I Was Mostly Wrong, but It Does Not Matter
Published at 08:36 on 7 November 2024
My predictions on the likely fate of the Biden presidency four years ago were mostly wrong.
Biden did in fact get his Senate majority, so he was able to enact policy for the most part the proper way, via passing bills through Congress. He actually did pass a fair amount of reforms to increase the power of the working class, which logically is exactly what he should have done to try and chip away at Trump’s base of support in the White working class.
But it doesn’t matter. Biden still failed.
His biggest failure was not directly his failure, but the failure of the Attorney General he appointed: Merrick Garland turned out to be a staunch traditionalist, but the tradition he was particularly staunch about preserving was the American führerprinzip that a president must be above all written law. So Garland dragged his feet about indicting Trump Federally until it was too late.
It was the historic mission of the Biden administration to deal a mortal blow to Trumpist fascism, and the Administration failed in that mission.
Maybe some in the Administration knew the brewing failure, maybe none did. Again, it doesn’t matter. Suppose some did, and Biden was sympathetic to their point of view. He had at that point painted himself in a corner: he campaigned against Trump’s politicization of the Department of Justice, and had promised a hands-off policy. So it was ideologically very difficult for Biden to twist Garland’s arm or threaten him with dismissal and replacement.
Which brings us to a darker and more ominous corner: the Democrats have painted themselves, since 2020, as the enemies of insurrection against a leader with an electoral mandate. Well, Trump now has a clear electoral mandate, and he is about to embark on policies for which a measure of insurrection is the morally justified response.
Even as Trump pardons the January 6th insurrectionists, he will willingly crack down hard on any unrest that arises in response to anything he does. A transition to authoritarian rule is then
by far the most likely result.
And all because the Biden Administration failed in its historic mission of crushing fascism.
Postscript: Jonathan V. Last has an analysis that comes to basically the same conclusions I just did above.