It was President Joe Biden’s last speech before the midterm elections last November. He chose to talk about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. Many of his advisers were in disbelief, while voters were far more worried about inflation and energy prices.
The election results surprised even the president’s supporters. The best result in 88 years in a still difficult midterm election for the ruling party. Democrats have retained a majority in the Senate and Republicans have a slim four-vote majority in the House.
This forced us to reconsider the results of the first two years of the Biden presidency. And to recognize that, in fact, this record is remarkably productive compared to that of its predecessors over the past three decades.
With a Congress that has become a blocking machine not only for good ideas but also for necessary reforms, that’s a remarkable record.
Joe Biden has passed an infrastructure investment plan that could reach more than $700 billion. A success all the more remarkable that Donald Trump and Barack Obama had failed.
We can also talk about the post-COVID-19 recovery plan, anti-inflation measures, investments in the production of semiconductors and protection for the marriage of same-sex couples after the Supreme Court indicated that after the abortion, this could be a case to reconsider.
One might add that he has withstood the relentless attacks by Republicans who want to abolish Obamacare., the popular health insurance program adopted under Barack Obama. And that the US government has not ceased to function for lack of congressional funding, which has happened five times in the past three decades.
Meanwhile, Republicans have spent more time tearing each other apart. They offered Tuesday the spectacle of a party unable to elect one of its own as president of the House of Representatives in the first ballot. The last time this happened was exactly a century ago.
It must be said that five Republican representatives were enough to block the election of the candidate of the party establishment, Kevin McCarthy, and the ultra-conservative Republicans could not refrain from subjecting him to this humiliation.
The danger for the Republican Party is that it demonstrates that, for a significant part of the caucus, the mandate is to oppose and protest, not to pass laws. At the cost of leaving the impression of a party that is not at all ready, or even interested, to govern.
In any case, it is certainly the first impression that the Republicans will have left at the opening of this 118e Congress. And, in politics, first impressions count.
That said, one shouldn’t be surprised by the eccentricities of the Republican caucus: the last two Republican Speakers of the House, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, were ultimately ousted by a caucus that didn’t consider them radical enough. We have already seen this film.
Tuesday shows that divisions are deepening within this party, a very significant group of which remains loyal to former President Donald Trump and still refuses to accept the results of the last presidential election.
This means that the program of the Republican majority in the House is more revengeful than constructive. There is already talk of impeachment proceedings against President Biden and investigations into Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House.
More importantly, some Republicans believe they can embarrass President Biden by getting their hands on what they see as the Holy Grail: the laptop of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, which they believe contains the proof of all kinds of wrongdoing.
Said laptop being in the hands of the FBI for more than two years, it’s a safe bet that if evidence had been found there, charges would have been laid. But, of course, when you’re drawn to conspiracy theories, you may not believe that the federal police can be impartial.
But these distractions cannot make us forget that one thing has become very clear at the start of the year: if Joe Biden has not yet announced that he will be a candidate in 2026, it seems less and less likely that he will decide. to retire after one term.
Joe Biden has demonstrated an uncommon ability to understand where the majority of the electorate is. While the Republicans fielded increasingly extreme candidates, the Democrats had a much more appealing message for the middle class.
With the result that the one a Quebec columnist disdainfully described as a “mummy” before the November elections, still remains the most likely Democrat to beat the candidate chosen by the Republicans. Whether it was Donald Trump – whom he had defeated by 7 million votes – or someone else.