The Daily Beast
Joe Biden can only be the Democrats’ Ronald Reagan
Photo illustration by Elizabeth Brockway / The Daily Beast / Getty Maybe it’s time for our conservatives to take Joe Biden seriously. After steamrolling Republicans and passing a $ 1.9 billion COVID relief package on a party-line basis, Biden is now pushing for $ 2.3 billion in infrastructure spending, coupled with a proposed corporate tax hike. to pay. said infrastructure spending is for things like ‘human infrastructure’, not roads and bridges, we are still talking about a HUGE amount of money – and that is only the first half of a two-part plan. But it is not just the large expenditure that is remarkable. What is remarkable is the way in which Biden, once considered a centrist compromise figure, wants to push through the plan. “Let’s work together and see if there is a way to deliver it,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told politician Ryan Lizza on Thursday before hastily adding: “Let me in the end be clear that the president has been elected to do a job. ‘Where have I heard it? Oh yes. It was early February when ten Republicans met with Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the COVID relief package. They were barely out the door before Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, issued a statement that was much like Klain’s. Actually, I interpreted her words as follows: ‘… Biden wants support from two parties, but not a two-way compromise (at least not much) because his plan is’ carefully designed to meet the interests of this moment completed. Biden’s revolution is doing what Obama and Clinton did not do. My reading of the moment seems to be accurate, and I think it was a sign of the strategy of the Biden government. Josh Kraushaar, The National Journal, described the strategy as: ‘Go to the next two years, because this is the last best chance of getting things done before the inevitable setback. It is not the unity that is promised, but rather the power politics that an operator who does not like likes [Rahm] Emanuel or even Mitch McConnell would appreciate it. ‘Biden does not appear as ruthless as Rahm or as amoral and calculating as Mitch, which actually makes him more effective. In baseball, a pitcher with a quick delivery of his speed is considered ‘sneaky’. The political version is perhaps Joe Biden – who is both ‘sneaky fast’ and, apparently, ‘sneaky partisan’. In fact, Biden’s ability to tell people to go to hell (in a way that makes them look forward to the journey) may be his secret. During his short term as president, however, he rules like a man on a mission, with great aspirations to be a transforming president. If the setback comes, it is possible he will regret not enchanting Republican politicians. Or he could succeed beyond his wildest imagination, and his legacy could very well have dramatically changed the scope and scope of government in a way we have never seen before like FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. The latter is a particularly interesting comparison, as the “Master of the Senate” inherited his liberal agenda from a younger, more charismatic, Democratic president, but what about those of us who do not really want to transform the nation? Who’s looking at us? Republicans are not doing very well. At least I have not yet heard many convincing warnings about the danger of a debt crisis, inflation, or the possibility that tax increases would be passed on to consumers, or even slump to employees. Where is the concern that Democrats are buying votes with free money? And – most importantly – why are Republicans so blown away by the death of a limited government? If Biden gets the score, part of the story is that the Republicans are so focused on tipping windmills, ‘owning the library’ and fighting the chimera, that they barely noticed that the sleepy Joe had rewritten the social contract. Barack Obama said in 2008: “I think Ronald Reagan has changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon does not know, and does not like Bill Clinton.” The point is that you can be considered a successful two-term president (as I thought Clinton and Obama in general) and that you can not come close to a lasting change. From a progressive point of view, Clinton’s mistake was triangulation, which involved the cooperation of the Republican language, such as declaring, “The era of great government is over.” Biden seems to have taken a different direction. Ronald Reagan took office with the aim of winning the Cold War and restoring optimism in America, and on both counts he succeeded. But the Reagan Revolution also fundamentally reformed the public consensus on the size and scope of government. “The long cycle of growth in the role and activism of the national government in domestic affairs that began with FDR’s New Deal ended with Reagan’s New Federalism,” wrote Richard P. Nathan of Princeton University. ” The Reagan presidency has shown a fundamental shift in U.S. domestic policy, both in the spending of the Federal Government and in the content and purpose of its local programs. ” What if Biden turns out to be the liberal answer? and Reagan? But he’s the cunning Reagan who just pretended to be old and deceived as a crook, as portrayed by Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live. Oh yes, and unlike Reagan, his party controls both houses of Congress. What if Biden, often seen as a ‘transitional’ caretaker who was tolerant of getting rid of Donald Trump, turns out to be a truly transformative president bringing about a new political consensus? Imagine the irony if Obama was apparently the John the Baptist of Joe Biden’s Jesus Christ, what if Biden was the one they were waiting for? As one policy might put it: this presidency can be a great thing! Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.