A frustrated Biden enters his second year ready to fight

Joe Biden 1.0 portrayed a quiet grandfather, a low-key veteran coming out of retirement in 2020 to heal a nation deeply divided by Donald Trump. A year later, the world knows Biden 2.0: a frustrated and upset fighter.

“I’m tired of being quiet”, he expressed last week in a fiery speech.

The President of the United States was referring specifically to his many “quiet conversations” but unsuccessful behind the scenes with senators, in a failed effort to pass their flagship voting rights legislation.

Biden could thus sum up the exasperation of his first 12 months in the Oval Office.

And if 2021 saw a Biden moderated, it looks like 2022 will present a louder, more belligerent version: a president running out of time, patience and allies to salvage what remains of his ambitions.

Biden he took office on January 20, 2021, at age 78, becoming the oldest man to become president of the United States, with incredible challenges ahead.

COVID-19 was out of control, Trump supporters had tried to nullify the presidential election just two weeks earlier, the economy was in a coma, and America’s allies around the world were reeling from Trump’s shock.

The answer of Biden to all of that, not to mention explosive tensions over racism after a string of black Americans were killed during botched arrests, was to promise competition, old-fashioned decency, and unity.

“All my soul is in this. Bring America together, bring our people together”, he promised Biden in his inaugural address. And he even seemed to have a chance to pull it off.

Democrats narrowly controlled both houses of Congress, Trump had been banned from Twitter, and COVID-19 vaccines were ready.

“Expectations were high that Biden, given his experience and his knowledge of Washington, would be able to get the trains running again on time.”, explains Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

“It was a return to normal”.

‘A path to arrogance’

Now fast forward to the start of Biden’s sophomore year.

Beset by the delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus, with a country increasingly divided and the likely loss of Congress to Republicans in the November midterm elections, Biden’s luck at 79 seems to have run out.

With a majority of just one in the Senate and barely more than that in the House of Representatives, his huge social spending plan, the “Build Back Better” (Build Back Better), is a corpse.

The same goes for the voting rights package that he says is necessary to save American democracy from Trump supporters.

A centrist at heart, Biden has failed to connect with the right or satisfy the left of his own party. As you are now discovering, downtown today is hard to find.

Average approval polls on fivethirtyeight.com are at a low 42%, down from 53%. A recent Quinnipiac poll, though an outlier, registered a disturbing 33% approval rating. Abroad, the picture is similar.

While global allies like that the United States is not ruled by Trump, the country’s humiliating military exit from Afghanistan torpedoed the Biden administration’s aura of professionalism.

Russia seems unconcerned as it masses troops on the Ukraine border. All of this is a bitter awakening from the days when the White House seethed with idealism and spoke of Biden as if he were Franklin Roosevelt, who led the United States through the Great Depression in the 1930s.

“Their optimism, combined with the public expectation that this would all work itself out, led them down a path of arrogance.Brown said.

‘Less yelling’ or ‘fighting’?

There is still a scenario in which Biden emerges victorious: the pandemic dies down, the economy stabilizes, inflation recedes, and with the ensuing feel-good factor, Biden gets his party to reverse those legislative losses just in time for the midterm elections. finished.

The attendees of Biden they also note that they got Congress to pass the $1.9 trillion US Bailout Plan, boosting an economy devastated by COVID-19 and averting more widespread misery.

Surprisingly, the Democrats also garnered strong Republican support by passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. All this with a minimal majority in Congress.

The most likely outcome for 2022, however, is continued Democratic infighting, followed by an eventual Republican victory in one or both houses of Congress in November.

At that moment, Biden it can await aggressive House investigations, and even possibly impeachment, as Republicans seek to further undermine their opponents’ ability to govern.

In addition, it would be increasingly likely that Trump would present his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections, which does not prevent the former president from continuing his intention to subvert the 2020 elections.

All together is too much for Biden’s promise to restore “the soul of America”.

David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, advises the president to return to the formula of “less yelling and more common sense”.

But Biden, between a rock and a hard place, warns that in 2022 he will go down a very different path.

“I didn’t look for this fighthe said in another dramatic speech this month, this time to mark the anniversary of the January 6 takeover of the Capitol by Trump supporters. “But I won’t be scared either”, warned Biden.