A year later, Biden’s script goes wrong
Joe Biden had a plan. But a divided party, belligerent Republicans, pandemic fatigue, and a loss of control over the narrative is hurting
When Joe Biden took office on January 20 last year, the mood among Democrats was one of relief. Donald Trump was finally out of office. His attempt to sabotage the peaceful transfer of power had failed. The January 6 attack on Congress, it seemed, had finally awakened the country to the dangers of the demagogue. Biden was now in office. Here was an opportunity to restore the United States (US)’s democratic equilibrium and global reputation.
A year later, that sense of relief has given way to panic among the Democrats.
While recognising the substantial differences in both the context and the specifics of the situation, here is a parallel to illustrate the plight of the Biden administration in 2022 — the fate of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-2 government back in 2012.
Like the UPA, the Democrats have lost control over the public narrative. Biden, much like Manmohan Singh, is seen as a well-intentioned man but perceived, fairly or unfairly, as out of tune with the requirements of the moment. The Democratic Party, much like the Congress, is squeezed between internal factions. Record inflation has lent an image of economic incompetence. And the judiciary has reversed executive decisions.
The Republican Party, just like the Bharatiya Janata Party a decade ago, has effectively fused national security concerns, cultural politics which taps into the anxieties of the majority, and economic concerns. Trump’s political demise, it turns out, was greatly exaggerated — most Republicans now believe that the 2020 election was “stolen”, and the rest of GOP leadership, which doesn’t like Trump but is scared of his control over the base, is waiting to see if he will announce a formal run for 2024.
How did it come to this? The answer lies in the peculiar economic consequences of Biden’s decisions, the ideological divide within the Democrats, the Republican manipulation of the political system, and the pandemic-induced uncertainty that has lent a general air of despair.
Team Biden’s diagnosis of the Right-wing turn in American politics is based on the following analysis. Globalisation led to economic dislocation for middle America. Working class Americans suffered. Trump leveraged the discontent. The pandemic made it worse for citizens. The sense of a crumbling US, as opposed to a rising China, also added to the appeal of slogans such as “Make America Great Again”.
The President’s prescription to deal with the internal economic distress, the pandemic, the Republican political challenge, and the external China challenge rested on pumping money into the economy — a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 rescue plan that entailed direct financial assistance to citizens; a $1.3 trillion infrastructure plan that would modernise America’s physical and digital hardware; and a $1.8 trillion build back better plan that involved assistance on health, education, parenthood to improve America’s software and enable a clean energy transition. Biden succeeded in shepherding the passage of the first two bills in the Congress (though the infra bill was watered down); opposition from within his party, in a Senate that is split 50:50, however, blocked the passage of the third.
In a strange twist, both his legislative success and failure have hurt Biden. The liquidity in the system as a result of the first two bills, coupled with pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions, led to four-decade inflation of 7% in December. And while unemployment is much lower than feared at 3.9%, the price rise is hurting Biden politically.
The failure to pass the third bill, despite Biden investing enormous political capital and time, blocked tangible steps to ease life for citizens and led to a perception of an ineffectual administration. This is now coupled with the failure to pass key bills related to voting rights. The Democrats believe, with good reason, that the Republicans want to block access to voting for poorer and Black citizens and are engaged in widespread partisan gerrymandering of constituencies.
These legislative setbacks have exposed a fundamental conflict within the Democrats —between the progressive caucus and the centrists on a fundamental question. How do you defeat the Republicans? The progressives believe that an open ideological war on both cultural and economic policy, and the use of executive and legislative power to push through policies, is the only way to stop the Republicans. The centrists believe that in a deeply divided country, moderation in economic policy, silence on the politics of culture, and restraint in the use of executive and legislative power is the most effective way to take on the Republicans electorally. Both factions today are unhappy with Biden. The progressives believe Biden hasn’t gone far enough; the centrists believe he has gone too far Left.
In this internal context are external variables. In terms of the pandemic, the administration wisely pushed vaccination, but Omicron led to record hospitalisation — primarily among the unvaccinated. In terms of national security, Biden’s humiliating pullout from Afghanistan hurt US credibility externally and his own standing internally — but he stares at an even bigger crisis if Russia decides to step into Ukraine and recent US diplomatic efforts fail. The China dynamic remains unstable and Washington isn’t sure about Xi Jinping’s intent on Taiwan.
During a recent speech, Biden said that when he told allies at a G7 meeting that America was back, they asked, “For how long?” If the first year is an indication, Joe Biden should be a worried man.