining with people who didn’t want to compromise. It’s hard to imagine how difficult that was, but he got it done.
Biden also wants to remake American society with a large social spending program that in a sense updates FDR’s “New Deal” and LBJ’s “Great Society” for the modern era. He’ll get no help from Republicans with that, and he’s had to scale it back because of lack of unity within his own party. Something is always better than nothing, but it remains to be seen whether anything will pass.
That will present another test of Biden’s leadership.
Questions have been raised about his leadership ability, and at times he’s seemed uncertain about what to do, although to be fair the dysfunction is in Congress and not the White House. He said, “I know we’re divided. I know how mean it can get and I know there are extremes on both ends that make it more difficult than it’s been in a long, long time” to get things done in Congress.
CNN describes here how he got an infrastructure deal through the most difficult legislative environment any recent president has faced. At the end, CNN says, he warned his fellow Democrats of the political risks of “doing nothing,” shown by Tuesday’s election losses and scares on the East Coast (although here in Washington State, locally, progressives did quite well, even in Spokane).
Biden and the Democrats are the alternative to Trumpism, and Trump’s dark and racist vision for our future. Americans rejected that future by 81 million votes to 74 million votes. The political system is skewed in favor of the reactionary forces in society, but remember this: Our system, when functioning properly, is designed to protect minority rights and not to let the minority dictate to the majority.
The 81 million Americans who elected Biden did not “steal” the presidency from the 74 million who voted for Trump and what he represents. More of us don’t want Trumpism than want it. Biden and the Democrats in Congress speak for us. We need them to come together on a governing vision and priorities, whatever compromises must be made. Their differences must become secondary. We should let them know that.