Joe Biden’s legislative successes, as The Atlantic summarized, include “funds to fight climate change, a major infrastructure bill, action to lower prescription-drug prices [and even] modest gun reform,” policies that the public approves by wide margins. He’s put people back to work and is clearly trying to do the right things. Despite all the misleading discussion, inflation has been tamed, and we’re headed for the much talked about soft landing. Beyond those legislative victories, Biden has been doing what the constitutional system in Washington allows regarding the environment, equal rights and women’s rights. In other words, Biden has been hard at work taking care of the public’s business – things are under control – while Trump visits the make-up man.
So the Republican strategy is to change the subject, not to talk about what Biden has done, not to make apologies for blocking him, threatening to shut government down and turn off programs that are making a difference for the American people, but to talk about his age.
Given what Biden’s been accomplishing, I wish him a long and vigorous life. Republicans don’t; he’s their nemesis. They claim his age is a problem but in reality Biden’s age is the only blessing they have. If he were younger and had greater life expectancy, the poor Republicans would need to find shrinks to help them deal with their depression, PTSD or suicidal urges.
Conversely the healthier Trump or the other Republican candidates are the more I fear them, the more harm they are likely to do. Mimicking the rabbi’s prayer for the Tsar in Fiddler on the Roof, keep healthy Republicans far away from the White House.
Some Democrats are disappointed that Biden hasn’t been able to do more. They wanted him to smash through the Republicans like a powerful football line or a Marine battalion and get everything done in a hurry. But the only way to do that is to emulate the Republicans and their white nationalist allies on Jan. 6 who used weapons to threaten, intimidate, smash and beat up Democrats, Capital police and Congress itself. Biden and Democrats realize emulating that lawless behavior would be a disaster, the path to dictatorship, and ultimately to a dictator whose only concern would be his or her own power and wealth, the standard practice of dictators, which we would not escape it if we let it happen. Using force would make everything worse.
Sometimes there is another way to make opposition fade away but the usual name for it is graft and corruption. Some Senators and Representatives can be bought off by promising to appoint someone they want for a judgeship. I’ve practiced in front of some of them and it isn’t fun. Biden did give Manchin some of what was needed to get his vote on key issues but who of us liked his having to do that. Republicans have too many judicial posts already. And they have chosen to close ranks and block Biden regardless of the interests of the people of America. More bribes won’t do the job, and would be costly for the public, for you and me, and physical force is a terrible option.
So Biden is trying to play by and protect the rules of democratic government. I’m cheering for Uncle Joe and wishing him good health, long life, and a big win in ’24, while Trump visits the make-up man.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
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