Joe Biden’s push for unity faces test with Supreme Court fight
From the opening of his third presidential bid, Joe Biden has argued that he is in a unique position to mend a fractured nation and work — even with Republicans — to “unify the country” into some semblance of consensus.
That central thesis of the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign is being severely tested by the battle over the future of the Supreme Court.
In the week since liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, he’s faced pressure from progressives seeking bolder action. And most Republicans in the Senate, a place where Biden spent 36 years of his career, have ignored his calls to wait until after the election to approve a successor. President Donald Trump is expected to name his pick on Saturday, launching a confirmation process that may only deepen the nation’s sectarian politics.
For now, Biden is holding his ground, defending the purpose and function of institutions and governing processes that are needed to install Ginsburg’s successor but appear to be fraying after years of strain.
“We have to de-escalate,” Biden said on Sunday in his first extended remarks after Ginsburg’s death. “Cool the flames … engulfing our nation.”
He followed up Monday in Wisconsin during a 25-minute speech where he didn’t mention the court at all. “We have to bring the nation together,” he said. “That’s going to be my primary job.”
The approach leaves Biden, a former senator shaped by a bygone era of Capitol Hill bonhomie, between ideological firing lines so intense as to risk overshadowing remembrances of Ginsburg as a legal giant, feminist hero and, late in her 87 years, a pop culture icon.
Whether Biden is right will determine not only his prospects in November but what kind of legislative success, well beyond judicial confirmations, he could muster once in office.
“Sometimes it sounds naïve,” said progressive labor and Democratic Party leader Larry Cohen, who supports Biden but wants him to be more forceful about overhauling how Capitol Hill works.
Biden is with his fellow Democrats in decrying a swift GOP-run confirmation so close to an election – especially given Republicans’ refusal to consider President Barack Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in March 2016, eight months before Election Day. Yet, at least publicly, Biden is not entertaining calls among some Democrats and progressives urging him to threaten specific retaliation.