Is American policy running to ruin? There is something surreal, even possibly suicidal going on in the election campaign — a drama that unfolds in slow motion without really being noticed. This came to mind recently when I received my umpteenth email ad from the Biden-Harris presidential re-election campaign. The ballot being still very far away, I almost threw it in the digital trash can, but wait! there was an urgent message.
“John, we checked our records and noticed that you had not yet made a donation in support of the Biden-Harris campaign. Apparently, my surname was missing from the file (there was an identification number: 60f88ba all the same), but it didn’t matter. I could settle my financial deficit with a “suggested” donation of $25 and become a “founding donor”. With this frankly inexpensive contribution, I would receive a Biden-Harris membership card signed by “Joe” and bearing the exhortation “Let’s finish the job!” “.
At the time I read this invitation, President Biden’s approval rating was at the lowest level of his term — 36%, according to an ABC/washington post — so I understood the urgency a little better. Worse for Biden, 56% of respondents disapprove of his governance, as well as 58% of Democrats surveyed, who expressed their wish that their party be represented by another candidate in the 2024 presidential election. is, there is no serious candidate who dares to confront the incumbent president, so much do they fear the supposedly inevitable situation if Biden withdraws from the race: the re-election of ex-president Trump and the end of the republic.
In the past, I more or less agreed with the idea that a repeat Biden-Trump matchup provided the best guarantee of defeat for Trump. The American electorate was so deeply disgusted with the monster of Mar-a-Lago that they would rise up a second time to reject his grotesque person. In the event that a rival like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis managed to win the Republican Party nomination, I was convinced that Trump, out of sheer malice, would launch an independent candidacy that would split the Republican vote in favor of the Democratic nominee. .
But lately this ready-made scenario has lost ground. What is Biden’s true record? Would he be re-elected just because his name is not Trump? What task do we have to finish with Biden? So far, the legislative agenda of the White House — the task, let’s say — has been rather limited. When his communications advisers granted him the title of the new Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), one would have thought that the Trump threat was going to disappear for good. Although FDR II’s program was largely borrowed from that of Bernie Sanders, the popular record is poor for Franklin D. Biden. There was, I admit, a child tax credit that lasted a year before it expired. Indeed, it was a very “progressive” program despite its short duration. But other than that, what? While the real FDR was seeking re-election in 1936 with numerous successes favoring ordinary people, including Social Security and Unemployment Insurance, Biden has nothing comparable he could boast of. No Medicare expansion, no increase in the federal minimum wage, not even free classes in the community colleges (classes so dear to the first lady professor, Jill Biden). Biden has signed into law an executive order to reduce the debt of former students still crushed by huge loans, but this gift to the indebted is for the moment blocked by the federal courts.
Basically, Biden has achieved very little concrete thing that would get the working classes to vote for him. For the wealthy, of course, there has been largesse from Democrats, including extending income protection for investment bankers and hedge fund partners, who pay the tax rate on gains. capital, rather than the much higher rate of 37% on ordinary income. In principle, Biden could promote his efforts against climate change with public investments in solar energy and electric cars, but, for the poor, “ecology” is an abstraction that means nothing. Regarding his policy of reindustrialization, Biden will always be outdone by a Trump historically critical of the free trade agreements – which have so harmed workers – signed into law by Bill Clinton and voted in by Biden as a senator. Trump may also see that Biden has only maintained the latter’s new tariffs on Chinese-made products.
What remains of Biden FDR? Immigration reform? Headlines for pro-Biden New York Daily News May 9: crisis in the New York City refugee centers, which are overflowing “to breaking point” with undocumented immigrants sent from Texas by the Republican governor.
Trump supporters may be bullied, even mad, but they are highly motivated to vote. Even if a majority of the electorate dislikes Trump, Biden is not the beloved of anti-Trumps. For a candidate who looks increasingly drowsy (and lame), the risk is that many voters won’t wake up on November 5, 2024.
John R. MacArthur is editor of Harper’s Magazine. His column returns at the beginning of each month.