Joe Biden’s Surprises
Jan 29, 2021ELIZABETH DREW
Notwithstanding a few head-scratchers among his cabinet and staffing picks,
Joe Biden is being hailed as a paragon of conventionality after years of chaos
and discord. But given his initial momentum out of the gate, Biden is already
on track to effect radical change – and his team is actually competent enough
to do it.
WASHINGTON, DC – Joe Biden knows enough about the US presidency to
understand that the first few weeks are the easiest and most pleasant. There
inevitably will be setbacks and crises, particularly for a president who took
office amidst a raging pandemic, economic collapse, and a climate crisis near
to a tipping point.
1.
We should not be afraid of a post-pandemic world that will not be the same
as the status quo ante. We should embrace it and use all appropriate fora and
available opportunities to make it a better world by advancing the cause of
international cooperation.
0Add
to Bookmarks
PreviousNext
In the early weeks a new president can accomplish a lot through executive
orders, reversing previous administration policies and signaling a commitment
to certain values without interference from Congress. Biden can use the powers
of his office unilaterally to push his first priority: controlling the
pandemic.
The new president also has a pretty free hand in naming his cabinet. When
he first announced his choices to fill many top advisory and cabinet positions,
many observers worried that Biden was turning to yesterday’s names to handle
today’s most demanding jobs. Biden is gambling on experience as his key to
success.
In any case, the Biden team’s hyper-emphasis on cabinet diversity has
sometimes made it seem that it was more important to be able to say that a
nominee was “the first” of something, rather than that he or she was the best
for the job. Nonetheless, Biden selected a competent cabinet overall; only
after the usual shaking-out period will we really know which picks succeed.
The nomination of US Federal Appeals Court judge Merrick Garland to be
attorney general seemed at first to be primarily an “up-yours” to Republican
Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who refused even to allow hearings for Garland
when Barack Obama tapped him to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. To those who know
Garland, however, he is an excellent choice: brilliant, calm, and fair – just
the person to restore integrity and morale to a Justice Department battered by
Donald Trump.
Similarly, Biden’s chief-of-staff, Ron Klain, is almost as experienced as
his boss, having served as chief-of-staff to Biden during his vice presidency
and to Vice President Al Gore before that. This comfortable working
relationship has helped Biden not put a foot wrong thus far.
The historical truth is that fresh faces in the Oval Office might be
exciting, but they come with risks. Within three months of taking office, the
relatively inexperienced John F. Kennedy, widely adored for his looks, charm,
and eloquence, landed up in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
George W. Bush, the son of a president and two-term governor of Texas, was
probably the most experienced of recent incoming White House occupants.
Nonetheless, he presided over two avoidable calamities early on: the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001 (numerous warnings and clues went unheeded), and
the invasion of Iraq (which, like Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War, was based
publicly on a lie).
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both former southern governors,
were smart men with limited Washington experience. They, too, stumbled early
on. And Obama had served for only three years in the US Senate before being
elected; he neither enjoyed dealing with Congress nor had much of a feel for
it.
Biden’s relationship with Obama and his legacy are more complicated than
appearances suggest. Whereas Obama frustrated many Capitol Hill Democrats with
his innate caution and readiness to compromise with Republicans (liberal
Democrats referred to him privately as “Mr. 50-yard line”), Biden deliberately
describes his own proposals as “bold.” His immigration proposals contradict
Obama’s policy of pursuing substantial deportations of illegal immigrants. The
message seems to be that Biden will no longer dwell in Obama’s shadow.
After serving four decades in the Senate before becoming vice president,
Biden has a feel for Congress unmatched since Johnson. Still, it won’t be long
before we know if all of his talk about working with the Republicans is based
on nostalgic naivete or is a clever way of setting up Republicans for obloquy
if they try to obstruct his proposals.
And obstruction seems likely. McConnell may have seen eventually that
Trump’s denial of losing the election wasn’t doing the Republican party any
good, but that doesn’t mean he’s become a less fierce partisan.
Biden is also playing a sophisticated game with his party’s left. He
managed to form a government without giving jobs to Senators Elizabeth Warren
or Bernie Sanders, both of whom sought to join his cabinet. Sanders’s followers
even threatened Biden if he didn’t give the Vermont senator the job he wanted.
Biden has explained his actions away by noting – conveniently but not
unreasonably – that the Democrats’ margins in Congress are too slim to risk a
single open seat, although he did select three House members from relatively
safe Democratic districts for top jobs.
Sanders didn’t take long before carping at Biden’s policy proposals. But
that’s part of the show. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her “squad” could also
keep up pressure from the left, while Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state
which went heavily for Trump in 2020, poses a problem from Biden’s right. In a
50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any tie, every vote
counts. Still, Biden has adopted much of the left’s agenda, and will try to
sell these policies from the center, his political home.
One sign of this change is that, unlike all recent Democratic
administrations, Biden’s hasn’t paid obeisance to Wall Street by giving bankers
top jobs. The new Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, is a former Federal
Reserve chair and academic who has made it clear that she understands the
country’s pressing social needs. Moreover, Biden consulted Warren on her
economic views, and has named a former Warren adviser as Yellen’s deputy.
Yellen’s appointment demonstrates that Biden shares the insight that enabled
Trump’s rise: that too many Americans feel that they cannot get a fair shake.
Following the Götterdämmerung of Trump’s presidency, it
seemed a foregone conclusion that Biden’s term would be dull. But Biden is
coming off tougher and more imaginative than people thought he would be. So far
– and to be sure it is early – Biden’s presidency is turning out to be more
interesting and surprising than expected.
Writing for PS since 2015
65 Commentaries
Follow
Elizabeth
Drew is a Washington-based journalist and the author, most recently,
of Washington Journal: Reporting
Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall.
