Some time in the second half of my undergraduate years at Northwestern University in Chicago, I went out of my way to hear a U.S. Senator speak on campus. He was either declared or about to declare his candidacy for president in the 1988 race. He was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a new-era Democrat with prospects. He addressed an all-university audience in a large lecture hall, and I can’t remember the particulars beyond a broad defense of democracy and civic engagement, but I came away really uplifted and inspired. It was my first impression of a national politician in person, and I liked him. I liked Joe Biden.
How different the times are now. Our national political life is a train wreck, with mass distrust of critical institutions and a right wing that’s larger and more stoked with fury than anything I ever imagined could rise up in America. The country is enduring multiple crises, including the worst pandemic in a century and a climate spiraling out of control. We need an exceptional leader more than at any time since at least (checks notes) the last time a Republican wrapped up a presidential term with the wheels coming off the country. That doesn’t mean a superhero, just some level-headed wisdom, managerial competence and respect for expertise. It means empathy and a moral compass. With that in mind, I cast my vote yesterday for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with higher hopes than I expected when Biden emerged as the party front runner. He may be the man history called for this moment.
Joe wasn’t the first choice for a lot of Democrats, myself included. He’s an elderly guy with some hard-wired dispositions and beliefs that aren’t in synch with the realities of 2020. But in these difficult months, running against a mendacious bully, Biden hasn’t tried to feign anything. His run has been encouragingly free of malarkey, as promised. Instead he’s steadily emphasized his best qualities - the ones America is craving: experience and decency. Biden has been running for president on and off since 1988, always with a bright outlook and a pragmatic attitude. His time seemed at hand in 2016, when he was the incumbent vice president and a potentially less divisive alternative to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. But the untimely death of his son Beau, came at just the moment he needed to be entirely focused and energized, and I feel like part of our national tragedy today stems from that cruel coincidence. I think he’d have won in 2016, and I think he’ll win this election, because as stubborn as Trump’s support base has been, it was already eroding under his withering parade of lies, and it has finally cracked in the face of his catastrophic mismanagement of a foreseen public health crisis.
Yet decency and integrity are vehicles and values, not end goals. Massive policy and political struggles await the new administration, and it’s worth noticing the highs and lows of Biden’s career to get a sense on how we, as citizens with a deep stake in the months to come, can support and shape the Biden/Harris presidency. He’s taken heat for his central role in writing and enacting the 1994 omnibus crime bill that ushered in an age of prison-packing mandatory sentencing and other mistakes. But there are some mitigating factors here. I was in Washington when it was debated and passed, and you have to put yourself in the position of Democrats who were getting creamed for seeming to not have solutions for a surge in drug dealing and violent crime. The problem was real. The party, led by a centrist Bill Clinton, wrote a bi-partisan plan for better or worse. It was a creature of the compromises necessary to make a functioning democracy work. And in that law, for its unintended consequences, we got a federal assault weapons ban, which should never have been allowed to expire, and the Violence Against Women Act, which Biden sponsored and championed. Also inspiring is Biden’s rather maverick move to support same-sex marriage in May of 2012, while President Obama was still waffling. His surprise coming-out, as it were, is said to have forced Obama’s hand and it marked the moment that the Democratic Party officially got behind the long-fought cause. Biden’s been unfortunately wrong in opposing cannabis legalization, but Harris put a marker down on its behalf in her debate, so there will be voices in his ear backing it as part of a new slate of criminal justice reforms.
If you want to get actually excited about Biden’s prospects, look at his climate/energy plan. Wired magazine recently praised it: “In August, Biden announced a $2 trillion, four-year climate plan designed to steer energy policy away from coddling Big Oil and toward bolstering green energy. He’s outlined...reducing carbon emissions and creating 10 million jobs by building out a green energy infrastructure. The financing would come from a combination of corporate income taxes and government stimulus funds.” Biden was bold in the debates about transitioning away from fossil fuels. He’s proposed a new era Civilian Conservation Corps to do the badly needed forest management that isn’t getting done because we’re so strained fighting fires. He wants to do major grid infrastructure investment, which tops the country’s hit parade of Utterly Obvious Must Do Policies. I’m not that impressed with the Green New Deal, which is a sprawling wish list of progressive dreams, some of which distract from the goal of ending the Carbon Era of energy.
I sometimes cringe at Biden’s faith in bipartisan compromise, because we’ve seen so much single-minded partisan warfare from the 21st century GOP. But I can’t deny a president the chance to show America he is trying to unite and find common ground. And who knows? Biden’s got old friendships on the Hill, and he did some behind the scenes dealing on certain lower profile but important issues during the Obama years where Republicans did come along. I just appreciate his happy warrior vibe and the way he communicates confidence in the American people and institutions. I’m impressed that the full spectrum of the Democratic party appears to be rallying unapologetically behind him, which was never the case with Hillary and wouldn’t have been the case this year with Bernie Sanders. I’m also excited that it’s a ticket with a powerful, exceptional woman who I’m betting will herself be president next. Biden is a bridge figure, a final hurrah of the post WWII American middle class compact, and I think he’ll set progressives and liberals up to succeed in the decade to come.