Joe Biden has been President for a little over a year and regardless of whether or not you like the job he’s done it’s hard to say he hasn’t done a far better one than his predecessor.
Still, there are many Americans that are dissatisfied with what Biden is doing so let’s look at it so far.
There are three areas in which a President of this country can influence the lives of its citizens: the economy, foreign policy and quality of life including healthcare. Over the next couple of blogs we’ll look at how Biden has done in each. Today we’ll concentrate on his legislative work and how well he has managed that.
The first thing we must realize is that in none of the areas in question is he all-powerful. This is a democracy, not a dictatorship and to get anything done the President has to be able to work with the other parts of government and they must be willing to work with him. How has he done so far? Let’s take a look.
Both in running for office and taking over the government Joe promised a lot, mainly because there was a lot that needed to be accomplished. His agenda included legislation that would deal with infrastructure and an economic boost for the poor and middle class that would help alleviate the crushing grip of the rich on the throats of the working class.
In addition, the mad scramble by the GOP to enact local voting legislation in as many as 46 states created an immediate need for Federal legislation that would neutralize this attempt to steal the voting rights of minorities and people of color.
When he took office, the first thing Biden did was to pass a COVID assistance bill that all but rescued the economy and saved hundreds of thousands who had lost their livelihood to the ravages of the disease. The next thing he did, with the help of a few right minded Republicans, was to pass the Infrastructure bill so in his first few months he passed two hugely important bills, already more than Trump did in his entire four years. It was only when he was ramping up to pass Build Back Better that Joe Manchin started to worry about his fossil fuel empire and stabbed Biden in the back. It’s also Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s opposition to dong anything to the filibuster that is killing Biden’s ability to move on the two voting bills.
The solution to all this is simple yet difficult. There’s an election on the horizon. It’s a mid-term, the kind that normally favors the party that lost the presidency. The Dems can sit back and take their regular beating in this one and that will kill all the good legislation that Biden is trying to pass or they can get up on their hind legs and fight like hell to add a couple of seats in the Senate and extend their lead in the House. That will give Biden the votes he needs to thumb his nose at Manchin and Sinema and pass all the stuff that Biden’s critics are moaning about.
Mitch McConnell called Biden “unpresidential” this week. McConnell is a guy who supported Donald Trump, the most un-presidential sociopath ever to enter the White House.
If you want to get into this discussion, the first thing you have to do is accept that presidents are not dictators. They don’t always get their own way. They have to convince congress to do what they want and congress has to vote on it. Lyndon Johnson may have been the best we ever had at this craft. Barak Obama may have been the worst. Considering his history as a member of congress a lot of people thought Biden would have been better at it, but then he’s not dealing with a normal congress and certainly not a normal Republican Party. He’s not, for that matter, dealing with a normal Democratic Party. The Democrats are usually a little off the wall but for the most part they don’t produce traitors to the party’s basic principals like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
The GOP part of the Senate, along with the help of Manchin and Sinema is blocking a restructuring of America’s economic landscape promised by Biden.
Once the election results were in, Biden and his planners counted votes and saw that they had the 51 votes they needed for a majority in the Senate. They already had the House so Biden felt confident that he could move swiftly ahead with the Infrastructure and Build Back Better bills that would supplement the COVID bill he was already passing. He never considered that Manchin would become a huge obstruction or that Sinema even existed.
Manchin says he can’t support the Build Back Better bill but he doesn’t really say why. His nonsense about the wasted money or the bloated costs and where the money will come from is just unadulterated bullshit. Every bill ever passed by congress has had those problems. The real reason is because certain aspects of the environmental sections of the bill will help to crush the fossil fuel industry in which Manchin is heavily invested. Fossil fuels have made Manchin a millionaire or maybe a billionaire and he wants to keep it that way. Manchin is a closet Republican who has come out of the closet, put on a dress made of petroleum based plastic and donned a wig woven of shredded coal. His motto is; ”Fuck you America. I’ve got mine and that’s all that matters.” He’s just another Republican trying to get as rich as he can and screwing those who elected him. There is only one thing to do with Manchin; make him insignificant and the only way to do that is to get a few more Democratic seats in the Senate in the next election. That would make Manchin and Sinema irrelevant and would allow Biden to pass the legislation he needs for Build Back Better and the two voting bills. It would also open things up for a serious attack on the Electoral College and the Supreme Court.
Kyrsten Sinema, just to prove she is always the dumbest one in the room, felt obligated to talk about Joe Biden not making a hard enough effort to speak to Republicans. Who the hell is he supposed to speak to besides Cheney and Kinzinger? All the other Republicans won’t talk to him. They are too afraid that Trump will hear about it and primary them.
For at least the last two decades the nation has been desperate for congress to pass some kind of legislation that would help the people keep their heads above water. In all that time the GOP has done nothing but lower rich people’s taxes. The expectations for Biden were sky high. Too high. Biden has already accomplished more than Trump or Bush in their entire terms, and he’s just finished year one. But if he’s going to accomplish more, he needs congress and that means that people have to get out and vote in a mid-term. The people voted for Biden last time, but they didn’t put enough of the people he needed into the House and the Senate to push through all his legislation.
Biden goes out every day, trying to solve the problems that Trump instigated by going out every day and making worse decisions that anyone would think humanly possible. It’s the Democrats job to point this out to a people who are woefully uninformed. It’s also their job to publicize that this is the best economy for workers in memory but Biden gets no credit for it.
It’s very simple. Do the Democrats want to win elections and run the country or do they want to continue giving the GOP power just long enough to screw things up? Look at the damage that Trump did in just four years. Biden can fix that, but he needs help. The facts are there regardless of polls. Biden wants the right things for the people. Given the proper support he will get them.