U.S. needs Biden’s empathy
When President Joe Biden visited a rickety bridge in New Hampshire to celebrate the hard-fought passage of his new $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan, he was well-justified in claiming a solid victory for himself and his allies when he finally addressed a problem that too many generations of politicians have talked about but allowed to languish.
The messiness of the legislative process that took the president to the Highway 175 bridge in Woodstock, N.H., will surely be forgotten as Americans begin to see the payoffs of the federal government’s big new investments — not only in bridges and roads, but in clean water and faster, more stable internet service.
Amid a light dusting of early-season snowflakes Tuesday afternoon, the president also allowed himself a moment of nostalgia about the earliest days of his career as a senator.
“I used to get kidded because I spent so much time commuting every day between Wilmington, Delaware, after my wife and daughter were killed, back to Washington every single day, 260 miles a day. And I’d ride home and I’d look out the window — this is the God’s truth — just outside of Washington,” Biden said. “And I’d go through a long stretch of residential neighborhood, and I could see the lights on in the kitchens and in the dining room, and I wondered: What is that — what are they talking about? What are they thinking about?”
Understanding the anxieties and concerns of those people, and making their lives better, Biden said, are why he went into politics and eventually ran for the nation’s highest office. Yet the delicate balance between reassuring the country and acknowledging its fears is a tricky one for any president who is trying to steer a nation through a series of difficult challenges. And Biden has been dealt more than his share of them.
Empathy has always been Biden’s political superpower — one we have not seen displayed enough as he has been trapped in the Oval Office negotiating for votes to get his domestic agenda over the finish line.
Even in the worst days of his 2020 Democratic primary campaign, when his candidacy was being all but written off after his stumbles in the early states, I witnessed it over and over again: As one of his town halls would come to an end, people would gravitate to the rope line. These were not the glancing selfie moments you would see with other candidates; strangers were drawn to Biden because they wanted to tell him their stories - the jobs they lost, the abusive relationships they had fled, the struggles to maintain sobriety amid grief over the death of a loved one. Biden always made time to listen and absorb.
All of which makes me wonder where that quality has gone as Biden’s presidency hits its rockiest stretch yet, with his approval numbers scraping bottom and a host of problems to grapple with, from rising inflation to a coronavirus pandemic that seems to have no end.
Liberal pundits would have you believe that Biden’s biggest failure is that he has not been loud enough in celebrating his accomplishments, or explaining how much he could achieve if Congress approves his domestic agenda. They blame the media for focusing on legislative process, as though this is something new on the part of journalists or lawmakers. Remember when Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, amid the slog to produce the Affordable Care Act in 2010: “We have to pass the bill, so that you can find out what is in it - away from the fog of the controversy”? That was an unfortunate turn of phrase on Pelosi’s part, but it turned out she was right. That might be what needs to happen now.
At the same time, Americans have had their confidence shaken by a tendency of Biden’s administration to play down or even deny the legitimate reasons people have to feel anxious. Inflation, which has hit a three-decade high, was supposed to be “transitory.” It was not supposed to be inevitable that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would allow the Taliban to take over the country. The coronavirus was “on the run.” None of that was what people saw happening.
So it is a good thing now that Biden is getting out more around the country - not just to bang his own drum, but to let people know that he is still listening. “We still face challenges, and we have to tackle them. We have to tackle them head-on,” he said last week as he promoted his infrastructure bill at the Port of Baltimore. “Many people remain unsettled about the economy, and we know why. They see higher prices. They go to the store or go online … and can’t find what they want.”
Americans know that the biggest problems defy easy solutions, and no one expects their president to be infallible. They just need to know that he hasn’t lost touch.