Ask A Genius 598: Biden-Harris Administration
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/07/04
July 4, 2021
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What do you expect from the Biden-Harris administration? Also, what have you seen from the Biden-Harris administration? Should I reverse the order of those questions based on how you were answering them?
Rick Rosner: Are we recording?
Jacobsen: Yes.
Rosner: Ok. So, I don’t remember who the quote is from, but you can Google it. Somebody said, some political pundit, that you can tell how bad the previous administration was by how long it takes to undo the damage they caused. And, in this way, as in most other indices of badness, the Trump administration was the worst of our lifetimes. I’m twice as old as you. CNN just did a presidential survey of presidential historians, and Trump only came in fourth worst, behind Franklin Pierce, Buchanan, Fillmore, and Pierce, Buchanan, Trump. The three presidents leading up to Lincoln. And maybe Johnson, the president after Lincoln. But people don’t think the survey was good because his highest marks for effectiveness of communication, because he effectively made a third of the country insane. He was only the 32nd worst president, so that raised his overall marks up a little bit. And people are saying that was a shitty survey because it only ranked the effectiveness of his communication, rather than the truthfulness and helpfulness of this community anyway. He did surprisingly well, coming in as the 41st shittiest president out of 44.
Jacobsen: Who is the utter shittiest?
Rosner: Well, Trump. It’s the survey that was flawed for the reason I just cited. And there’s going to be another survey, a better survey of presidential historians next year. And Trump, in 2018 before he’d really fucked stuff up, he came in last on that one. And these are bipartisan surveys. They do lean leftish, but they do include conservative historians. So I expect him to anyway. Whether he was the worst ever or the worst since before the Civil War, he was bad. And that’s bad because a huge amount of damage, and the damage is ongoing because, you know, there are tens of millions of Americans who are still deranged. Not that he was 100 percent responsible for their derangement, but he really, you know, broke open the piñata.
So it’s been bad for the country, but it’s been goodish for Biden-Harris because it hasn’t been that tough to do better than Trump did. His approval means higher than Trump’s, though depressed versus other recent presidents because things are so polarized now and people are so locked into their teams. But, you know, Biden’s been doing pretty well. The job market has been recovering. Two-thirds of the nation has been vaccinated, though two-thirds is not enough to clean up COVID, especially with the Delta variant now responsible for nearly half of the cases in the U.S. and a lot of the Trumpy states not really pushing vaccinations because they want to keep being fucked up so they can blame it on Biden.
The concern is that if the Democrats stick to old norms and fail to be assertive, hoping that goodness will prevail, they will face a significant defeat in 2022 and struggle to pass further legislation. This could jeopardize the integrity of the electoral process, leading to unfair national elections and the decline of the United States. This fear seems valid, especially considering that the Republicans have abandoned any moral principles and trapped themselves in an extremist demographic. In the current American political landscape, it is challenging for a centrist candidate to win, particularly within the Republican Party, which has become morally bankrupt at the national level.
While it can be argued that there were instances of major U.S. political parties being worse than the current Republicans, such as during the robber baron era or the lead-up to the Civil War, the individual politicians currently holding national office for the Republican Party are the most despicable group to have been elected. They lack any moral compass, prioritize their donors’ interests, and cater to brainwashed extremists influenced by Fox News. If the Republicans gain a majority in either house, they will act without restraint, and the potential damage to the electoral system is unpredictable.
According to popular belief, the Democrats have about a year or 18 months to pass national electoral legislation to combat voter suppression; otherwise, American democracy will be at stake. Some people argue that there is sufficient time, and the Democrats, not being fools, will take the necessary actions. However, history has shown that they have been reluctant to violate established norms, including eliminating the filibuster. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Thus far, Biden’s performance has been satisfactory, with the country recovering from the pandemic, despite the looming threat of the Delta variant. The upcoming wave of COVID-19 might not be as severe, but it remains uncertain whether any significant action will be taken. Approximately 15,000 new cases and 300-400 deaths occur daily in the U.S., much lower than the peak figures of previous waves. Nevertheless, this still amounts to around 120,000 deaths per year if the vaccination refusal persists.
The Republicans could exploit this situation to portray Biden as a failure. Although Biden’s first six months have been positive, the success of his next six months depends on whether he and the Senate are willing to break historical precedents to achieve progress, particularly in the areas of infrastructure and voting rights. If they fail to do so, the consequences will be dire.
[End of recorded material]
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 