Biden’s New Deal

In his State of the Union speech (I know — we’re not supposed to call it that, but whatever), President Joe Biden not only sought to bury the sneering chimera of Trump. but also the charming ghoulishness of Reagan. “Trickle down economics has never worked.” Biden declared. “It’s time to grow the economy from the ground and middle up.” It was the most unabashedly populist presidential address to Congress since FDR, and the long list of left-wing goals that he ticked off had Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren jumping to their feet, along with other members of the Capitol Hill progressive caucus. Biden spoke softly for the most part, but his speech had the chamber rocking, even though his audience was Covid-limited to 200 legislators and dignitaries.

Can President Biden and his Democratic vanguard push through his ambitious agenda while he still holds a (slim) advantage in Congress? He certainly seems to have the mojo — and the public opinion polls — to do it. And the Republican opposition seems weirdly distracted and divided, still haunted by that ghost of Trump.

So go, Joe, go — you have nothing to lose but the chains of the past, with all those failed presidencies and American carnage (yes, that’s what it is — but Trump only made it worse). Maybe it’s his advanced age; maybe it’s his Irish Catholic soul; maybe it’s all the personal loss he’s suffered; maybe it’s the bitter lessons of the Obama years. But whatever it is, Old Joe seems like the great progressive hope these days. Whether America is really the great nation and the American people the grand visionaries he keeps calling us is a very different question. But we’ll soon find out whether democracy or autocracy — the great battle that Biden illuminated in his speech — will triumph.