Where We are in Political Time - Biden's Reconstructive Strategy

JB

In yesterday's post on where we are in political time, I explained that we are currently in an interregnum following the collapse of the Reagan regime with two different candidates for reconstructive leadership, one by Trump, and the other by Biden and the Democrats. In the last post, I discussed the Trumpist alternative. In this post, I'll discuss Biden's approach to the interregnum.

Joe Biden's strategy for forming a new regime has been the opposite of Trump's Where Trump presents himself as a revolutionary, Biden presents himself as the apostle of sane, stable government, as the protector of democracy, and as the restorer of a sense of political unity and common purpose. Is it possible to become a reconstructive leader when what you promise is a return to normalcy and you are not at the head of a rising social movement? That does not exactly fit past examples of reconstructive leadership, but only time will tell. Reconstructive leaders from Jefferson onward have tried to present themselves as unifiers, even if their actual policies were revolutionary and partisan.

Biden's strategy has been fourfold. First, he has tried to show that the Democrats are a reliable party of government and that the Republicans are driven by their most extreme elements and therefore not reliable. 

Second, and simultaneously, he has tried to split Republicans and isolate the most extreme parts of the Republican coalition, denoting them as MAGA Republicans. If he can get enough Republicans to turn against Trump and Trumpism, then he can move the country toward a politics with two non-authoritarian parties.

Third, he has offered a message of unity that excludes extremists and defines American democracy against them.

Fourth, he has tried to push for bipartisan legislation that helps reinforce the message that he is a unifier. Despite the fact that he has repeatedly pushed for liberal domestic priorities, he has also tried over and over to send the message that both he and his party are conventional, reliable, even a bit boring, and represent a broad mass of Americans. Republicans may scoff at the attempt, but the strategy is unmistakable.

Whether it is a successful strategy for political reconstruction is another matter. By emphasizing the return to normal politics, Biden deliberately downplays his claim to be a reconstructive and revolutionary leader.

This strategy helps explain many puzzling features of Biden's behavior. During the latest debt ceiling crisis, for example, he backed away from his initial pledge not to negotiate over the debt ceiling and struck a deal with House Speaker McCarthy that preserved most of his Administration's achievements and made modest budgetary concessions. The resulting legislation gained 300 votes in the House from both parties and 63 votes in the Senate. It simultaneously served his goal of showing that he and his party could forge bipartisan majorities for important legislation and his goal of isolating the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. If the result created problems for the Republican caucus in the House, as appears to be the case, that is simply an additional advantage.

What Biden did not do is to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment, mint a platinum coin, or use any device that would relieve Republicans of the obligation to remain at the bargaining table and strike a bipartisan deal. His strategy has repeatedly been to let the other party take extreme and aggressive positions with the idea that he will then negotiate with the non-crazy elements of the opposition. In fact, the more extreme the positions the other party takes, the easier it is for him to push his fourfold strategy.

Why hasn't Biden worked harder to reshape the electoral system to benefit his party and head off Republican attempts to achieve minoritarian government? Why hasn't he pressed to end the filibuster, admit two new states (to counteract Republican advantages in the Senate) and pass new voting rights legislation? The answer is that his political position has been relatively weak and he is playing the best game he can with a mediocre hand.

For the first two years Biden was working with very narrow majorities in both Houses with little room for defections. Several members of his Senate caucus were opposed to reforming the filibuster and balked at his most ambitious proposals. Nor could he be assured that an unfriendly Supreme Court would uphold new voting rights legislation. Court reform proposals would not only require getting rid of the filibuster-- impossible under the circumstances-- they would also instantly destroy his strategy of presenting himself as a unifier and isolating Republican extremism.

Therefore Biden's strategy has been incremental: maximizing his and his party's position with the hopes of gaining larger majorities later on that would allow Democrats to consolidate their political dominance into the next generation. The Democrats' strategy is to portray themselves as the party of responsible government in the hope that Americans will prefer them to Trumpist extremism and corruption. In addition, Democrats' goal is to offer a political formula that will match the country's rapidly changing demographics far better than what the Republicans have to offer.

It is a calculated gamble that might not pay off. Biden is hostage to the state of the economy and other contingencies that could undermine his party's hold on Congress and the presidency. Party control of the House and Senate has repeatedly swung back and forth in the past two decades. Until one party or the other is assured of regular control of both houses (as occurred during the middle of the twentieth century) it makes no sense to get rid of the filibuster entirely. To be sure, the filibuster will eventually be retired or greatly cut back. But Biden's position of relative political weakness meant that it would not happen during the past several years.

Biden's strategy of reconstructive politics depends on a lot of things going well for Democrats in the future. If they don't, then the post-Reagan interregnum of bitterly divided parties of roughly equal strength will continue, or else a Trumpist party, and not the Democrats, will emerge as the winner of the struggle.

In my next post, I'll discuss the problem of constitutional rot, which will continue to plague American democracy regardless of which regime forms.