- 22 Dec 2020 17:37
#15144550
It occurs to me that with Biden joining the very short list of candidates that have successfully stolen their election (or rather, to be fair, had the election successfully stolen for them by others—I seriously doubt that Hayes or JFK had anything personally to do with the fraud that gave them their victories, any more than Biden), we need a thread for what is likely to happen going forward. It seems to me that Biden’s campaign has put him between the Scylla of destroying Trump’s success and the Charybdis of looking like Trump 2.0. On the one hand, Biden’s entire campaign was based on “Trump evil.” On the other hand, in many ways Trump had a very successful term, and rejecting Trump’s policies is likely to undercut that success or make Biden look weak.
So, Biden’s problems going forward:
That’s all I can come up with off of the top of my head, but that’s enough I think to demonstrate the high wire act his administration is going to have to put on, and I have real doubts that they can pull it off.
So, Biden’s problems going forward:
- Illegal migration: One of the major reasons Trump won in 2016 was the lax/ineffective enforcement of our immigration laws. Trump’s immigration policies have been fiercely attacked for years (and I generally agree with the attacks when it comes to legal immigration, though I would favor some changes to our laws), but no one can deny that he has successfully cut the number of undocumented migrants coming across our borders. That has had a real impact on jobs, wages, and automation in this country. Now, the rate of undocumented migrants already began to climb before the election in anticipation of a Biden victory, and is only going to go up. Already, I’ve seen reports of at least one caravan forming in Honduras. So, does Biden keep Trump’s policies in place to keep the numbers down, throw out trump’s policies and accept that in 2024 he (or Harris) is going to be faced with the same issue that Clinton faced in 2016, or try to split the difference?
- The Paris Accords: Biden is going to have no choice but to rejoin the Paris Accords, and make at least some effort to put them into practice. (Though Trump might do him a favor and send the Accords to the Senate to be voted up or down as a treaty—the inevitable defeat would give Biden an excuse to let it go.) Again, the Paris Accords will have a real impact on the economy, and he’ll be held accountable. So does he try for a figleaf that will still be used to blame him for any economic bad news, or does he actually try to enforce the Accords as much as executive power allows (not all that much, domestically).
- China and Iran: In both cases, does he remove the sanctions currently in place? Does he try to rejoin the agreement with Iran? Does he make the corporations and the doves happy by returning to allowing China to run free? In the case of Iran he’s likely to undercut the diplomatic success the Trump administration has had in the region and maybe kick off a regional nuclear arms race. For China, the CCP isn’t very popular in the US at the moment, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. And both Iranian and Chinese officials have expressed opinions that Biden will submit to their nations’ demands (though the Chinese officials were a bit more diplomatic in their phrasing). Does he start his administration by looking weak?
- Education: Biden has already said that he will return to the Obama policy of “strongly encouraging” colleges to strip men of their due process rights in regards to accusations of rape. And sure, he can issue the same letter Obama sent, and strip his inspectors general of their power of prosecutorial discretion by ordering them not to prosecute campuses for violating the right to due process. But unlike Obama, Trump and De Voss went through the years-long process of enshrining the need for due process rights on campuses into the federal regulations, and he will have to go through the same process to remove those regulations. Not only will that give his enemies a club to beat him with, until they are removed those regulations will provide a solid basis for lawsuits against the campuses. And then there’s charter schools and home schooling—the teachers’ unions hate them and are going to demand their pound of flesh for their in kind contribution to his campaign by fighting to keep schools closed, but both are popular with many middle- and lower-class families, the very people Democrats (and whoever runs in 2024) will need to stem the likely coming Red wave in 2022 and beyond.
- Nonrenewable energy: He has no choice but to ban fracking on public lands, whatever the impact on the US’s energy independence and economy might (or might not) be. But beyond that, how far does he go to suppress the nonrenewable energy industry? Again, there will be an economic impact and he will be held accountable.
That’s all I can come up with off of the top of my head, but that’s enough I think to demonstrate the high wire act his administration is going to have to put on, and I have real doubts that they can pull it off.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke