Newt Gingrich, the veteran conservative crank and MAGA partisan, recently assessed President Biden’s first two years in office, and lo and behold, he surrendered to reality. Heck, he said it better than I can:
“While Republicans focus on Biden’s occasional memory lapses or cognitive confusion, overall he has been able to calmly and methodically achieve goals … I think it’s important for Republicans to draw a distinction between how they feel as a matter of values and analyze realistically what they’re up against, and they’re up against a very methodical machine which has done a remarkable job … When you look at results, you may dislike (the Biden team) philosophically, but you have to be realistic that these people have been effective. And you have to assume that they’re going to go into 2024 with a pretty powerful machine, running a juggernaut.”
True that, Newt. Let’s look at those results.
As we start this new year, midway through Biden’s tenure (his only term? his first term?), anyone with a functioning cognitive intellect is compelled to acknowledge that he has done “a remarkable job” (Newt’s words), given his tiny congressional majorities and the MAGA opposition’s 24/7 rhetorical assaults. No wonder he just enjoyed the best midterm election for any new president in the last 60 years – foiling the purported “red tsunami” in the House and bolstering his majority in the Senate.
Granted, we Americans still have all kinds of unresolved woes – as we’ve always had and always will – but historian Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted every presidential election winner since 1984, nails it well when he says that “Biden has been one of the most successful under-the-radar presidents in US history. His accomplishments domestically have been greater than that of any president since the 1960s.”
His paramount priority was to prove that actual governance – Democratic initiatives, supported at times by bipartisan-spirited Republicans – could deliver for the citizenry. The record speaks for itself:
• The American Rescue Plan, featuring financial aid to families and businesses, accelerated the ’21 economy after the pandemic lockdowns.
• The bipartisan infrastructure law invests trillions in long-needed repairs to our roads and bridges, expands people’s access to broadband, improves passenger rail, and much more. This law will continue to finance projects in 2023 and beyond.
• The PACT Act addresses veterans’ needs, expanding their health care and benefits, targeting those who’ve been exposed to toxic burn pits.
• The CHIPS and Science Act bolsters U.S. scientific research and the manufacturing of American-made semiconductors, making us more competitive with China and other tech-rival nations.
• The Inflation Reduction Act may or may not help reduce inflation, but (among its many benefits) features record-high investments in clean energy and other programs to combat climate change; lowering prescription drugs costs (including capping insulin for Medicare recipients at $35 a month); and slapping new taxes on rich corporations.
• The omnibus funding bill, signed by Biden the other day, finances more veterans’ services, provides more assistance to Ukraine’s freedom struggle against MAGA’s pals in Moscow, reauthorizes the Violence Against Women Act (which had been in limbo since 2018), and, among its many other provisions, strongly tightens the language in the Electoral Count Act to make it harder for any future insurrectionist loser to attempt a coup.
• The Respect for Marriage Act safeguards same-sex unions by requiring that states recognize marriage ceremonies performed in other states, thus foiling any future attempts by the right-wing Supreme Court to turn back the clock.
I could detail a lot more – like the first major gun-safety law in nearly 30 years; Biden’s debt relief of up to $20,000 for Pell Grant students; the speedy confirmation of Biden’s federal judges, two-thirds of whom are women – but one big reason why Biden’s poll negatives continue to be higher than his positives, is that millions of Americans have no sense of historical perspective, and have become deaf and dumb about reality. Lichtman, the aforementioned historian, explains it well:
“People have a thin understanding of history to begin with, so even if there were easy parallels, people aren’t necessarily aware of them or understanding of them. The problem is we’re also in the great age of misinformation and disinformation. That’s partly due to political polarization – particularly on the part of Republicans who have become specialists in misinformation and disinformation – and it’s also due to social media. Social media does not feed you contrary information. Social media reinforces whatever it is you may believe, true or false.”
It’s false to believe that Biden is a doddering fossil who has done nothing (I get emails like that all the time). It’s false to believe that Biden and the Democrats are “Marxists” (Trump’s latest smear). It’s obviously true that we’re still saddled with a slew of unaddressed problems – inflation, supply line challenges, the chasm between rich and poor, Russian terror in Ukraine, and much more – but, if I may offer a dose of historical perspective, no president has ever successfully waved a magic wand. Go back and look at the relentless abuse Abraham Lincoln weathered until his re-election prospects brightened near the tail end of his first term.
Yes, the current administration’s policy agenda will be stonewalled this year by the majority House Republicans. But it’s laughable to think that they’ll destroy this president by targeting his son’s laptop. They’d be wiser to heed Newt Gingrich’s warning that Joe Biden should not be underestimated.
Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2023
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