What, exactly, is the Biden administration’s purpose?
What, exactly, is the Biden administration’s purpose?
P resident Biden says that he is engaged “in a battle for the soul of this nation.” The trouble is, he doesn’t seem quite sure what that means.
It is not unfair to ask: What is the Biden administration? What is its purpose? What, besides a haphazard rehashing of Absolutely Everything Progressives Have Ever Thought Of, is its program? Joe Biden became president because the alternative was reelecting Donald Trump, and, much to his detriment, Joe Biden has never managed to transcend that elementary fact. Eighteen months in, his presidency still lacks a theme, a focus, a narrative. The most pressing issues facing the country — inflation, debt, energy — all seem to bore him. His foreign policy is non-existent. His domestic priorities are determined by the transient concerns of Elizabeth Warren’s emissaries to the White House and by the trending bar on Twitter. “Who is really in charge?” Biden’s critics like to ask. The question assumes too much. Nobody is in charge, because there’s nothing to be in charge of. One might as well ask who is in charge of a feather floating in the wind.
Around and around Biden spins — smiling here, glaring there, emitting sparks without kindling, telling stories without meaning, gesturing without function, striding purposelessly back and forth in search of something, anything, that might reverse his slide toward irrelevance. Rudderless, he motions momentarily toward tackling inflation, and then moves on to something else. Desperate, he forswears responsibility: Gas prices are up? That’s the oil companies’ fault. Hopeful, he snatches responsibility: Gas prices are down? That’s Dark Brandon’s doing! Impotently, he yells and intones and lectures, flitting between ersatz solemnity and peremptory ire with no perceptible loss of vim. We have a crisis in this country, he says, in whispers. What is that crisis? It’s Trump and his friends. Or, maybe, it’s everyone in the Republican Party, or pro-lifers, or apologists for Wall Street, or people with bad policy ideas. It’s something; he just hasn’t quite decided what yet. He’ll get back to you on that.
When Biden said that he could sum up America in a single word, and that that single word was “asufutimaehaehfutbw,” he was inadvertently onto something. Often, Biden reaches for words that aren’t quite there, and perhaps never were — “Regoduwidadefi,” “Trunalimunumaprzure” — and, often, it doesn’t especially matter, because he wasn’t saying anything comprehensible to begin with. And so it is with his conception of the United States. Online, Biden acolytes pretend that the man is Demosthenes without the pebbles. Biden will utter a keyword aloud — “Unity” or “Democracy” or “Honor” — and his fans will cluck along. “Now that is leadership,” they will enthuse. “It’s so nice to have a president who . . .”
Though it’s never how they finish the sentence, “a president who isn’t Donald Trump” is always what they mean to say. But not being Donald Trump is not a philosophy, a worldview, or an agenda; it’s a staffing choice. And besides, the keywords that he throws around to signal that his administration has some substantive purpose are invariably inaccurate. He’s not a uniter. He’s not a moderate. He’s not honorable. He’s not competent. He’s a weak, partisan hypocrite who has survived half a century in public service because he’s willing to change with the political winds.
Every few months, Biden invites a cabal of historians to the White House and asks them who he is, as if he were playing dress-up at Halloween. Is he FDR? Is he LBJ? Is he Lincoln? This question should ring alarm bells, but does it? Not enough, no. I have always comprehended why so many Republicans decided in 2020 that they were going to vote for Joe Biden. I have never understood why some of those people feel the need to keep insisting that Joe Biden is a useful or admirable person.
Joe Biden is not a useful or admirable person today. And he won’t be one tomorrow, or the next day, or any of the chaotic days after that. Instead, Biden’s presidency is destined to serve as a study in contrasts: between grandiose bluster and awkward inadequacy, lofty promises and vicious reflexes, and what people wish were true and what actually is.