Looking Backwards

I think that historian Michael Kazin’s piece in the New York Times is great comic writing but does provide some useful historical perspective mixed in with its apologetics:

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his fellow Democrats secured crushing majorities that enabled them to enact a flurry of landmark legislation: the Voting Rights Act, the bill establishing Medicare and Medicaid, an overhaul of immigration law. It is a feat Mr. Biden and progressive Democrats in Congress today would dearly like to emulate.

But Johnson’s decision early in 1965 to send thousands of troops to combat the Vietcong soon halted the momentum of his Great Society agenda and put Democrats on the defensive. A year later, as the war dragged on and protests mounted, Johnson’s approval rating dipped below 50 percent. In the midterm contests of 1966, the Republican Party picked up 47 seats in the House, and Democratic governors in eight states were replaced by Republicans — one of them a former actor in California named Ronald Reagan. By 1968, Republicans had taken back the White House, and Democrats never achieved a progressive policy agenda as far-reaching again.

Joe Biden bears far less responsibility for the defeat in Afghanistan than Lyndon Johnson did for the debacle in Indochina. As Mr. Biden mentioned in his address to the nation on Monday, as vice president, he opposed the troop surge ordered by Barack Obama in 2009. He can also claim that he was merely carrying out an agreement Donald Trump signed last year.

Furthermore, unlike the Vietnam War, which provoked a long, scorching debate that divided the country far more bitterly and profoundly than the more limited, if longer, battle with the Taliban ever did, this conflict could soon be forgotten. As the public’s attention shifts away from Afghanistan, Mr. Biden’s decision may seem less like a failure and more like a sober, even necessary end to a policy that was doomed from the start.

Yet the president and his fellow Democrats face a political environment so daunting that even the slightest disruption could derail their domestic agenda. Even before the Afghan crisis, they needed the vote of every senator from their party to enact their budget blueprint, and Mr. Biden has never had the sky-high approval ratings that allowed Johnson to rule Congress with an iron fist. This week, for the first time, his rating dipped into the 40s. Whatever they manage to accomplish in Congress, Democrats could easily lose their narrow control of both houses in the next midterm elections, especially if Republicans effectively inflame fears about Afghan refugees being resettled in this country.

What’s an example of the comedy? Contrary to what you might glean from Dr. Kazin’s piece, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 all had bipartisan support and, indeed, a higher percentage of the Republican caucus 89^th House of Representatives voted for them than of the Democratic caucus. And although President Johnson is the Forgotten Man of Democratic politics, largely due to the Vietnam War, he had much tighter rein on the Congress than President Biden does today. Joe Biden’s challenge is keeping his own caucus with its razor-thin House majority in line.

Consequently, while I’m in agreement with Dr. Kazin that President Biden’s legacy is at risk and, possibly, his very presidency, I don’t believe that he and I are in agreement on the source and nature of the risk. IMO the risk is that a weakened Biden, none too strong to start out with, will be unable to corral the House progressive caucus which will yield to its own worst impulses, refusing to accept the half a loaf represented by the $1.5 trillion “infrastructure bill” which has at least tepid bipartisan support, preferring none on Chernyshevskian grounds (*the worse, the better”).