Some anxious preliminary reflections on Biden
- highbrandon202
- Apr 6, 2021
- 2 min read
Barely two months in to his presidency, commentators (such as Jonathan Freedland in 'The Guardian' the other day) have already begun to pay homage to Biden as the new Franklin Roosevelt. They see evidence for that claim in the huge sums which Biden is devoting to mitigating the impact of coronavirus, and to economic recovery. However, FDR did not change American society and political economy not only through Keynesian expenditure but also through Social Security, food stamps and the Wagner Act of 1935 (which made organising labour unions much easier). Is Biden proposing anything comparable. such as the universal extension of Medicare, or an increase in the minimum wage, or further assistance for renters, or proposals to lift restrictions on the activities of labour unions ? There is no sign of any such move yet. It is true that more conservative Democrats may resist such policies ; yet Biden needs to use his much-vaunted contacts in Congress, and possibly deploy some of the arm twisting and cajoling for which Lyndon Johnson was so famous. (The essentially regressive, militarist and imperialist nature of American foreign policy can be taken as read: any 'reset' of foreign policy from the Trump years is merely the restoration of previous pathologies, albeit clothed in diplomatic hypocrisies. Any change here can only be preceded by the collapse of American power). Or the Senate filibuster (of dubious constitutional status) could be abolished ; or Puerto Rico and Washington DC could be admitted to full statehood.
However, time is of the essence, and is running out. The contemporary Republican Party (see my previous blogposts on 'Some hesistant prognostications concerning the Republican Party' and 'The historical origins of Trumpism') may have rejected democratic pluralism, and the very concept of objective evidence, but it remains a potent electoral threat. When this strange beast slouches again toward the Capitol, things will truly fall apart and the centre will not hold, as we saw all too clearly on January 6th.
(With apologies to W. B. Yeats, 'The Second Coming.')
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