THE DEBATE ON JOE BIDEN’S legacy will continue well beyond the official end of his presidency at noon tomorrow. But there is a consensus among experts and commentators: Few presidents have used pulpit intimidation to less effect.
Once known for his comfort in the spotlight during his long quest for the White House, Biden seemed almost allergic to exercising the socio-atmospheric powers of the office after his arrival.
Some of this was out of his control. He took office during a pandemic, which kept him largely tied to the White House during his first year. But much of his public reluctance was driven both by him and his aides. It wasn’t just that his growing infirmities forced him to do fewer interviews or prime-time speeches, travel less, and take fewer political risks – it was also that he preferred a heavy-handed approach of carrots, light and avoiding confrontation, as a question of governance and personality.
Biden was more fond of courting domestic lawmakers and supporting his allies internationally than intimidating his opponents or outwardly confronting his antagonists. This approach has seen success, both at home and abroad. But as Democrats prepare for the coming Donald Trump era, many look with frustration at the lost opportunities — the wasted carrots and the sticks left unused.
‘I was part of a small group trying to convince the powers that be that this wasn’t going to work, that he shouldn’t run again and that there needed to be a primary,’ a top Democrat said , reflecting on the conversations he had. with party leaders and major donors after the 2022 midterm elections. “Forget the political arguments. One of the most important things is the ability to make him talk. His strength was that he could go out there and do this empathetic thing. And then he couldn’t.
There is perhaps no better illustration of how Biden’s approach has frustrated Democrats than his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. The ceasefire agreement announced this week was first presented by Biden in the spring. And in the months that followed, the president’s foreign policy team worked furiously to get the Netanyahu government and Hamas leaders to adopt it. But it would apparently be Trump’s victory in November, and Trump’s Demands from Israel and neighboring Arab countries for a hostage deal to be reached quickly, forcing both sides to sign the agreement.
THE Washington Post quoted a diplomat saying it was “the first time there was real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.”
Why Biden felt he could not exert the same pressure is a question that will weigh on both his presidency and the Middle East itself. But part of the explanation could simply be that it was out of character for him to put in the screws.
Like Tom Malinowski, the former New Jersey congressman, put it on: Biden “believed in our values but not in our power. While Trump believes in our power, but not in our values.”
Malinowski, in an interview with The rampart, recalled a similar type of complacency from Biden on the home front. In the fall of 2021, House Democrats were locked in an internal caucus debate over whether to move forward on an infrastructure bill or fast-track their Build Back Better initiative first. Biden went to the Capitol to meet with members to help break the impasse.
The House leadership’s plan, according to Malinowski and confirmed by a Democratic aide, was for Biden to give a pep talk, then call on members to follow him to the House to pass the infrastructure bill with a promise expressly to tackle the problem. BBB agenda next. It would have been an Aaron Sorkin-style move – a dramatic use of the presidential stage to manifest an outcome. The party leadership seemed confident that few, if any, lawmakers would oppose Biden at such a dramatic moment.
“And then he didn’t.” He didn’t make the request. He just couldn’t bring himself to embarrass us,” Malinowski recalls. “I remember then going to some of his assistants and asking them, ‘What was that?’ And they said, “I don’t know.” He was just super nice. He gave a very good presentation. This was Biden at his best.
“There was just no demand at the end.”
ANDREW BATES, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON in the room, disputed that Biden ever agreed to “support a vote on infrastructure that day.” Rather, the president was there to argue “that we should stick with what would become the (Inflation Reduction Act) despite the fact that it wouldn’t include everything he wanted.”
Ultimately, as another administration official noted, the soft touch worked. The infrastructure bill was passed. The IRA too.
And yet Biden was not rewarded politically for these bills, nor for the others he carried out. The Teamsters union, whose pension he saved, refused to support him. His quest for student debt relief has not won him the support of young voters. The manufacturing jobs he brought to red states did little to help him make political inroads there. For these reasons, Malinowski says, one can’t help but wonder what a more forceful use of the bully pulpit might have achieved.
“He got the agreements he needed on most issues, sometimes with the help of his moderate Republicans in the Senate. But having a “fuck you” mentality also projects strength to the audience. This helps you take credit for what you do, because people will have seen you use your strength to achieve it.
“We should have spent a lot of money against the Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill,” Malinowski added. “We should have put up billboards saying, ‘Stuck in traffic? Call Congresswoman Smith, who voted against the infrastructure bill.
In an emailed statement, Bates defended the president’s record, noting that he had delivered “high-profile speeches, five speeches in the Oval Office, direct appeals to lawmakers and more than 60 interviews during the year, and nearly 700 meetings with the White House press.” body in function.
But those numbers mask how limited — and often staged — Biden’s public appearances were. And they don’t address the more philosophical criticism that even his fellow Democrats have leveled in recent days and months: that Biden had lost the ability to be convincing and lacked the appetite to be forceful.
Following Biden’s farewell address from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) grumbled about that the president had waited too long to speak out against the Supreme Court and warn against the oligarchy. (Whitehouse did not respond to a request for comment.) Other Democrats on Friday found it strange, though almost fitting, that Biden’s final political acts were to refrain from enforcing a ban on TikTok that he had signed it into law and declared the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. without request the National Archivist to certify the amendment. It was, once again, an aimless message.
Even Biden himself appears to have acknowledged that his tenure has been characterized by a lack of execution. In an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday, he said of his work at the White House: “I almost spent too much time on politics, not enough time on politics. »
These remarks gloss over the question of whether he would have been effective in “politics” if he had paid more attention to this aspect of his role. They also avoided hiccups and missed opportunities throughout his tenure, not in his dealings with voters but with other world leaders. Here too, Malinowski argues, Biden could have learned some things from Trump.
He recalled how, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, U.S. oil producers begged Saudi Arabia to cut production to prevent prices from imploding. The situation was so dire that Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) drafted legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia. And when Trump threatened Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, to support the bill unless production was reduced, the Saudis complied.
Two years later, as the pandemic receded and the price of oil soared, Biden tried a softer approach to getting more oil flowing. In 2022 he met and punched fist THE vilified Saudi leader, whom he called a pariah while running for president. It was a shocking turnaround, one that damaged Biden politically and contradicted his promise to put human rights at the forefront of US foreign policy. But White House aides hoped the carrots would work. They left empty-handed and embarrassed. The Saudis have refused to pump more oil before the midterm elections.
“I consider Biden the most successful national president in my lifetime, given the degree of difficulty he faced. . . . Even in foreign policy, he had great values, goals and stewardship of our democratic allies,” Malinkowski said. “But he failed to deal with thugs – including thugs who claim to be our allies – and that has tarnished his legacy and America’s global standing.”
