U.S. elections 2020: Joe Biden is Democratic Party candidate and former vice president
Joe Biden may have the inside track on Donald Trump to win the White House, but his party’s otherwise poor performance on election night creates a deadlocked presidency, with faint hopes of fulfilling the aspirations of the liberal policy.
If he wins, Biden would become the first president since George H.W. Bush to take office without control from both the House and the Senate – promising him at least two years of stasis and lockdown.
In the immediate future, Republicans will have little incentive to give in to the vast recovery plan for the coronavirus. Democrats were hoping that a major electoral victory could be obtained. But this battle would likely be the first in a series of GOP efforts to quell a Biden administration at every turn.
There is virtually no chance that a Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell would approve Biden’s planned tax hike for the rich and corporate, much less a $ 2 trillion plan to tackle climate change than ‘he hoped the new revenue would fund. A GOP Senate is also unlikely to consider expanding access to government health care programs, overhauling the country’s immigration system, or putting in place a major infrastructure package.
The Liberals’ most ambitious aspirations – from expanding the Supreme Court to granting statehood to Washington, D.C. – are even less likely. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who could face a leadership challenge and is certain to suffer losses for her majority – may not be able to provide Biden with crucial leverage in federal budget negotiations. .
Republicans have previously telegraphed that they are likely to rediscover religion when it comes to budget deficits, after adding nearly $ 4 trillion in debt during Trump’s first term.
Biden presented himself as the only Democrat who could deal with Republicans in Washington, going back to his time in the Senate with McConnell. McConnell and Biden struck a deal in Obama’s lame post-re-election session, making President George W. Bush’s tax cuts permanent for most Americans, a compromise later criticized by Democrats.
But Biden may find McConnell is not the negotiator he once knew. The majority leader recently must have disappointed even Trump when he couldn’t muster the votes for a big coronavirus stimulus package, a sign that reluctant Republicans might be even less in the mood to strike a deal with a new Democratic president .
Mitch McConnell at election night in Louisville, Kentucky on November 3
As six Senate races remain undecided, Democrats would need an extraordinary push as states finish counting the votes to win three – enough for the minimum 50 seats they would need to control the chamber.
Their takeover prospects suffered a setback on Wednesday after vulnerable Republican incumbents led by Maine’s Susan Collins fought off Democratic challengers.
The concern for Biden is that even if he achieves his decades-long quest for the presidency, his administration will have few tools to implement his agenda or to deal with the major crises of the Trump presidency, the coronavirus pandemic. to racial unrest.
Certainly, political circumstances can change quickly in the face of unexpected events, as the pandemic itself proved earlier this year. And Biden has long argued that his decades of experience on Capitol Hill meant he was more likely than his immediate predecessors to be able to strike deals between parties.
His allies note that Biden could end up winning even more electoral college votes than Trump in 2016 while winning the popular vote by the millions, arguably granting him more of a term in government than his predecessor.
But Biden’s claim to bipartisan success has often seemed to hinge on a decisive Democratic victory that did not materialize.
“If we win as big as we can, there’s going to be a big, big epiphany that’s going to take place, as we say, Catholics,” Biden said in July.
And having proven unable to spur Democrats into winnable Senate races in countries like Maine, Montana and North Carolina, his ability to threaten or cajole reluctant lawmakers in his own party will be limited as it will continue its legislative program.
The silver lining for Biden is that he could face less pressure from his party’s left flank. He was reluctant to adopt more drastic proposals put forward by popular figures like Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, the congressman from New York, as their “Green New Deal” or the expansion of Medicare, the insurance program for the elderly and disabled, to cover all Americans.
Now, Biden can rightly say that the votes just aren’t there.
But liberals are already complaining that a presidential candidate like Sanders could have performed better than Biden, and that Biden’s narrower than expected victory proves there is little enthusiasm for a center-left candidate. And a Biden administration will struggle to achieve a signature accomplishment – like Trump’s border wall or President Barack Obama’s health care bill – that will cement his legacy and endear him to his party base.
His political vulnerability is only underscored by the fact that if he wins and becomes the longest-serving US president ever elected, he will likely face regular questions about his stamina and ability to rule the world‘s largest economy. and the only remaining superpower. His campaign’s decision to largely avoid in-person events – citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – provided only fodder for Trump and other Republicans, who have consistently suggested the Democratic nominee is senile.
Trump himself creates another big challenge for a future Biden administration. Democrats had clearly hoped that a reprimand at the polls would silence the president, but the early election results suggest that Trump lost his re-election even by drawing millions more voters to his cause.
He will likely remain a powerful influence on the Republican Party, and there is already speculation he could run for his old post again in 2024.
While Biden predicted ahead of the election that GOP lawmakers would lose their “fear of retaliation,” Trump’s continued presence in US politics can only intensify those fears.
Moreover, a victory for Biden will have to resist a concerted effort by Trump and his allies to delegitimize his election. Already on Wednesday, the president repeatedly suggested – and without justification or credibility – that the mail-in ballots for Biden were somehow evidence of fraud.
Last night I led, often solidly, in many key states, in almost all cases Democrat-led and controlled. Then, one by one, they began to magically disappear as the surprise ballots were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” have it completely and historically wrong!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
In addition to the disinformation campaign, the president’s team is planning a legal battle on several fronts, with lawsuits already filed in Pennsylvania and Michigan over offers to tip the vote totals in favor of Trump.
But Trump’s efforts to foster suspicion of the election outcome also risk alienating voters who might fear their ballots might be unfairly targeted – a narrative Biden’s team promoted on Wednesday. If Trump’s actions further aggravate the electorate, it could provide Biden with much-needed political capital.
“There has never been a single party that mounted a more sustained attack on the democratic process than the Republican Party,” said Biden senior adviser Bob Bauer. “The cynical weakening of democracy is so brazen, so transparent, and the legal strategy on which it is based so cynical that it is sure to fail.”
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
