Coop Scoop: The First 100 Days. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Biden is going deep and long as he knows this opening might be fleeting.

April 30, 2021

Issue #72

By Marc Cooper

If you had to pick one word to describe the first 100 days of the Biden administration it would be “surprising.”  I don’t know of anybody who expected this traditionally conservative Democrat to unleash such a bold, reformist domestic program of the scope and size he has.

A book could be written on these first three months of Biden.  We will now, however, take a quick but steady look on the toplines of what are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of this period.

THE GOOD

Biden’s whopping $6 trillion program of domestic programs does not transform or replace late-stage capitalism and all of its inequities but they comprise measures that are welcome and much needed modifications to our our social system.

If Biden can find a way to approve the entirety of his program – so far only the $2 trillion Covid relief plan is in the books—the long, painful legacy of neoliberal Reaganomics will at least be seriously challenged.

Biden clearly feels the pressure from the grass roots activism of the last four years and, together with the demands of the pandemic, has decided to go deep and long and has steadily steered his proposals leftward.  Indeed, Biden has taken the Democrats to their limits as a party that now governs on the basis of a Sanders-Manchin coalition and that’s no easy trick.

I am going to assume that my readers already know the substance of Biden’s three proposals so I don’t feel the need to rehearse them here. Suffice it to say that Biden’s proposals, if  enacted in more or less the same form as proposed, would finally establish an at least minimal welfare state on the social democratic model enjoyed by millions of Europeans.

At a minimum, Biden’s triple header proposals have already turned around the long American debate on the role of big government and the state to assist its constituents.  All of a sudden it’s no longer a question if the government will intervene in the economy, but rather how much help will be provided.

More good news: Biden’s speech received a stratospheric 85% approval from those who heard it. And 71% of the audience said they felt more optimistic after watching it.  And each single proposal of the administration on jobs, infrastructure, taxing the wealthy, providing universal free day care, providing two years of free community college, and most certainly, his cash subsidy program receive about a 2 to 1 approval rating, putting the Republicans in a sweat box.  Who wants to run on a program of restoring child poverty?

Still in positive territory: We are now treated to the spectacle of what a truly independent and vigorous Department of Justice looks like.   One can only imagine how many cans of Lysol Merrick Garland had to use to relieve the stench left from Bill Barr and his cronies.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, in charge of day-to-day operation of the DOJ, hit the ground running as soon as she was confirmed less than two weeks ago.  She immediately opened a “Pattern and Practice” investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department and now there is word that DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will intervene to indict George Floyd’s killers, Derek Chauvin and his three comrades, on Federal charges.

Slam, bam and barely a few days later, DOJ opened a similar review of the Louisville Police Department that drew much anger after the killing of Breonna Taylor more than a year ago. Even more encouraging, the FBI has opened an investigation into the Elizabeth City, North Carolina killing of Andrew Brown.  Notably, the Feds moved in even before the local investigation has barely started, let alone been completed.

To top that off, the DOJ’s Southern District of New York, effectuated the search warrant on one Rudolph Giuliani after Bill Barr twice quashed that order late last year.  Former SDNY prosecutors have said this moved heralds an imminent indictment of Giuliani, on violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act and, perhaps, for other criminal activity when he went to Ukraine searching for dirt on Biden. Former prosecutors also say one should not write off the possibility of Rudy rolling over on Trump and bringing charges to him.

One can hope!

The administration must also be credited with vigorous and efficient handling of the pandemic, which The Other Guy indifferently let rip across America taking more than a half million lives.  In this short period of 100 days, light at the end of the tunnel beckons and Biden’s vow that we will be a lot closer to “normal” by July 4 does not seem too optimistic.

Taken together, and with lots of asterisks and footnotes, this is all GOOD.

THE BAD

I was uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, with Biden’s framing of his program.  Appealing once again to American Exceptionalism, Biden more or less posited that we are already in a Cold War with China as Slate reported:

“China and other countries are closing in fast,” Biden warned. He twice argued that we are in a competition with China and its fellow authoritarian states to “win the 21st century,” necessitating spending on infrastructure, education, and research. Speaking of efforts to combat climate change, he said, “There’s no reason the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing,” flipping President Donald Trump’s quip, after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, that he had been elected to represent “the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” Summing up, he warned that “America’s adversaries—the autocrats of the world—are betting” that American democracy is too weakened and divided to meet global challenges, but “we have to prove them wrong.”

Appealing to nationalism and foreign threats to boost a given program is SOP for many world leaders and former U.S. Presidents, it’s not a tactic invented by Biden.  But it’s a lazy and potentially dangerous position.

It makes no sense for Biden to do this. For those who would argue that he was just appealing to the largest common denominator of patriotism, think again.  The very mainstream Democrat Center for American Progress issued a report in 2019 underlining the fact that the American electorate was frankly tired of supporting an Empire (though the E-word was not used in the report).

“Traditional language from foreign policy experts about “fighting authoritarianism and dictatorship,” “promoting democracy,” or “working with allies and the international community” uniformly fell flat with voters in our groups.” The report also found that “Despite Russia being viewed as mostly an enemy of the United States and China being seen as the chief global competitor, American voters are conflict-averse, strongly desire more cautious steps with both of these countries, and firmly reject a primarily military-based response in dealing with them.”

Just imagine how much more reassuring it would have been if Biden had said that we are going to improve the lives of Americans because that’s what democracy is all about. How about a nice 35% cut in military spending to further boost domestic programs and lower the possibilities of war? Instead, we are warned of this supposed life and death “competition” basically to rule the world. We watched this same movie for 50 years and paid a high price for doing so.

More bad news: Elected Democrats and, apparently, millions of Democratic voters, have surrendered on the issue of military spending. Biden’s proposed military budget of $753b represents a slight increase over Trumps’ bloated and record spending on the military.

