I wrote a lot of Democrats in Disarray stories during the past 50 years. They were entirely justified. Disarray is the natural state of a party based on coalition not ideology or melanin-deprivation. Which is why this moment is so extraordinary: Joe Biden—whose political acumen has always been underrated—seems to be doing everything right politically, especially when it comes to playing the assorted Demo factions. If he chooses to run for reelection in 2024, and all systems seem to be go, he will romp to the Democratic nomination. He has locked up the support of most of his strongest potential opponents. His instincts, from Ukraine to the Silicon Valley Bank to China, seem solid—good policy and good politics. (His willingness to demagogue against the need to reform Medicare and Social Security is bad policy but good politics.)
Most important, he is making subtle moves that annoy the left-wing of his party. I would argue that if you’re not annoying the left wing of the Democratic Party, you probably don’t have much chance of getting elected President. And I’ve been struck by how muted the response from the left has been to his recent maneuverings on crime, immigration and the environment—all of which were defensive, tactical and peripheral rather than aggressive steps toward Sanity Caucus moderation. They were gestures, not policies.
One example: His willingness to scuttle the local Washington, DC crime bill was all about Negative Ad Protection. It was inelegant to override Home Rule in the capital; it was probably worse than that—the colonial disenfranchisement of Washington’s citizenry remains a national scandal, based in racial discrimination. (At least, let Washingtonians vote as Marylanders, or Virginians, for the Senate and Congress.) But what sort of progressive ninnies would lower the sentences for violent crimes like car-jacking? Why do that? Beats me…so Biden’s political team—and they are excellent—prevented the possibility of this GOP ad in 2024: Biden Supports Car-Jackers!
More Negative Ad Protection, but good policy: the decision to allow the Willow oil-drilling project to go forward in Alaska. I’m righteous, if not crazed, about the environment. I’ve been driving a hybrid for a decade. We recycle religiously. I’ve become a minor league pantheist, finding deep spirituality in the natural order. (You might want to read Karen Armstrong’s Sacred Nature.) My fanaticism is tempered, however, by my suspicion that science will produce energy-efficient answers to mediate the crisis before we kill the earth. But even under the best case scenarios, we’re going to need petroleum for a range of products, including gasoline, for the next decade(s) to facilitate the transition to alternative fuels. So, drill baby, drill—a little. And preserve baby, preserve—a lot. Biden has struck the proper balance here.
I can’t defend Biden’s move to continue Trump’s punitive policies toward refugee families at the border. In fact, I believe he has a moral responsibility that transcends politics to produce a comprehensive immigration policy. It’s an issue that warrants a real public policy fight. Yes, by all means, shut down the border—do it as dramatically as necessary—but let’s legalize the Dreamers and increase legal immigration, especially for people coming to us with useful skills. You see all those help-wanted signs on almost every factory in the land? We need more people.
That said, I’m not entirely confident that Joe Biden will be our next President. As John Ellis never tires of pointing out, 80% of Americans don’t want him to be. I believe that’s a soft 80%, which would be almost halved if folks were asked: Do you want Joe Biden to be reelected if he were running against Donald Trump?
Biden’s age is most definitely an issue, as is McTrump’s. And there are always disasters looming…and what if the banks actually do collapse, or Russia deploys a suitcase nuke in Kyiv, or whatever. But all in all, I think the guy is doing a remarkable job preparing for a reelection campaign in 2024.
My Book Pages
I do a lot of reading, always have. Not as much as my wife, Victoria, who is an addict. But I try to keep up. I usually read on three tracks: Something American—history, politics or race; some other non-fiction—overseas, science, religion (see Karen Armstrong, above); and a novel. They’re usually older books. I somehow can’t bring myself to spring for hardcovers. And I really like the feel and smell of paperbacks. So, from time to time, if I’m reading something interesting, I’ll share it here on Sanity Clause. Like these:
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith. I read everything I can about race in America, especially about the South and slavery…which is now called enslavement, a formulation that seems more accurate. I simply need to keep the wound fresh; anger over how black people were, and are, treated needs to be a conscious presence in my mind. This is especially true because I will sometimes take positions on race that are at variance with white liberals, who love marinating in their own guilt, too often patronizing our black brothers and sisters. So, anyway, Clint Smith is a New Orleans poet. You can tell he’s a poet because he writes gorgeous sentences like, “Memory, for me, is often a home where the furniture has been rearranged one too many times.” No kidding! Word is his exploration of the ravages of slavery in the South, in colonial New York, in Africa, in his family. He begins at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, our most maddening founder. The story told there has changed with the times—Jefferson’s rape of Sally Hemings is now integral to the tour (it may have been consensual but he never freed her). The chapter on the infamous Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana is harrowing, but less satisfying—nowhere does Smith acknowledge that any member of the overwhelmingly black population, who were treated like slaves until very recently, might have been guilty of a crime. That is ahistorical. I want to read what a smart guy like Clint Smith has to say about the enduring problem of black crime. Maybe, in his next book. In the end, he interviews his grandparents who talk about the brutality of segregation in the south. (I remember being shocked by the “white” and “colored” bathrooms in a South Carolina train station on a trip south with my parents in the late 1950s; I refused to use the white one, I peed outside.) The most memorable line in the book comes when Smith asks his grandfather whether there will ever be a time when white people don’t actively work to keep themselves “positioned atop the racial hierarchy.” The old man replies, “Some of them will never give it up.” Some of them! But fewer and fewer. That is progress.
The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman. I love a good spy novel; I even love some bad ones. My favorite American thriller writer was the late Charles McCarry, who went a little right-wing crazy toward the end of his life, but boy, was he fabulous (and hilarious, at times). I will also devour anything by David Ignatius since (a) he’s a friend, (b) he knows the CIA better than any of our contemporaries and (c) he’s made it a habit to keep up with, and write about, the latest cyber, quantum and AI technology. I’ve come to really like Dan Fesperman, too…and his latest, cited above, takes place in Hamburg in the late 1990s, when the Al Qaeda terrorists had an active cell there. To say anything more would spoil the fun. And if any of you out there—the few, the proud, the Sanity Caucus—have spy thriller recommendations for me, send ‘em along.
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I love the opening of your first paragraph!