ELIZABETH DREW, PROJECT SYNDICATE
The lighting of Christmas trees notwithstanding, Washington is an unhappy place. Indeed, I’ve never seen the city so glum.
The political fortunes of a president often depend on luck, and after a few months Biden’s began to turn. Numerous observers, myself included, believe that Biden would have survived the almost universally unfair characterizations of the withdrawal from Afghanistan had bad luck not followed. For a while, Biden appeared to have a grip on how to handle the coronavirus pandemic – in contrast to the reckless Trump. But Biden’s apparent competence in handling the pandemic was undermined by two successive variants: the Delta outbreak, the most virulent thus far, coincided with his approval ratings going south in August. And now the Omicron variant is spreading fast. The relentlessness of the pandemic has led to the dispiriting thought that life might now be masks and restrictions – and untimely deaths – in perpetuity.
Even more dispiriting, it’s actually the case that some key Republican governors – Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas – and members of congress such as Cruz and Hawley have been opposing vaccinations and mandates because this could damage Biden and other Democrats in upcoming elections.
One more problem confronting Biden is his lack of a commanding presence. His normality, at first so welcome, has been transformed in the eyes of many into boringness. Biden lacks wit; we don’t quote him. Defenders of Biden point out, accurately, that, lack of dazzle notwithstanding, he’s won substantial legislative victories, and they dismiss the pizzazz of a John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Obama, or even Trump as a superficiality. But a president has to be able to lead, to move people.
Democrats’ morale isn’t helped by the evident flailing of Kamala Harris’s vice presidency. Under pressure to select a woman of color as his running mate – a first – Biden selected Harris despite her mediocre performance as a candidate for the nomination, a Senatorial colleague of hers and friend of his says, “because he wanted to win.” She had the backing of prominent blacks.
The same problems cited for her failed presidential campaign have plagued her vice-presidency: staff turmoil and a lack of clarity about what she stands for. The turmoil and extensive departures among her staff are particularly corrosive in Washington, which largely judges politicians according to the quality and loyalty of their staff. Politicians’ staffs don’t mind working hard or enduring the occasional berating if the aide admires the boss. But when berating elides into bullying – as has been reliably reported in the cases of Harris and one of her competitors in 2020, Senator Amy Klobuchar – this gets around town fast and besmirches the politician’s name.
Biden can do nothing to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning or severely limiting the near-50-year-old Roe v Wade decision. Except for the minority of Americans who support the pro-life – or anti-abortion – bent of six of the nine members of the Court, the oral argument, on December 1, was a dismaying if not depressing display of political arrogance rather than of judicial temperament.
Biden's honeymoon period is long over, But, in fact, morale is also declining on the Republican side of the aisle as politicians navigate the no man's land between ineffectiveness and extremism.