That ole’ New Deal
President Biden’s second prime time address to the nation and another “road trip.”
April 27, day before Biden’s address to Congress
The Republican Party and their “mouthiness,” the Fox News/NY Post crowd, are embarrassing themselves. We heard Tucker Carlson, cheerleader of autocrats, defining child abuse as “wearing a mask,” and Larry Kudlow “fakenomics” guru, equating the Green New Deal with replacing hamburgers with brussel sprouts. Their blatant attempt to seize the 24 hour news cycle is afoot: in less than 24 hours the President is scheduled to deliver an address “before Congress,” “live” to that portion culled by social distancing mandates.
This will be Biden’s second prime time address. If Obama’s political strategy was well trod incrementalism, Biden’s political strategy borrows on eight years’ learning the limits of incrementalism.
If Obama’s political strategy smelled of Wall Street, Biden’s political strategy smells of Warm Springs.
Pre-speech takeaway
America is obsessed with “getting things done,” code words for changing things while not challenging the status quo.
April 27–28, mainstream media presents pre-address Biden popularity polls, Biden-100-days-in-office scorecards, Biden’s campaign promises-versus-accomplishment rehashes. Biden’s tenure framed as keeping campaign “momentum” going.
“Long overdue,” is the new DC political temperature describing cliche, given that America’s body politic is well-beyond the temperature taking stage. The country is still in the ER, out-of-school kids still at home, Michigan middle-agers still swarming its hospitals.
Our collective impatience with political inertia overwhelms, so we fix our gaze on “momentum.” On thinking we have or will “get things done.” All the while obscuring what is yet to be done and hiding from those who have done and suffered from inertia: the front-line nurse, the burned-out ambulance driver, the Zoom-distracted school teacher…the list seems endless, stretching to an unforgiving horizon.
America is tired.
April 28, day of Biden’s address to Congress
Frustrated by political inertia, we are told by the Republican DC power elite how to behave:
Corporate America, according to some on the repressive right, are not behaving well. Some state voters, according to gerrymandered elected state reps are not behaving well. Some witnesses and jurors according to partisan pollsters are not behaving well.
Meanwhile, across the aisle and tasting the current “momentum,” Sen. Bernie Sanders is smiling of late. AOC sounds conciliatory. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is being cast as Harry Hopkins to Biden’s reincarnated FDR. With the current “momentum” and an executive order mandate, President Biden is prone to “cut some cloth.”
For now, short of embarrassing themselves, Republican conspirators are playing political catch-up. Biden’s prime-time exhortation ended with a ‘we can do this together…and will’ refrain.
Sen. Tim Scott, Republican Party response designee, ended an unconvincing rebuttal with a Christian prayer.
Address Takeaways:
1.Biden is not shy about playing the role of ‘right messenger’ for our times. The message presumably to be shared. And the accomplishments too. This is the political end-run cynical Republican conspirators don’t know how to block.
2.”Big Government programs” have come riding back into town. If one counts the years back to LBJ -52- a “long time coming.”
3.Biden’s political strategy is and has been the “reach” to America’s “public-hood,” the tail part of the “momentum” Democrats are currently relishing. Recall South Carolina’s Presidential Primary and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s “we’re at a crossroads” bite.
“We do our part, all of us.”
-Pres. Joe Biden
April 29, day after Biden’s address to Congress.
“Political momentum,” in our time, starts with a crisis — chaos distributed unequally. Despite the grimness we get an opportunity to see things a bit differently. Social historians attribute the equalizing factor of the Mississippi River floods of the 1930’s and 1940’s as a harbinger of the end of Jim Crow. The 2020 pandemic exposed 45’s criminality more than the Ukraine phone call and the ensuing sham impeachment.
The pandemic challenged Democrats not to distract the nation out of another political debacle. America needed more than to be “bought off.” America needed to get out and vote. “Blue collar,” Uncle Joe was tapped to lead the country. And so far he has not disappointed: “opportunity” is the White House zeitgeist.
“Political momentum,” however, is not a script for political redemption.
“When I think about climate change, I think jobs… jobs, jobs, jobs,” spoke the President on Wednesday.
And yet…
This jobs “thing” alone is not going to get Greenland to stop melting away. This jobs “thing” alone is not going to harness a “new green economy,” and seamlessly lift up the climate-marginalized.
Consider “When I think about climate change, I think universal guaranteed income…income, income, income.”
Political “momentum” is not a promise delivered. The Biden-Obama power nexus was built on incrementalism— channeling low expectations. Now Biden is stepping out, talking “big government.” “Incrementalism” is yesterday’s political relic.
America is taking note:
“I gave something. I gave my vote. Now I ask where’s the return gift?”
-Biden voter interviewed on MSNBC, Thursday, April 29, Milwaukee
