Getting ready for Mr Biden
With a constrained mandate, he will face strong domestic and external challenges
The election of the 46th president of the United States is over, bar the final official result. While there remain a handful of states yet to finish their ballot tabulating, Democratic candidate Joe Biden requires only a single state among those where counting was still underway at the time of going to press, to win the magic number of Electoral College votes. A lead in Pennsylvania on Friday gives him a clear edge but Mr Biden may find it hard to be able to claim a decisive mandate. The Democrats failed to recapture the Senate and suffered a net loss of seats in the House of Representatives. Donald Trump was able to eat into Democratic margins among the working class and even minorities. If Covid-19 had not struck and Mr Trump had been slightly less abrasive, a second term would have been quite likely. This election was all about him: Even those who voted for Mr Biden did so largely because he wasn’t Donald Trump.
Mr Biden will take over a nation divided on a number of fronts, and be overwhelmingly absorbed in trying to heal the wounds evident in society. His administration wants to spend money at home to overcome the pandemic, lay out a green energy path, expand subsidised health care and revamp ailing infrastructure. Much of this will be designed to overcome the social inequities that led to the Trump phenomenon in the first place. But Mr Biden will shy away from the more radical demands of the Leftwing of his party, primarily breaking up tech monopolies and Wall Street’s financial conglomerates. He will be harassed from the Right by Mr Trump even as his party’s progressive wing will push him to move further Left, even as Mr Biden’s policies will be ideologically moderate.
Mr Biden will have his own version of America First. Yes, he will reverse Mr Trump’s stance on immigration, security alliances and, most of all, the multilateral approach on climate. Punitive tariffs will be rolled back, in part, because they are ineffective, but trade will be increasingly about reciprocity. The shifting of supply chains and tech coalition-building, both aimed at China, will continue. Middle Kingdom bashing is bipartisan, but there may be marked difference in tactics. Mr Biden’s team version of isolationism lies in the desire to commit less overseas and invest more on the home front. Beijing is unlikely to give him so much leeway. Mr Biden will be tested in the international realm — and having to decide whether home renovation is possible without neighbourhood watch duties.