Biden making right moves toward unity

This has been a year of shocks and surprises. And we suspect that one such surprise for many people is Joe Biden’s approach to taking office in January.

Even under pressure from the far left of his party, the Democrat from Delaware is taking three distinctive steps to unite the country behind him as he prepares to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States next month. If he continues on this path, he might just have an opportunity to govern rather than watch his administration crack apart on the rocks of national division.

It’s far too early, of course, to know how Biden will lead. We’ll have a better idea of his intentions once all Cabinet picks are announced and he stakes out clear budget objectives for the coming year.

But one step he seems to be taking so far is picking people to staff his administration who are more capable public servants than ideological warriors. His picks for secretary of state, national security adviser and chief of staff are wonks better known for working in the background than politicos known for carrying forward some of the starker ideas of their party. The selection of his communications team is also winning high marks.

And while some of the people he’s selected for his economic team did draw immediate fire from opponents, the marquee names that would signal dramatic change and draw controversy and drama with their nominations — say, Sen. Elizabeth Warren — have so far been left out of the selection process.

Indeed, some of the more cynical political players are starting to fear that Biden might actually try to govern by reaching across the aisle and focusing on issues where he has a chance to win broad agreement, if not consensus.

Another step Biden is taking is to sidestep the political sideswiping too common in Washington. He’s signaling that he’s willing to work with the opposition. More than one Democrat has worried out loud that the president-elect might be placing too much hope in working with Republicans in the Senate. But it seems to us what Biden is doing is keeping the door open to working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

And the third step Biden has taken has been to speak directly to the American people in an attempt to lead toward greater cooperation while projecting a sense of calm. Case in point: his remarks over the Thanksgiving holiday where he noted, “America is a nation not of adversaries, but of neighbors. Not of limitations, but of possibilities. Not of dreams deferred, but of dreams realized.”

We’ll have to wait to see if Biden can build a coalition to govern or if he succumbs to the pressures that divide us. But we remark on the steps he has taken early on for a simple reason. All presidents face at least one serious crisis, and the ones who work to unify the country before that crisis washes over them have fared better in leading this country than those who squander their moments to unite the country.

Our hope is that Biden uses his moment to overcome national divisions so that we’re better able to deal with the pandemic. It will be difficult if not impossible to have a successful mass vaccination campaign, for example, without uniting the country against a deadly virus that doesn’t care about political affiliation.

One key takeaway from the national elections that saw Republicans win down-ballot races, even as Biden narrowly outpaced the president in key states, is that the country isn’t looking for a radical political turn. In fact, it’s looking for pragmatic solutions. And that likely requires turning the wheels of the national government so that Washington becomes functional again.

We expect that in time, there will be sharp debates over Biden’s ideas on foreign policy, his economic program and other issues. But at the moment, photos like the one released after the election of Biden going for a bike ride seem intent on sending a specific message: that the governing strategy of a Biden presidency might just be one that disarms critics. If so, that may just force Washington back to debating the merits of policies. We’ll be better off if it does.