How the GOP Engineers Crises to Blame on Biden

[Nevilledog]

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Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky
@lmchervinsky
The President of the US is probably the most powerful person in the world. But there are things that even they can't control, like the tenor of our public discourse or how other politicians behave. We must stop expecting the president to fix everything. My latest for @monthly👇

Washington Monthly
@monthly
How the GOP Engineers Crises to Blame on Biden https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/12/15/how-the-gop-engineers-crises-to-blame-on-biden/#.Ybn1lgOEQ2E.twitter…
7:06 AM · Dec 15, 2021

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/12/15/how-the-gop-engineers-crises-to-blame-on-biden/#.Ybn1lgOEQ2E.twitter


On a recent episode of the Hacks on Tap podcast, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report discussed President Joe Biden’s falling poll numbers. She pointed to predictable factors like the emergence of the Delta variant of the coronavirus—slowing down our return from the pandemic—and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But she also argued that many Americans were disappointed by the continuing vitriol of the political discourse and the intense partisan divide. They blamed Biden, she said, for not restoring a sense of “normalcy” to politics.

The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the world, but he cannot single-handedly fix our politics.

To a certain extent, Biden perpetuated the idea that he could return calm to our politics: “American people are looking for a candidate who will promise them peace, not just victory.” He campaigned on the idea that Donald Trump’s presidency was “an aberrant moment in time,” arguing, “We have to remember who we are.” He promised that he would work with politicians on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation—and he has fulfilled that promise. Indeed, he has passed more bipartisan legislation than many of his supporters anticipated, such as the American Rescue Act and the infrastructure package.

Of course, politicians always make bold promises during campaigns. But perhaps Biden oversold his ability to restore decency to our nation’s politics. When he launched his presidential bid in May 2019, he acknowledged that the American people were “sick of the division. They’re sick of the fighting. They’re sick of the childish behavior.” In other words, his presidency would be the solution.

But it’s one thing to work with the few moderate Republicans who are left, and it is another to change the behavior of the party’s rank and file—especially when the GOP, as a whole, is still led by a would-be autocrat, and their whole modus operandi is to manufacture problems they can blame on Biden.

*snip*

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Like Rs wreck economy to pay off richies then Ds have to fix it. Interesting thesis. . . nt

[gratuitous]

2. Yeah, Biden's all at fault for making bold promises

Not like the remarkable restraint shown by the former guy who was constantly bragging about how he and only he could fix whatever the problem du jour was. That he had fixed something (he hadn't fixed anything), and that nobody could believe he'd fixed it (he hadn't fixed it). Or that solving some problem was so easy (it wasn't easy, and he didn't solve it).

But then, the former guy was a regular fire hose of unkept promises, grandiose pronouncements, and just plain lying, so much so that the media never bothered to do anything except pass everything along without comment or criticism. When some reporter had the audacity to follow up, the former guy or one of his mouthpieces would hand wave it away, and repeat the lie, saying that it would all be done in two weeks. Two weeks. The world was in a curious temporal anomaly where everything was going to be put to right in two weeks.