Joe, Buddy, What're You Doing?
This isn't the "normalcy" we had in mind
A Disaster of his own Making
There’s no point in sugar-coating it — things right now are pretty terrible for Joe Biden. A slide in his approval ratings that started in mid-August (with the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle) has continued in recent months to the point that he now has some, well, rather Trumpian poll numbers. (It’s a little bit of an unfair comparison, because Donald Trump had a cultist devotion from his base that kept his approval artificially high. Joe Biden, I think to his credit, does not engender such devotion from his base.)
Of course, the two major issues weighing down his approval numbers are things that Biden has rather limited control over: The inflation/supply chain crisis, and the ongoing COVID pandemic (and the latter exacerbates the former).
Personally I cut him a lot of slack on both of these issues. One of my pet peeves in American politics is the tendency to blame or credit the president for the state of the national economy when the president actually has little effect. The American economy — which is part of the global economy — is an incomprehensibly complex system with an incalculable number of variables and inputs. The idea that one man has the power to single-handedly improve or worsen it is silly. But Americans nevertheless tend to judge a president based on the state of the economy.
Then there’s the ongoing COVID pandemic. People are — justifiably, by my lights — simply sick of it. But when Joe Biden took office, we had reason to believe that we were on the backend of the pandemic. Vaccines were being distributed. They were free and easy to obtain. What we did not factor in was the idea that some third of the country would refuse to partake in the vaccination program out of political and cultural spite; thereby allowing the disease to fester and mutate longer than anticipated which provided a basis for the perpetuation of (increasingly unpopular) mitigation measures. Simply put, it’s not Joe Biden’s fault that a third of the country shirks good citizenship and makes life harder for the rest of us. But again, Americans tend to use the general state of things to grade the president whether he’s responsible for them or not.
That isn’t to say, however, that President Biden is merely a bystander to his own misfortune. After a promising start to his term, he has inexplicably biffed some pretty elementary political decisions. Aside from the aforementioned Afghanistan withdrawal disaster — which anyone who’d read a newspaper in the last two decades could’ve predicted — he has made some rather egregious blunders in domestic policy.
After an impressive win with his infrastructure plan — which included garnering an almost unfathomable 17 Senate Republican votes! — when he could’ve simply declared victory and moved on to other pressing issues, he instead decided to spend several months attempting to placate his left flank by pursuing a much less popular companion bill — the so-called Build Back Better plan — that has since run aground due to opposition within his own party.
Having recognized, at least for the moment, the need to change the subject, President Biden has now turned his attention to what should be a fairly popular issue — voting rights. But, as with infrastructure, Biden seems intent on appealing to his base at the expense of, y’know, actual accomplishments. And I simply don’t understand it.
Biden has always had a habit of using overheated rhetoric when it comes to racial issues. During the 2012 campaign, you might remember, he accused the Romney campaign of wanting to put black Americans “back in chains.” (It seems almost quaint now, especially given how Mitt Romney has become Democrats’ favorite Republican due to his repeated criticisms of Donald Trump.) So it shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose, that Biden has referred to new voting legislation in places like Georgia, that seeks to reverse many of the policies put in place during the 2020 election, as “Jim Crow 2.0.”
During a speech in Georgia earlier this week, Biden took it even further, saying:
“Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”
Now, I’m on board with the idea that many Republicans are mistaken in their efforts to implement tighter voting restrictions; not least of which because there’s little data to support the contention that increased voter turnout is bad for Republicans. Yet somehow both Democrats and Republicans have convinced themselves that increased voter turnout benefits Democrats; so now Democrats support any measure that increases turnout while Republicans generally oppose them.
Reasonable people can disagree on the merits of things like decreasing the number of ballot dropboxes, or shortening (but not eliminating!) the window for early voting. But calling such measures “21st Century Jim Crow” and anyone who doesn’t support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as being on the side of George Wallace, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis is simply, well, horse shit (if you’ll pardon the expression).