What exactly do we find in a White House fact sheet defending the proposal?

“[The military budget] prioritizes the need to counter the threat from China as the department’s top challenge.”

The budget also “proposes executable and responsible investments” in the Navy fleet, “supports ongoing nuclear modernization programs while ensuring that these efforts are sustainable,” and “continues to ensure that U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians remain the best trained and equipped force in the world,” while also supporting Pentagon plans to “divest legacy systems,” according to the fact sheet.”

It's only a dependent clause in the paragraph above, but this “nuclear modernization” program that Biden is backing (as did Obama) will require a $1.5 trillion expenditure and I have not heard a single Democrat as much as burp over this.

Reading deeper into this issue (I did it so you don’t have to) you immediately enter a world of Strangelovian aberration completely detached from reality.

The US claims, and I am sure it is certain, that the Russians (not the Chinese) have 700 modernized nukes aimed at American cities and that if even 5% of them got through our defenses, our civilization would be destroyed.  Both the US and Russia have about 6,000 nuclear warheads each, China has just over 300.  According to supporters of the modernization. We must modernize our arsenal so as to deter the Russians from launching any first strike.  With enough shovels… you know the rest.

That’s enough as I am already starting to glow in the dark. This is the same old Cold War fear and loathing repackaged in brown wrapper and it is deeply tragic that Democrats are sticking to this Imperial view.

It’s not just Republicans who are standing in the way of the Biden  domestic agenda.  West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has become a bleeding sore, demanding that any and every Democratic program be tailored to his conservative tastes and continuing to vow a vigorous defense of the filibuster.

It seems obvious that Manchin is only interested in his re-election and really does not give two hoots about the millions who voted Democratic in hopes of significant reform. Manchin’s obstruction has been joined by Arizona’s screwball Senator Kyrsten Sinema, while the other Democratic Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly, is starting to make similar gestures about blocking or watering down numerous reforms.

To say that the Democratic Party is an unfit vessel for social change would be the understatement of the year. So it is kind of miraculous that they have gone as far as they have to date, but I would expect very little more.

THE UGLY

The Republican Party has become completely Ugly.  When Liz Cheney becomes your alternative to Crazy, you are in neck-level deep shit. The imagery of a Senator Ted Cruz, manspreading and falling asleep during Biden’s speech, tells us everything. The Republican Party has zero interest in the welfare of average Americans.

Donald Trump has kept a relatively low profile until now, but last week he started once again to draw public attention with published statements and with the Republican leadership convening, in Florida, of course.

More ugly: Vaccinations are starting to slow down, and that’s very ugly and traceable to you-know-who. Take Oregon for example.  These past two weeks has seen Oregon emerge as the newest COVID hotspot, forcing the governor to downgrade the “open” status of more than a dozen counties with more to come next week. Yet, Oregon public health officials say they have a surplus of languishing vaccine and are not sure what to do with it.

After months of misinformation about supposed “hesitancy” among Blacks to be vaccinated, we find that the one thing shared by most vax refusers is that they are White male Republican evangelicals i.e. the hard-core Trump base.

I don’t know of any other case in history where a significant part of the population refuses medical help in a pandemic, putting themselves and others at the risk of death just to “own” their political rivals. 

These folks, indeed, need much more than a couple of shots of Pfizer. In the meantime, they represent a very ugly obstacle to finishing off COVID-19. Their leader let it run rampant, they are continuing the work.

Look at the Crazy in Arizona where we see true collective insanity as the state GOP conducts a hand recount (of the thrice-counted) 2.1 million votes cast in Maricopa County in the last presidential race.  A conspiracy theorist who claims that the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013) had a hand in rigging the election for Biden has been put in charge of this charade.  Several voter advocacy groups have raised concerns that ballot security is in danger, and finally, a judge has ordered that representatives of the Secretary of State’s office be allowed in to observe.

Republicans risk being reduced to a rump party, clinging to its loyalty to the deranged Orange Leader in Florida and never reaching more than 45% of the national vote. 

None of this prevents the Republicans from winning in 2022, taking back the House and securing a majority in the Senate and thereby ending any more forward movement of the Biden administration. This owes to the structural biases in the American electoral system that favors small states and rural voters. There’s also the small matter of redistricting, better known as gerrymandering.

This year, based on the 2020 census (itself suspect), 25 state legislatures will draw new districts for Congress and while Democrats also gerrymander, the Republicans have the better hand here. Remember that Democrats only have a four seat majority in the House, a margin easily erased.

Historically, the incumbent President’s party gets walloped in the first mid-terms. Only a few times has the pattern been broken.  Bill Clinton was among those who did not lose the House in the midterm (of his second term) as voters rebelled against his impeachment.

Joe Biden would like to match that record but knows very well that this moment is likely to be a fleeting one. Going long and deep as he is, Biden obviously thinks that providing Americans with concrete and tangible economic benefits might offset the culture wars attack on his presidency (note the bogus stories on Biden and hamburgers and Kamala Harris’ book).

In any case, the Democratic logic is that time is short. Very short, it is imperative to put as many points as possible up on the board before half-time.

The Big Lie persists and continues to erode democracy.  Adherence to Trump’s mendacity has slowly eroded but he’s still the undisputed Republican leader.  While 4 months ago, 90% of Republicans said Trump should run again in 2024, today only 50% of Republicans say their primary loyalty is to Trump and not the party. 

Nothing to gloat about here. All it means is that given the perversions of our electoral system and the craziness that has come to nest in about 35% of the population, the ugliest fact of all is that after this brief Spring, we might once again find ourselves in little more than a year, back on the road to illiberal minority rule. +++

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