BTRTN: 78-Year-Old Joe Biden Plays the Long Game

[reggieandlee]

Born To Run The Numbers identifies the unifying strategic theme underlying the decisions in Joe Biden's White House in the BTRTN July month-in-review:

http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2021/08/btrtn-78-year-old-joe-biden-plays-long.html

Excerpts: "The conventional wisdom... is that Joe Biden really has only two years – actually, now only 17 months -- to accomplish anything. Come the midterms, he will lose the House and the Senate, and however slowly the government’s gears are moving now, they will grind to a halt once the GOP controls even just one house of Congress. Therefore, goes the narrative, Biden must go deep and go fast, and whatever norms stand in the way – notably the hallowed Senate filibuster – must be cast aside...
"The only trouble with this narrative is that Joe Biden does not appear to believe in it. Instead Biden, rather surprisingly given his advanced age, is the one playing the long game: he wants to win the midterms in 2022, hold on to both houses of Congress, and win reelection in 2024, and he is pretty darned convinced that blowing up DC as we know it is not the way to go. And, right or wrong, this conviction -- his wisdom, not the conventional one -- informs every single decision he is making...
"Biden has his crises – COVID, of course, and the resultant economic slump – and he also has his opportunity to re-shape America. But his entire game... is to keep the Far Left at bay while not losing the middle. He is not betting the ranch on shelving the filibuster and pushing through a $6 trillion makeover of the U.S. economy. Instead, he is going to negotiate for the best deal he can get that Middle America can live with. He cannot pretend he has the mandate the FDR and LBJ had; he has to take what he can get."

[KPN]

1. Excellent opinion piece. There was also this:

“ It is almost a certainty that Joe Biden wants to stand alongside FDR and LBJ in the mythical Mt. Rushmore of sweeping progressive legislation that offered basic protections for the underserved and leveled the playing field for all. He too wants what Bernie Sanders wants, on the substance. But he lives in a different time and has to find a different path to the pantheon. His game plan is to rack up a string of successes, ride that record into the midterms (and ultimately reelection) and do more with those mandates and the breathing room a few pickups would afford. That record he envisions before the midterms would include: the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan hard filibuster bill, a skinnied-down version of the soft infrastructure reconciliation bill (say, in the $2 trillion range, not the current $3.5 trillion), taming COVID through aggressive vaccination promotion, stoking the roaring economic recovery fire and avoiding war. That’s the ticket. Peace, prosperity, freedom from COVID and some major progressive legislation.“