Even worse, Biden has stated his support for abolishing the filibuster in order to pass such a bill:
Joe, buddy, what are you doing?
The dirty little secret that Biden is ignoring here is that there aren’t even 50 votes for the John Lewis Act among Democrats. As such, there definitely aren’t 50 votes to abolish the filibuster to even get to such a bill. Biden is no doubt aware of this, so again I ask — what are you doing?
I understand the temptation to change the subject after the failure of Build Back Better; but what good does it do to pursue something even less popular among Democrats and more alienating among non-Democrats? The incompetence is stunning. But let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that abolishing the filibuster did lead to the passage of the John Lewis Act. Given that Republicans are in prime position to have unified government after 2024, they could simply reverse much of it with a simple majority vote. Moreover, they could even implement measures such as national voter ID, restrictions to mail-in and early voting, etc., all with a simple majority.
So not only is Biden wrong on the merits, it’s bad politics in both the short and long term. Moreover, it’s needlessly divisive at a time when Biden needs all the support he can get. The entire purpose of Joe Biden’s campaign was a return to normalcy, competent politics, and turning down the temperature in the political culture. Biden is currently doing none of these things. And I say that as someone who wants him to succeed! The Republican party has been taken over by insane people who have shown they have no interest in governing; so the best defense against that would be competent Democrats showing they can govern responsibly. With massive midterm election losses staring him in the face, Biden is stumbling from one unpopular base play to another, while accusing his opponents — plus some of his own voters! — of siding with racists and traitors. It does not exude responsible or competent governing. He was supposed to be better at politics than this, and it’s disappointing that we’ve reached this point.
On Top of Everything Else
Given the various responsibilities of having both a two-year-old and a month-old baby, plus a real job, and other assorted obligations, I haven’t been following international news as closely as I normally do. But in case you have also been living under a rock, things in Ukraine are getting awfully squirrely.
Russia has been amassing soldiers along its border with Ukraine for the last several weeks and months; believed to be up to 100,000 at this point. Then news came this morning that Russia could be planning false flag operations in order to justify invading Ukraine.
It’s difficult to summarize decades (possibly centuries) of geopolitical issues in a single newsletter; but just for the sake of brevity I’ll say that since the fall of the Soviet Union, the West has sought to lessen Russian influence in Europe, while Russia has sought to keep/expand its European influence. For the West, this normally takes the form of former Soviet Republics (and non-Soviet but former Warsaw pact members) joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And for Russia, that means preventing countries in its region from joining NATO. Well, Russia would really really rather that Ukraine did not join NATO; but Ukraine has started the (long and thorough) process for membership.
The main concern is that Russia is willing to go to war to prevent Ukraine from further strengthening its ties to the West, and that the West simply lacks the appetite to fight (or even prevent) such a war. Failing to protect even not-yet-official allies from outside aggression, however, would threaten to undermine not only the post-WWII order in Europe; but also alliances under threat of annexation in other parts of the world — i.e., Taiwan.
Two years of a global pandemic have understandably led to a focus on domestic politics both in America and abroad. But there are nevertheless still bad actors on the international stage willing to crap all over everything in order to achieve their autocratic expansionist desires. It’s important that we take such threats seriously. I worry that we lack the requisite will.
Well on that note, who’s up for some trivia, huh?!
Occasional Trivia
Answer from last time:
Category: World Capital Rivers
Clue: The Chaobai and Yongding flow through this world capital.
Beijing
Today’s clue:
Category: 80s Music
Clue: Taco had a Top 5 hit covering this Irving Berlin song that asks “Why don’t you go where fashion sits?”
Dispatches from the Homefront
My older daughter has taken to filling me in on all the goings-on that happened when I wasn’t around, mostly regarding her sister’s bodily functions. I got home last night and was immediately told “Daddy! [My sister] had a big, big poop. And it came out of her diaper. Mommy had to clean her up!” And then later, “Daddy! [Sister] had a big, big spit up on mommy’s shirt. She had to use the burp cloth!” It’s like having a tiny court stenographer in the house.