The Economist wrote of late that
presidents are set up to fail. In response to misleading media coverage and congressional gridlock, many voters, especially on the left, have come to imagine the office possessing “superman powers”—at once awesome and non-existent … Burdened by such expectations, it is becoming hard to imagine any mortal making a success of it, let alone the clay-footed Mr Biden. Even if inflation and the virus recede much faster than expected, a mid-terms shellacking for his party looks highly probable.
Certainly the failures of Biden’s progressive agenda—the Build Back Better Plan (in essence failed), Voting Rights Reform (failed), filibuster changes (set to fail without the aid of Manchin or Sinema)—are bound up in the misplaced belief that his presidency is in possession of powers greater than those it actually possesses. But these convictions do not stem from voters—or at least did not initially. The problems Biden’s presidency is facing derive in large part from his own misunderstanding of the mandate he was given.
Elected initially as a crisis president, under the tagline (particularly prominent amongst the progressive left) ‘Settle for Biden,’ the current administration does not reside in the White House wholly upon its own merits, but rather in the interests of expunging the previous president from the office. Whereas in prior races, the majority of moderates dropped out only following losses at primaries and caucuses, in 2020 it was the influence of Barack Obama that significantly reduced the number of candidates in the Democratic primaries (aided also by Senate proceedings on Trump’s impeachment.) The only two frontrunners by February 2020 were Biden and Sanders, and even the progressive left—who had nominally supported the latter—prioritised the removal of Trump over progressive policy, with AOC endorsing Biden in July of 2020.
For Biden, therefore, while in office, to disregard the means by which he entered it, and to attempt to enact progressive reforms—while admirable—denies also the specificity of his mandate. He was intended to act as a return to normalcy, and explicitly to condemn at every juncture Donald Trump’s presidency so as to guarantee the continuation of normalcy past 2024. Yet Trump remains a third rail; Biden’s speech on the anniversary of January 6th did not even refer to him by name, and the general tone of many of Biden’s speeches—where his powers of persuasion should grasp at the opportunity—seem reticent ever to refer to the prior president.
Biden ostensibly desires to act, firstly, as though Trump is not in essence the sole reason he was elected, and secondly, as though the public and Congress in turn will support his progressive policies on the basis of this mandate (he referred, in fact, recently to the size of the turnout in 2020.) A vote for Biden in 2020 was never a vote for progressive politics—had it been, Bernie Sanders likely would have maintained the momentum he gained in the Iowa Caucus—but a vote against Trump. American mainstream politics has yet to attain to a significant degree of progressive sentiment, and he would do well to remember this as he attempts to pass further legislation.
Edited by Ayla Samson
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