When he arrived in the Oval Office as president for the first time a year ago, Joe Biden had as his main challenges beating Covid, recovering the economy and trying to pacify infighting in US society and politics. A year later, the list remains largely the same, compounded by tension even among Democrats.
A clear reminder of the polarization was given last 6, when Republican congressmen failed to attend ceremonies commemorating the five deaths that took place in the invasion of Congress by Trump supporters. Some even accused the White House of politicizing the date.
Biden took advantage of that speech to put aside the conciliatory tone and made direct attacks on Trump, calling him a “defeated former president” – before, he sought to act as if his predecessor did not exist.
“The president said he would try to unite the country. His comments [recentes] don’t suggest he’s trying to bring us together again,” said Republican Senator Mitt Romney. “He has to recognize that when he was elected, people didn’t expect him to transform America. They wanted to get back to normal, stop the madness.”
The Democrat’s inauguration did indeed return the White House to a routine of normalcy. Trump attacked opponents (“Hillary should be arrested”), lied (“it was the greatest possession in history”), criticized the press (“enemies of the people”) and launched absurd proposals (“what if we buy Greenland?”) frequently. . Many of these messages came through social networks, sometimes at dawn.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, is marked by a certain predictability, with actions almost always announced in advance to the press and spaces for journalists to ask questions. The president seeks a polite treatment in public and defends the rights of minorities in his speeches.
Predictability, however, does not mean always winning. Biden failed to unite the country around the fight against Covid, for example. He has made numerous speeches to convince Americans to get vaccinated, but the rate of the population fully immunized has stagnated at 63% as Republican governors take action against mandatory face masks.
The highs of contagion also have effects on the economy, with a lack of workers in several areas and failures in the supply chain. Inflation of 7% a year, a percentage not seen in the country since the 1980s, erodes the purchasing power of Americans.
In a press conference to mark a year in office on Wednesday (19), which lasted about two hours, Biden said his administration had a year of challenges, but of enormous progress – he cited the vaccination of 210 million Americans, the reduction child poverty by 40% and the creation of 6 million jobs in 2021, a record. He stated that he is satisfied with the management of the pandemic, but acknowledged that it is still a challenge.
“Covid is not going to go away right away. But we are heading to a time when it will no longer hinder our daily routine, but it will be something we can protect ourselves from. We are in a much better place than we were a year ago. lockdowns and closing schools.”
The president also said that he knows that the country is not united as it should be and admitted that he did not communicate as well with segments such as the black population. On foreign policy, he stressed that he thinks Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine and, more than that, “test the West, the US and NATO as much as he can” — but that the price for that will be high, to the point that the Russian regret.
To improve the economy, Biden advocates more investment in infrastructure and social benefits for poor and middle-class families. But a vast social package, worth nearly $2 trillion, has been stalled in Congress for months, due to a lack of agreement among Democrats.
Biden said he is willing to split the package into several parts to try for approval, but he is not considering backing out. “I’m not asking for castles in the sky, but for doable things that Americans have been waiting for a long time.”
Amid scenes of full hospitals and empty grocery store shelves, his approval rating has stagnated at around 43% — when he took office, it was 55%. In the first months of government, vaccination against Covid advanced rapidly, the economy showed signs of recovery and face-to-face activities were resumed. In March, Biden approved a $1.9 trillion economic and pandemic rescue package that resulted in more money being sent directly to American families.
An indirect effect of this aid, still under study, is that more people have decided to leave low-earning jobs, in a move dubbed “great resignation.” The number of resignations topped 4 million per month.
Biden had hoped that the 4th of July holiday would mark independence from the pandemic, but it didn’t. As early as June, the pace of vaccination stagnated, before half of Americans were fully immunized. At the same time, the number of Covid cases was on the rise again. The country did not close activities, but thousands of people died.
In August, the Democrat had to deal with his biggest crisis yet: the chaotic exit of US troops from Afghanistan, which ended with the Taliban regaining control of the country. The scene of locals trying to cling to moving planes shocked them. Biden’s experience, who spent years dealing with international issues as a senator and vice president, didn’t save him either.
He went public several times trying to explain the mistakes in Afghanistan, but without admitting them, and his approval plummeted. Starting in September, Biden sought to focus on approving two investment packages. One of them, infrastructure, was approved in November, and provides for almost US$ 2 trillion in spending.
For Sérgio Amaral, a Cebri researcher and former Brazilian ambassador to the US, the approval of the program with Republican support was a sign that Biden was able to break through some resistance. “There are a large number of Republicans who still defend Trump’s positions. But, by the numbers, the former president has not had an increase in support: two-thirds of the Republican electorate still defend him, but they are only about 30% of Americans” , ponders.
The text of the infrastructural package only reached agreement after the Democratic defeat in Virginia’s state election in November. Biden was personally engaged in the campaign, but he did not avoid the Republican victory, rocked by behavioral issues and the so-called culture wars. Upon taking office as governor, Glenn Youngkin ordered an end to the mask requirement in classrooms.
Other proposals by the president remain locked in Congress. After weeks of stalemate, Biden began 2022 advocating changes to Senate rules to prevent the Republican minority from obstructing important projects, and changes to the country’s electoral laws to broaden access to the vote. The proposal wants to unify electoral rules across the country — today each state defines its own. Republicans say this is an attempt to curtail the autonomy of subnational entities, one of the foundational pillars of the country.
“Biden e [Kamala] Harris campaigned on addressing inequality, especially racial inequality. But we saw that the money that was supposed to go to black farmers didn’t make it to them. And questions about police reform didn’t make it to the Senate,” says Rashwan Ray, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and an associate at the Brookings Institute. “These frustrated expectations should worry Democrats in the upcoming election.”
This Wednesday, recognizing his frustrations, the president denied having promised more than he could deliver.
In 2022, his major internal challenge will be the midterm legislative election in November, when his party could lose the narrow majorities it has in Congress – which would lead to a final stretch of term with little power to act. Biden says he wants to get out of the White House more this year and get involved in the campaign. The result of the election could determine which face he will enter the Oval Office with on January 20, 2023.
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