In what state will Joe Biden present himself at the crucial COP26 on climate which opens Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland? In the pitiful state of a president handcuffed by a failing American democracy. It is not, far from it, the strict success of his presidency which is played around the adoption of his social and environmental spending plans, known as Build Back Better (BBB). The consequences of its setbacks on the widening inequalities in the United States and on the planetary emergency presented by global warming weigh very heavily in the balance.
“We have to prove that democracy still works. May our government still function and be at the service of the people, ”he declared during his first presidential address to Congress last April.
It got off to a bad start.
There was hope that by drawing on his – small – majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, Biden could at least partly restore political life to some health, despite ultra-partisan opposition from Republicans and of the procedural rules which hamper the work of Congress. But now the Democrats, whose majority of elected officials nevertheless support the “transformational” will displayed by the president, present the spectacle of a party taken hostage by two of his senators, that of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, and that of Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema. Which is not without demobilizing part of the Democratic electorate. The election-barometer for governor which takes place next Tuesday in Virginia will measure this.
Hence this question: with majorities that they risk losing in the mid-term elections of 2022, will the Democrats manage not to shoot themselves in the foot?
From the back, we can already speak. And it is not the bipartisan agreement sealed around the BBB component on the all-out renovation of infrastructure (roads, bridges, drinking water, etc.) that will make him forget. Regarding the other major part of the plan, which is also the most courageous (widening of the social safety net and the fight against climate change), it is already understood that the great reform and redistributive ambitions promoted by a newly progressive Joe Biden will be considerably faded. Read: halved. Flagship commitments (paid parental and medical leave, reduction in the price of medicines, etc.) go by the wayside, others are pruned, especially in education. Even though, to the tune of US $ 1,750 billion over a decade, the reform effort remains appreciable, if not sufficient.
Mr Biden would not necessarily be in these troubles if the Democratic majority in the Senate were only a little stronger. The point is that the Democratic convulsions are less the result of a clash between progressives and moderates within the party than that of the self-serving obstruction of Manchin and Sinema, who thus find themselves serving the interests of Republicans asking for nothing better. than letting the Democrats tear each other apart. Both camp on the right in that they are in principle resistant to the idea of increasing taxes on large companies and the “super-rich” in order to finance at least part of the reforms. This places Biden in front of an equation typical of American capitalist culture, all the more complicated to solve since the context is one of precarious economic recovery and pandemic crisis hyperpoliticized by the Republicans.
Not content with confusing social programs and philanthropy, instead of seeing them as instruments of collective progress and reduction of inequalities, Mr. Manchin is also one of the most vocal opponents of the measures put forward by the White House. to accelerate the energy transition, measures supported by the majority of the Democratic caucus. He succeeded in having the most important environmental measure put forward by the presidency to be repealed: a 150 billion program intended in the long term to replace gas and coal power stations with solar and wind energy production systems.
Everything is explained: a conservative Democrat in a state that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, Mr. Manchin is among his own a Trojan horse who defends his state’s coal industry. It does not matter if the consumption of coal, oil and gas is the main source of carbon dioxide on a global scale. And if the United States is, after China, the main emitter of CO2.
The new version of the spending plan does not, however, exhaust the intrademocratic dissensions. The left wing of the party is rightly angry. Departing Thursday for a G20 summit in Rome, from where he will travel to Glasgow on Sunday, the president tried to put on a good face by congratulating himself on having pulled off a “compromise” with “historical” dimensions. Which leaves doubtful, as he had deemed essential, at the start, to do much more.