Joe Biden and the Case for Optimism
It might get better.
Tonight: Iāll be hosting our Inauguration Day livestream at 9:00 p.m. for Bulwark+ members. I hope youāll join us, if for no other reason than to see what I look like when Iām happy. Which is not, you know, an every day occurrence.
We didnāt just build The Bulwark to oppose Donald Trump. We built it to stand against a political world gone crazy and to fight for a better future. That mission starts, in earnest, today.
This is the moment. Stand with us. Join Bulwark+.
1. Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives
FDR was the last elected president to take control of the federal government at a time of crisis as dangerous as what we face today.
Here is a partial list of tasks Joe Biden has before him:
Fix the vaccine rollout.
Beat back the tide of the pandemic in order to save as many Americans as possible while vaccines are distributed over the next nine months.
Unravel a complex cyber attack on America by Russia.
Get stimulus checks out to individuals and businesses being crushed by COVID.
Deal with a seat of government that has been turned into a Green Zone.
Manage a potential insurgency from extremists who have been threatening assault and assassination of high-ranking government figures.
Confirm key cabinet posts that Senate Republicans refused to vote on prior to the inauguration.
Work with an opposition party whose voters, by a margin of 3-to-1, believe that Biden lost the election and has overturned American democracy in a literal coup dāetat.
And thatās just his to-do list for the first month.
What happens if another shoe drops? If we get another domestic attack? A foreign crisis? A new COVID strain?
Iām not asking you to feel sorry for Bidenāhe asked for this job. But itās important to understand just how deep a hole he starts in. And what that means for all of us.
2. Optimism?
Despite all of thatādespite everythingāI am cautiously optimistic for Bidenās prospects for success.
Start with the COVID vaccines. Bidenās plan to fix the roll-out isnāt a magical, Hail Mary play. Itās just the ordinary blocking-and-tackling that any competent federal government would have been doing over the last two months if the chief executive had been interested in his job. This includes:
Shoveling federal money and manpower into distribution.
Super-charging vaccine supply.
Lowering the age requirements for the first wave of vaccinations.
Starting a national education campaign.
Iām optimistic this will work because itās just basic public health policy. It should work.
Then thereās slowing the current wave. If the power of the presidency still means anything, then this should work, too. Biden is all-in on explaining best-practices to people and leading by example. He wears a mask when heās out and about not because he needs to for health reasons, but because heās trying to establish a norm for the general public.
Will this norm setting work? Bidenās favorable rating is quite highāyou have about a third of the country who thinks heās the devil incarnate, but everyone else seems to really like him.
Popularity matters when youāre talking about persuasion.
On the stimulus, this is one vote where Republicans are up a creek. Do they really want to vote against sending $1,400 checks to families right now? I mean . . . they can do that if they want to.
But thatās going to be a tough vote for Rās, especially in the House where they know the vote will pass and 60 percent of the caucus is on the record as voting that Biden is an illegitimate president. Can they now vote with the fake, stolen president on his first big piece of legislation? Or do they have to go no on a vote that will haunt them in 2022?
3. The Man and the Moment
Another reason for optimism is my belief that character is oftenāthough not alwaysādestiny.
Watch Biden struggle to hold it together yesterday as he left Delaware to take up the most importantāand most difficultājob of his life:
This is a man who understands the moment.
Look at him standing vigil on Tuesday night, staring out over a sea of candles commemorating the dead in the worst public health disaster in a century:
And do you know how he started out his morning today? He went to Mass at St. Matthewās Cathedralāwhere I got married, btwāand he invited the congressional leaders from both parties to come and pray with him.
Thatās right. Kevin McCarthyāthe guy who until 5 minutes ago was trying to overthrow the government in a bid to stop Biden from being inauguratedāwas invited, by the incoming president, to come and pray with him at Mass.
This stuff matters.
And it matters because itās real. Because itās who Biden is.
This is the man who is our president now:
I use the word āstuffā on purpose because this part of political leadership is a bit like a pitcherās command of a baseball. Thereās something ineffable about it. You canāt fully describe it, or quantify it. But itās real. It matters.
The bedrock virtue of conservatismāor what used to be called conservatismāwas gratitude. Itās the wellspring virtue, the virtue from which all others flow. And Joe Biden is animated in large part by gratitude. Itās why he ran for president this time.
Not because he needed the job. But because he was grateful for all of the things that we had come to take for granted in America. And because he wanted to help restore those things and heal the nation.
As much as anything else, thatās why Iām optimistic today. Because while the challenges are enormous, the opportunities are there. Because character counts. And because gratitude is the beginning of wisdom.
Iāll get back to doom and gloom tomorrow. But for today, letās all pray for Joe Biden and pray for America. And believe that even though we are still in the midst of a terrible, dark moment, there is light ahead.
Housekeeping: Yesterday I said that Bill Clinton got involved in the Baltics. This was stupid-wrong. The Balkans. Theyāre not even close.
Also: Nixon appointed four justices, tooāmaking him and Ike the presidents with the most SCOTUS appointments in the modern era.
Sorry for the errors.
