Who’s Fooled
Joe Biden has everyone fooled, and he’s happy about it. To Trumpers, he’s a doddering old man, just a “fool” manipulated by the “socialist progressives” surrounding him. They mention folks like Vice President Kamala Harris as leading the shadow government, though the “real socialist progressives” in the Democratic Party don’t include her on their roster.
And if you look at Biden’s cabinet picks, there’s not a real “socialist progressive” in the bunch. They are all pretty “mainstream” Democrats, though in contrast to the white-male conservative Trump cabinet (and Mrs. DeVos and McConnell), they are a lot more “liberal”. Just check out the Biden “team picture”, only a couple of old white men in the bunch.
In the Middle
To conservatives (not Trumpers), he’s offering a Roosevelt like “New Deal” big government. “Yee Gods” – he’s talking about spending trillions of dollars! To those conservatives, you are only allowed to use that number if you’re talking about a top one percent tax cut, or a missile system to counter a military threat from the 1980’s. Spending government money on child care, or college loan relief or nationwide broad band: “why that’s a frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars that our children will have to pay for”. (Maybe we could just get Amazon and Facebook to foot the bill; they could actually pay some taxes on their COVID windfall profits).
And to the real socialist progressives of the Democratic Party, he’s not doing enough. They want Biden out farther (though did you hear him whisper about the $15 minimum wage in his speech to Congress on Wednesday? Didn’t he start at $12?) But they’ve got another Joe to really be angry with, not Biden but Manchin. So, much of the vitriol that might have been directed at Joe Biden and should be directed towards Mitch McConnell and his obstructionist Party, is going towards the Senator from West Virginia.
Super Power
And to the great mass of the American people, Joe Biden is a man of lowered expectations. We don’t expect Obama-like oratory from Biden’s speeches. In fact, for most of his supporters we’re just glad he gets through without a famous “Biden gaffe”. So when Biden does more than just slog through an hour-plus speech on Wednesday, actually using his voice from a whisper to demanding assertion, hey – it’s a great job!
The one “super-power” of Joe Biden is that he can relate to Americans on the most basic level. We all suffer loss, and particularly in our pandemic era, even more people are hurting. Joe Biden can relate to loss, to suffering, and to redemption. His story, and his empathy comes across in almost everything he does. He can literally reach out and touch the grieving parent, or the unemployed steel worker, or the orphaned child. We all know that about Joe – and it’s not a “skill” or a “political ploy”. It’s all him.
Historic Presidency
Out of all of this, Biden is powering the government to one of the great legislative Presidencies. The conservatives are right – Joe Biden, fumbling, old Joe, is proposing big ideas that we haven’t talked about since the Roosevelt’s New Deal or Johnson’s Great Society. Biden is trying to reshape America. It’s about roads and bridges, trains and airplanes, broad band and electric cars. Physically America will be modernized by the Biden Administration. And whether the actual Republican Party vote for any part of it or not, Biden knows that a large majority of Americans want this. They want their highways fixed (drive through downtown lately?) and they want their utilities to work.
And Joe Biden wants to create an America that lifts all of its people. Reagan “trickle-down” economics, give money to the rich and they will spend it on the poor, doesn’t work. But it has been the basis of American economic policy since Reagan took office. Clinton nibbled around the edges but made little change. Obama wanted to alter it, but found the politics of division blocked him at every turn.
Biden’s Place
Biden seems to have found a “place” where he can get things done. No one “expected” Biden to be successful. He was supposed to be “only” a transitional figure, a step from Trumpism in 2020 to the “New Progressives” of 2024. But “Old Joe” seems to be smarter than we give him credit for. He’s quietly getting things done in his own way.
Franklin Roosevelt had an overwhelming majority in the Congress, and an overwhelming mandate from the American people for change. Lyndon Johnson also had a Congress and an electoral mandate, and he also was the “right man”, a Southern Democrat, to lead the fight for civil rights and improving urban life.
And Joe Biden, a man of the Senate and of the center, may have found his place in making major changes in America. He’s not the “charismatic leader”. He’s the “transcendent legislator,” letting every side get “some” credit, while he gets the job done. For our time, he’s the right man.
And he’s laughing up his sleeve as he does it.
