The Atlantic
Biden’s plan: Go big or go home.
April 29, 2021
Updated on April 29, 2021 at 11:13 a.m. ET
The good news for Democrats who watched Joe Biden unveil a historically ambitious agenda last night is that newly elected presidents have almost always passed some version of their core economic plan particularly when their party controls both congressional chambers, as Biden’s does now.
The bad news: Voters have almost always punished the president’s party in the next midterm election anyway. The last two times Democrats had unified control with Bill Clinton in 1993–94 and Barack Obama in 2009–10 they endured especially resounding repudiations in the midterms, which cost Clinton his majority in both chambers and Obama the loss of the House.
Melina Mara/Pool via Getty Images
Even before President Joe Biden was elected, three letters came to stand in for the scope of his presidential ambition: FDR.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the start of the Great Depression, Biden took office at a time of crisis, and has tried to use that crisis to reshape government. Biden’s team invited the comparisons to FDR, too just about any sitting Democratic president wants his agenda compared to one of the most successful political projects in US history.
But FDR didn’t merely seek to pull America out of the Great Depression. With the rise of fascism around the world and crumbling trust in government at home, a rising chorus of elite voices questioned if American democracy was even working.
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Editor’s Note:
The following article was originally written before the April 22 Earth Day summit of global leaders, at which new emissions targets were set, including a commitment from the Biden administration for a 50% reduction of the U.S. 2005 level by 2030. Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress are making climate policy central to governing after four years of the disastrous a
Can Democrats Avoid a Wipeout in 2022? Ronald Brownstein
Updated on April 29, 2021 at 11:13 a.m. ET
The good news for Democrats who watched Joe Biden unveil a historically ambitious agenda last night is that newly elected presidents have almost always passed some version of their core economic plan particularly when their party controls both congressional chambers, as Biden’s does now.
The bad news: Voters have almost always punished the president’s party in the next midterm election anyway. The last two times Democrats had unified control with Bill Clinton in 1993–94 and Barack Obama in 2009–10 they endured especially resounding repudiations in the midterms, which cost Clinton his majority in both chambers and Obama the loss of the House.