Barring some concrete evidence of wrongdoing in the counting of votes sufficient for the courts to step in, Joe Biden will be elected President of the United States by the Electoral College when it convenes next month. Last night he gave a victory speech. If you didn’t listen you can read the whole text here. It wasn’t dazzling oratory but it was an adequate speech. It wasn’t Lincoln, FDR, or John Kennedy. It wasn’t even Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson, neither known for oratory. But it was an okay speech, a hopeful speech. To my ear this was the most significant passage:
I’ve lost a couple of times myself, but now let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans. They are Americans.
You will note that paragraph has two parallel sections. The first, “now let’s give each other a chance”, was a plea to Mr. Biden’s political opponents. The second, “we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies”, was a plea to his supporters. If you listen to the actual speech you will note that it was possibly the least applauded, least cheered passage in the entire speech. I hope I’m wrong but I suspect both passages will be completely ignored by the Congress. It promises to be a difficult four years.
I am guessing that if the Dems do take the Senate they will be just as gracious and fair towards Republicans as McConnell was to Democrats. Not sure how much Biden can mitigate that.
Steve
Correct; Democrats, and Biden will push as hard as they can.
They can cite the George W Bush example.
Republicans had actually lost seats in the Senate and House in 2000 election; only controlled an equally divided Senate with the VP’s vote; and had an 8 seat majority in the House. Bush had won a contested election that took days to resolve.
Republicans still crammed the first Bush tax cut in before Sept 11. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto accords, etc etc.
Note; Republicans gained seats in the Senate and the House in 2002 and 2004 despite or because of all this.
They got sympathy, rally around the flag votes after 9/11.
Steve
Similarly; no one has an idea what events will happen in the next 2 years.
There are lots of rally the round events that could happen in the next 2 years….
The speech was like all political pabulum, and all his speeches. “I have a plan; I’m for good things and against bad things.” Great.
The real questions will be answered when he starts choosing people. Will it be the Obama-ites? Or was there a grand bargain with the Bernie wing when they all withdrew. Bernie weighed in just this AM. He wants a big say. The Dems are really split.
I don’t think the fraud thing will work in the GA runoffs. Expect Republican Senate control. It will be a Dem foodfight and Washington gridlock.
My money would be on Biden’s cabinet as trying to unify the Democratic Party. What’s important is who gets the Big 4 jobs (State, Treasury, Defense, Justice).
Just to put my marker down, I think that as a general rule presidents should be able to appoint their cabinets and have them confirmed by the Senate without delay. As long as Biden doesn’t appoint somebody really nutty (which I do not expect him to do), the Senate should confirm the appointments promptly and, honestly, I expect that they will.
On the talking heads programs this morning the progressives were very clearly unchastened. Rahm Emanuel was obviously auditioning for a job with the new Biden Administration. He characterized Biden as a progressive but you can’t have it both ways. Is he a moderate or a progressive? I think he is not a moderate but, as I have said before, a centrist in the sense of always heading towards the center of the Democratic Party. Under present conditions I think that will be extremely hard to maintain while retaining the support of most Americans.
One of the comments made is that progressives got Biden elected. I guess that’s true in a sense but I think it’s equally true that independents and anti-Trump Republicans got Biden elected. He will not hold their support if he makes a mad dash to the left. I also think that, unlike Obama, Biden has (or at least had) the personal political skills to forge agreements that would pass a Republican Senate. That won’t fly if Job #1 is uniting the Democratic Party.
Reading Biden’s speech on Covid .Expanding daycare, Obamacare,
Lowering Medicare age, all sounds good.
Also sounds like not letting a good crisis go to waste.