View this email in your browser

 

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

Biden the Silent

The Democrats' 'messaging problem' is partly due to Biden's
avoidance of the biggest bully pulpit, one only a president can use.

My colleague Bob Kuttner has a terrific piece

up today on how Democrats should navigate today's troubled political
waters, commending Sens. Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown, as well as
that onetime senator who now resides in the White House, for getting it
essentially right. What unites this trio, Bob writes, is their advocacy
for progressive populist economic reforms, their opposition to the
financialization and corporatization of American life, and their support
for social as well as economic justice-but situating that support
within an affirmation of the nation's best traditions rather than
treating those traditions as trash.

The course Bob lays out is one that the Democrats have to follow if
they're to have a viable future, which requires winning back a number
of the working-class voters-of all races-who haven't seen much on
offer or much they can identify with from the Democrats in recent
decades. And the Democrat who most needs to heed Bob's counsel is none
other than that White House resident.

Because of the myriad critiques that Democrats are leveling at their own
party these days as they analyze Biden's sinking poll numbers-he's
too left, he's not left enough, he's too timid, and so on-the one
that most resonates with me is that he's too silent.

Who, after all, has dominated the news in defining what's in the Build
Back Better bill? It's not Biden; it's Joe Manchin, who opines
almost daily on its size, while seldom getting around to discussing its
particulars, since they're wildly popular. To be sure, Biden has gone
on the road to speak at events that highlight one or another of those
particulars, but these generally non-prime-time appearances haven't
really made a dent in the media's simplified portrayal of the bill as
a big spending package.

What Biden hasn't done is seize the bully pulpit as only a president
can. Last week, my colleague David Dayen, in writing about how
corporations are hiking their profit margins under the cover of
inflation and supply-chain gridlock, noted

that JFK, when confronted with an inflationary price hike from U.S.
Steel, secured national prime-time all-network coverage of an address he
delivered from the Oval Office attacking the company for raising the
cost of living despite its pledge not to.

Yes, I know, there are now somewhere between 300 and a gazillion
networks and streaming services rather than the three that dominated the
airwaves and the national discussion in JFK's time. Nonetheless, a
prime-time Oval Office address would at least command the attention of
anyone watching the legacy networks and the news networks. It still
provides presidents with the biggest megaphone available to them. And
Biden has yet to use it.

It's time he did, to spell out what's actually in both the
infrastructure bill and Build Back Better. It will soon be time he went
the prime-time route to make the case for the voting rights legislation
that will come before the Senate early next year, in which he will have
to talk about why voting rights are more fundamental to maintaining a
democracy than the Senate's filibuster rule.

He can make those cases in his State of the Union address early next
year, but that in itself won't suffice. His ongoing avoidance of a
prime-time Oval Office talk with the nation, which has helped enable his
intraparty adversaries to block his agenda, has been an abdication of
presidential power and responsibility that has played a major role in
bringing down both his standing and his party's.

There's been a good deal of talk around town (D.C., of course) that
Biden's counselors are wary of putting him in that kind of national
spotlight for fear that he'll flub his lines. That may be a reasonable
fear, but in avoiding that risk, Biden is also forfeiting the reward
that comes from selling his program and dominating the discourse.
That's a helluva lot for a president, and his party, to forfeit.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

[link removed]

Succession

Hakeem Jeffries is the heir apparent to Nancy Pelosi. Little 
has been
made of his record. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

The Biden Paradox

The elements of Joe Biden's program are phenomenally popular, yet his
approval ratings keep sinking. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

Ahmaud Arbery and the Legacy of White Fear

A jury rendered justice in the Georgia case. What happens the next time?
BY GABRIELLE GURLEY

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

Click to Share this Newsletter

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

DID YOU KNOW?
Per the Cares Act extension

for 2021 charitable donations, you can deduct up to $600 from your taxes
even if you don't itemize.

The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
Copyright (C) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.

To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here .
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States