Touting His Legislative Achievements Hasn’t Helped Him Score Political Points
Despite deep partisan divisions, a vast and growing majority of Americans agree that U.S. institutions are broken. Trust levels keep dropping. The economy may be improving, but many voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
“Everything is broken – or so it feels to many of our fellow citizens,” writes political scientist lecturer and podcaster Damon Linker. “Denying this only empowers populist candidates whose message acquires its potency by pointing to an entrenched political establishment unwilling or unable to learn from or even admit to myriad mistakes.”
Linker’s observation provides a different lens on the 2024 presidential election. Instead of choice between someone too old or someone too dangerous, Linker suggests the race could turn on which candidate promises to reform what they believe is broken – even if they don’t explicitly agree with the reform.
That may explain why Donald Trump has led national polls over President Joe Biden. Trump pledges to make big changes. Biden touts his achievements and promises more of the same.
The political dynamic Linker identifies deals with something deeper than partisan disagreements or policy choices. There is a national yearning for governmental institutions that work and thereby foster trust. Trump’s proposed agenda of change may be alarming to many voters, but it benefits from Biden’s agenda of staying the course.
Linker urges Biden and his political strategists to take a new tack. He advises Biden to be “less upbeat” and “meet Americans where they are.” “He should admit Washington has gotten a lot of things wrong over the past two decades, sound unhappy about it and be humbled by it.”
“Even better,” Linker says, “would be an effort to develop a reform agenda…to begin cleaning up the messes and to put America’s house in order.” In practical terms, a reform agenda would involve a thorough review of government programs that worked and didn’t work.”
Nothing in Biden’s political history suggests this kind of politics would come naturally to him. Linker suggests Biden borrow the script of President Ronald Reagan, who pledged in his first inaugural address, “It’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work – work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back.”
“It’s not my intention to do away with government.
It is rather to make it work.”
History of National Discontent
A state of national discontent isn’t new. At the country’s beginning, there were sharp disagreements over a standing army, taxation and foreign alliances. Arguably, the nation coalesced around westward expansion, opening new opportunities for seemingly everyone other than Native Americans.
By the mid-1800s, the expansion of slavery sharply divided the nation and led to a bloody Civil War. While slavery was outlawed, Jim Crow laws were allowed to flourish. Many of them persisted as late as 1965 when anti-discrimination legislation was approved.
The Vietnam War created another major dividing line in America. That dividing line deepened when it became clear a Democratic and Republican president lied about how the war was going. On the heels of the Vietnam War came the Watergate scandal. The presidency of Jimmy Carter was overshadowed by a failed attempt to free U.S. hostages in Iran and long gas lines.
President Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair with a White House intern. President George W. Bush earned enmity for invading Iraq in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Discontent with the U.S. government has been seething for a long time. Trump has successfully used that discontent to promote his Make America Great Again message. He ran successfully as a Beltway outsider in 2016 and is trying to revive that appeal in 2024, despite negative publicity in two civil cases that he lost and four pending criminal cases.
Biden’s Political Persona and His Challenges
Biden’s political persona is outgoing, gregarious, accommodating, ambitious and confident. One summary of Biden sized him up as a leader with a “personality profile likely to exhibit an interpersonal leadership style, characterized by flexibility, compromise and an emphasis on teamwork.” In other words, not the traits of a firebrand pushing for broad reform.
As Linker says, Biden in 2024 stands as “the lone institutionalist defender of the status quo.”
His first term has been dogged by a messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden’s political base is fracturing over Israeli military action in Gaza that has led to a humanitarian disaster. His ability to move legislation, especially a supplemental spending request for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, has been thwarted by Republican control of the House.
A Backdrop of Anxiety
The current political atmosphere is suffused with anxiety over the rising cost of housing and homelessness, changing social norms and culture wars and existential threats ranging from a more militant China to climate change to artificial intelligence.
In many ways, any incumbent politician seeking re-election has to seek approval of voters who are disgruntled. The difference for presidential candidates is that they are held responsible
Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was dogged by inflation and who was personally criticized for describing the nation in “malaise”, tried to discover the sources of U.S. discontent. At the suggestion of his pollster, Carter invited dozens of citizens to Camp David over 10 days to voice their concerns to him directly.
In a 1979 televised speech to address a national “Crisis in Confidence”, Carter listed some of the concerns expressed to him. Many had to do with energy and energy independence. “Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife,” one visitor vividly told Carter. Others talked about economic fairness, the ravages of recession and “moral and spiritual crisis”.
A young woman from Pennsylvania said, “I feel so far from government. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political power.” A visitor Carter didn’t specifically identify told him, “Be bold, Mr. President. We may make mistakes, but we are ready to experiment.”
As events unfolded, none of the citizen comments fully explained complex factors such as high inflation, high unemployment, an energy crisis, a declining dollar, high government spending and jobs going overseas because of deindustrialization.
Carter lost his 1980 re-election bid to Ronald Reagan who offered voters an enticing “vision of America”. The economic tool Reagan employed to achieve that vision was “supply side economics”, which promoted economic growth by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation and encouraging international trade. Over the years, supply-side economics lost its political sheen, though some Republicans still profess its efficacy.
What’s Ahead in 2024
Trump’s presidential election strategy appears well-entrenched. He wants to be seen and heard in every news cycle, even if it is in the hallway of a courtroom where is on trial.
Biden’s strategy, at least for now, appears focused on touting achievements in his first term, including job growth, historically low unemployment and passage of major legislation to invest in infrastructure.
Trump’s pathway back to the White House is paved by promoting that his grievances are synonymous to the nation’s woes. He promises to stir the pot and save the nation from a mix of communism, Marxism and cultural decay.
Even though his head-to-head poll numbers are sneaking up, Biden’s path to re-election is well-defined, but uncertain to achieve. He needs to rekindle the coalition, including young voters, who propelled him to victory in 2020. Pundits identify seven key swing states that will determine who wins the most electoral votes. Polls indicate Biden trails Trump in most of those states.
Trump is counting on disenchanted Democrats, including Black and Latino voters, to give him the edge, especially in swing states like Nevada and Arizona. Biden needs to shore up his winning coalition in 2020 that included suburban women and young voters.
The impact of Israeli warfare in Gaza has opened divisions in Democratic ranks and Trump is juggling how to address abortion without alienating his pro-life supporters.
There are no signs Biden and his campaign are heeding Linker’s call for a major change in strategy.
