Joe Biden Wins!
W,J. Astore
I'll admit it: I never saw Joe Biden as president. Not when I remembered his abortive presidential run in 1988, when he lied about his college record and plagiarized speeches of Bobby Kennedy and Neil Kinnock.
He made an effective vice president for Barack Obama, mainly at first because he reassured White America that the Black guy was OK. Being vice president is an "It must have been cold there in my shadow" kind of job, but Joe handled it pretty well, and even catastrophically deferred to Hillary Clinton as Obama's rightful successor in 2016.
After that debacle, Joe persisted, and in the campaign of 2020 he found a Democratic establishment that loved his pro-business and pro-banking record, his strong support of high military spending and overseas wars, and his past calls for cuts to Social Security as well as his steadfast opposition to Medicare for all. Our kind of Democrat, the owners and donors said, and with a big push from Obama, Biden found himself anointed as the candidate to defeat the Orange Ogre.
But Biden didn't defeat Trump; Trump defeated Trump. Trump's response to Covid-19 was so incompetent, so reckless, and so tone-deaf to lives lost that even the usual spin about fake news and alternative facts didn't work. Indeed, Trump first said the pandemic would magically disappear, then tried to blame it all on China, then said the media was covering it only because it hurt his chances for reelection, then persisted in holding rallies that turned into super-spreader events for the virus.
Despite all of Trump's flaws, despite all of his lies, he still almost defeated Biden, a stunning achievement when you really think about it. To my mind, the closeness of this election, the narrowness of Biden's victory, is as much a reflection of the weaknesses of Joe Biden as it is the strength of the Trump cult.
What kind of president can we expect Biden to be? He won't be anything like Trump, which in some ways is a bad thing. What I mean is this: Trump turned the narrowest of victories over Hillary Clinton into mandate-level deeds. He got the big tax cut Republicans covet. He got to pick three Supreme Court justices and to redefine lower-level courts for a generation. He served his base and made no apologies.
What is the likelihood that Biden adopts a progressive agenda? That he takes no prisoners, that he rides roughshod over Republicans, that he calls them traitors and dictates terms to them? Unlikely indeed. Even if Democrats win a majority in the Senate, which we won't know until January and runoff elections in Georgia, Biden will likely position himself as a centrist, i.e. a moderate Republican, a man willing to reach across the aisle for bipartisan accord.
It's likely Biden will even appoint Republicans to his cabinet. I'm betting we'll see more Republicans in his cabinet than progressive Democrats.
I won't shed any tears when Trump departs, perhaps into a new self-named media empire. Because for Trump it's Trump now, Trump tomorrow, Trump forever. Biden, unlike Trump, has at least some experience with public service, and that can't be a bad thing.
The question is: Which publics will Joe Biden serve with the most passion?