I listened to President Biden’s inauguration address this morning. I liked it. I didn’t agree with all of it but I don’t think today is a day for fisking.
We’ll need to wait to see what will come of his pleas for unity and truth.
Tetelestai.
I listened to President Biden’s inauguration address this morning. I liked it. I didn’t agree with all of it but I don’t think today is a day for fisking.
We’ll need to wait to see what will come of his pleas for unity and truth.
Tetelestai.
I just caught parts between work and taking my son to school – but I generally agree. In terms of tone, I thought it was very good – policy is more of a mixed bag.
The problem is that this isn’t a movie or an episode of the West Wing or any other stupid drama – speeches don’t change the fundamentals. I’m not fishing Biden for making the effort, but the realist in me understands this will be a short-lived emotional catharsis.
Lets wish for success.
Andy, there are many, many questions including:
Among Republican presidents Trump differed in many, many ways especially in the relation between staff and the president. I don’t think I can remember the last Republican president previous to Trump who didn’t use the “staff command” approach that Ike did.
CuriousOnlooker:
Yes.
From his appointments, Biden’s administration will be decidedly left wing and aggressively interventionist.
“Will Biden be a centrist with respect to the country or with respect to the Democratic Party?”
His appointments so far suggest neither.
“Will he be willing to buck the members of his own party?”
Only the craziest among them.
“How will he respond to the stress?”
He has a history of risk aversion. He has a short temper. He’s not particularly bright. That’s quite a mix. I foresee a lot of cans kicked down the road.
“Can you draw reasonable inferences from his first appointees and actions about any of the above?”
Yes. See above.
“How much authority will his appointees have?”
Much. He will delegate. See above.
“Does he actually plan to be a one-term president?”
No. No one does.
“Will the “go to†strategy for things that go wrong be to blame Trump or will “the buck stop hereâ€?”
Seriously?
I think it’s true that no one expects to be a one-term president but we’ve never elected a 78 year old to the presidency before, either. There’s been a lot of talk from his presumed supporters that he’ll be a one-term president. I presume they’re looking at the actuarial tables. My observation is that the presidency ages one.
“Will the “go to†strategy for things that go wrong be to blame Trump or will “the buck stop hereâ€?”
They all blame the prior president. I expect Biden to do it for a year or two like most of his predecessors. Lets not forget that over 3 years into his presidency Trump blamed Obama for not being ready for Covid. I dont expect anything that bad.
““Will he be willing to buck the members of his own party?—
Which ones? Warren didnt get a prominent position like many thought. I dont expect the far left wing to get much more than some token legislation. I expect Mitch to stop everything anyway.
Steve
That’s claimed a lot but somewhat harder to prove. For example, I have found no record of Reagan blaming Carter for the economy in any but the most oblique terms, e.g. “The economy we inherited…”. I can find examples of Clinton blaming Bush, Obama blaming Bush the Younger, and Trump blaming Obama. That’s not exactly “all”.
I’ve also found a NYT editorial saying that blaming your predecessor only works for a couple of months. My question is more whether Trump will be blamed for the duration of Biden’s first term (or even into his second if he has one).
I think it will come down to the use of executive authority and the administrative state. Congress is too willing to default on its responsibilities even when things are not as closely divided as they currently are.
I think Biden is an institutionalist which is a bias that neither Trump nor Obama had, so he’ll be reluctant to go full-monty into expanding Executive power in new and novel ways – at least at first.
I also think Biden will soon get assaulted from all sides. The current political class is quickly trending away from moderation and the old style of politics based on personal relationships that Biden is accustomed to. Contrast that with what dominates the media and therefore the political narrative in Washington today: People skilled at using social media and targeted niche political programming to build a following, particularly Twitter. AOC isn’t a national figure because she’s got unorthodox views, she’s a national figure because she knows how to communicated and build a following in the 21st century. Biden will have to rely on his staff for that.
So I’m not sure his time in the Senate has prepared him to be the focal point in a largely online struggle between the progressive left of the Democratic Party and what passes for the Republican party these days, particularly the reactionary right, especially since the battle won’t be fought in the halls of the Senate, where deals can be made, but on Twitter and Facebook.
I agree with your outline but I don’t think that those are the battle lines. I think the lines will be the progressive left, institutionalists, the “corruptocrats” of both parties, the Trump Republicans, and anarcho-capitalist/libertarian Republicans. There may be a few anarchists, communists, neo-Nazis, and others thrown in there for bad measure.
From Reagan’s 1983 SOU speech, quite a while into his presidency.
the following quote from Reagan’s 1983 State of the Union:
“The problems we inherited were far worse than most inside and out of government had expected; the recession was deeper than most inside and out of government had predicted. Curing those problems has taken more time and a higher toll than any of us wanted.”
He said pretty much the same thing in the prior SOU speech. It wouldn’t surprise me if he said it less than Clinton, who said it less then Bush, etc. Not like our politics is getting better, but I still think blaming the prior admin has been pretty normal.
Steve
You’ve just demonstrated my point. The word “Carter” does not appear in the passage you quoted. Neither do the words “my predecessor”, “the previous administration”, or the like. What he said was that it was systemic. He did not blame it on his predecessor other than in a very oblique way.