The inaugurations are always a moment of hope and warmth, followed by the cold and confused reality of governing.
And this is particularly true with Joe Biden’s tenure. It’s like going from Lady Gaga’s soothing tones to Mitch McConnell’s monotonous sound.
The stories of President Biden’s first full day in office – and the first full day of the media without Donald Trump – have an exhilarating tone, as if journalists suddenly remember that the country is going through extremely difficult times.
“Biden faces a confluence of crises,” shouted the headline in the New York Times.
And even if Biden somehow wears an FDR cover, no president would have the superpowers needed to win the pandemic, revive the economy, achieve racial justice and heal the deep divisions that reached their depressing peak in the siege of the Capitol. It is a long walk ahead.
Biden acknowledged all these problems and more in his union speech, but the prevailing emotion that swept the media landscape on Wednesday, justly or unfairly, was relief from Trump’s death. Yesterday, there was a worrying recovery from that high.
Every candidate faces the transition from poetry to prose, as Mario Cuomo once said, using the heavy tools of government bureaucracy to move mountains. Biden certainly did not soften the task ahead. He talked about the coronavirus more than any other subject, and on the day he took power, the country broke another record for a day, with the pandemic killing 4,367 Americans.
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As the president said in a speech to lower Covid’s expectations yesterday: “We are not getting into this mess overnight and it will take months to reverse this situation.”
But just as the Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for half a century, Biden and his allies will no doubt say, at least for a year or two, that Trump left him a crippled country.
Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post: “If it was a day for him to celebrate this achievement, it was also a day for counting on what the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency did for the country and the monumental task of repair and restoration that is now the responsibility of the new president.
John Dickerson of CBS, writing for Atlantic, said: “Joe Biden has a real chance of being a boring president. This will require constant work …
“A president who tries to fit this mold may not keep the country fascinated, but it will be effective. The Apprentice ‘was of the habits of effective corporate governance. “
National Review’s Rich Lowry, writing in the Politico, says that Biden prepared for failure in front of the unit. He says the media is more polarized and “parties have become increasingly purely organized in ideological, cultural and geographical opposition to each other. These differences cannot be overcome simply by good faith and goodwill”.
Lowry wrote: “Basically, Biden will not seek consensus, a bipartisan agenda, but progressive. This is his right. He is a Democrat who has always been at the center of gravity of his party, who has always moved to the left. the decades. “
That’s true; elections have consequences. Biden was not saying that he did not expect disagreements, he was arguing that they can be resolved in a more civilized way. Maybe it’s a fantasy. Biden’s belief is rooted in the endless negotiations he had as a senator and vice president, but that world has changed.
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It was also fascinating to see Jen Psaki, the new White House press secretary, receiving praise for conducting a normal and somewhat monotonous meeting with reporters. Drawing inevitable comparisons to Sean Spicer’s biggest-ever debut, Psaki conquered the room by professing his “deep respect for the role of a free and independent press”. Therefore, “enemy of the people” is now officially retired.
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A former Obama administration spokesman, Psaki is very quiet behind the podium, avoiding questions (as in Trump’s impeachment trial) that she had no desire to answer. She said on a morning show that Biden emphasized the importance of “tone”, so while I’m sure there will be combative instructions, they are unlikely to be unpleasant. Perhaps most of them are not televised.
For me, the best part of Biden’s prime time special – aside from Springsteen’s music – was the video of three former presidents talking about union and a peaceful transition. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton expressed it differently, but they were on the same page. Perhaps the tedious work of a slow government will be a relief after all.