U.S. President Joe Biden; Photo/Economist
"Even if Neither Biden nor Trump were to go to war, the United States would still be in a divisive duel."
Article Source/Economist <A daunting year for Democrats>, 20220108.
Compilation/Autumn Han
In January 2021, Joe Biden narrowly won and became president of the United States. A dozen days before the inauguration, a large number of demonstrators who supported then-President Trump still forced their way into the Capitol to protest the election results.
In 2022, however, the situation may be reversed. Whatever ambitions the Biden administration has, it risks being stifled after the November midterm elections — because they mark the unofficial start of the next presidential campaign and perhaps a prelude to Mr. Trump's return to power.
First, the Biden administration is indeed becoming weaker.
After successfully passing a massive economic stimulus package, the government was at an impasse. As it turns out, the plan is indeed a bit overdone. Various types of blows followed, such as high inflation, partly triggered by fiscal stimulus; the endless epidemic; the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; and the inability to convince a majority of Democrats to vote for the president's legislation.
Biden's approval rating has fallen by 25 percentage points since his term began. That said, he was almost as unpopular as Trump was a few years ago at this stage of his presidency.
Support for Obama, Biden, and Trump in their first years of their respective terms; photo/Economist
Just before Christmas, a prominent Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, made a fatal attack on Biden's Build Back Better. The bill, a package aimed at mitigating climate change and improving social welfare, was supposed to be a landmark legislative achievement during Biden's presidency.
The upcoming midterm elections in November have exacerbated Biden's unease, when he could lose his say in legislation altogether.
U.S. presidents are almost often hit in their first midterm elections. In 2010, Barack Obama lost 63 seats in what he himself described as a "fiasco." In 2018, Trump lost 35 seats. If Biden's approval ratings are higher, he may be able to escape the disaster. However, this is not the case.
For now, the narrow dominance that Democrats maintain in both houses of Senate and House is unlikely to be sustained. Republicans only need to win five seats in the House to win a majority and have a clear veto power over all the legislation Biden wants. The betting market for political betting has been prejudged, arguing that Republicans have an 82 percent chance of winning the House and 70 percent winning the Senate.
Scene of a joint meeting of the Senate and house before the pandemic; photo/Washington Post
Generally speaking, long-serving members of Congress are not willing to be forced to leave office due to electoral defeat, and they will plan for themselves in advance according to the situation. Therefore, judging from the number of parliamentarians in both parties who have announced their "retirement" at present, some clues will also be found.
As of now, there are 25 Democrats in the House who say they will not seek re-election, including even some powerful committee chairs. By contrast, there are only 12 Republicans on the side. What's more, of those members of Congress who have declared themselves to be truly "pure retirement" rather than seeking other or better positions, there are as many as 17 Democrats and only 4 Republicans.
In previous electoral years, the "retirement" of parliamentarians was a major sign of the ruling party's defeat.
Of course, there are also external events that can cause variables. For example, the Supreme Court's restrictions on the constitutional right to abortion spark protests everywhere could help some marginal Democratic lawmakers get re-elected. But even then, the end result is unlikely to be that Democrats will continue to have full control of Congress. (The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule finally on abortion in the first half of 2022, during the midterm elections, and the current outcome is extremely anti-abortion, a view that most Republicans support.) --Translator's Note)
That way, Democrats have only a few months left to actually control Congress and the White House. They presumably want to use this time to aggressively deliver on their proponents' promises of priority legislation, such as support for voting rights, expanding unions, reducing police brutality, and reforming the immigration system, but in reality most of these bills are stillborn because a small number of Republicans in the Senate initiate "lengthy debates" and then veto them.
Democratic Congressman Joe Manchin; Photo/Web
So Democrats shouldn't waste too much time on these bills. Instead, they may spend the remaining months reintroducing a weakened version of the BBB bill, theoretically with hope of passing. If Biden wants to show voters something substantive in the November election, the only way out is to negotiate hard with Joe Manchin, a conservative tycoon within the Democratic Party who opposes the bill. The process could drag on for months, and with the demands of the campaign season and the difficulty of actually passing, they should have little room to do anything else. (Joe Manchin was the most conservative figure in the Democratic Party, often aborting his party's bills because of a vote against him.) --Translator's Note)
By the end of 2022, momentum is likely to shift from Democrats to Republicans. If the Republican Party wins the midterm elections, it would seem to confirm the party's failure to face up to the serious attempts its leaders have been trying to subvert the election. In fact, it may be more beneficial to Trump.
Few republicans who voted to impeach Trump after an election defeat will remain in office. After the purge of the party primaries, the internal resistance to Trump's strange ideas will weaken, and the former establishment that reconciles with Trumpism will be rewarded. For example, Kevin McCarthy could be promoted to the coveted position of Speaker of the House.
All of this could happen, without even putting up any agenda for the Republican Party to respond to the defeat in 2020. At the same time, democrats' ambitious governing platform may fade away. Because, then they will face a severely divided Congress and a bipartisan stalemate. Like Obama before him, Biden at that time would have to rely on short executive orders to get everything done.
Republican Ron DeSantis (left) and Democrat Kamala Harris (right); photo/network
In both parties, the race for the next presidential election has begun, although the competition may be a repeat of 2020. Both Biden and Trump are arrogant enough to refuse to cede power to younger politicians, but they are really about the same age.
Although Kamala Harris did not perform well in the 2020 campaign and in her first year as vice president, she will remain the legal heir to the Democratic Party. On the Republican side, if Trump does not run, a populist shaped by his image, such as Florida Governor Ron de Santis, may be his successor.
That is to say, even if the two old men, Biden and Trump, do not go to war, the United States is still very likely to fall into a divisive duel.