Tag: Herbert Hoover

Biden’s Short Coattails Predict Two More Years of Split Government

By Todd Lassa

As of Monday morning, 97-percent of the presidential election vote is in and Democrat Joe Biden leads Republican incumbent Donald Trump, 50.9 percent to 47.3 percent, according to the latest count by NBC News. The pertinent number, of course, is 306 to 232, the Electoral College advantage for former Vice President Biden, who has matched the count President Trump had when he beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race. 

Biden’s 50.9-percent most certainly is not a “mandate,” though historians say it is the highest share against an incumbent candidate since Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt beat Republican Herbert Hoover in 1932.

What’s certain about the first half, at least, of Biden’s term as president is that he will not have much success pushing an aggressive, potentially progressive agenda through the 117th Congress. Though Democrats hold on to the House of Representatives, retaining Nancy Pelosi as speaker, the margin has shrunk by eight seats to 224 Democratic to 211 Republican. In the Senate, Democrats must win both January runoffs in Georgia to acquire a 50-50 split and take the majority vote from Republicans, with Vice President-elect Harris providing the tie-breaker.

If Georgia doesn't chose both Democratic candidates over the Republicans in January's Senate race runoffs, Senate Majority Leader McConnell will potentially have as much power in Washington as the president. Followers of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and The Squad are not likely to gain much legislative traction in this scenario.

The “blue wave” many expected this year has been largely restricted to the presidential race, with Republicans making many down-ballot gains, including in state governments. 

It is appropriate, then, that left-column pundit Jim McCraw, a centrist living in The Villages, Florida who supported Biden in the Nov. 3 election provides a recommended agenda for the president-elect. Equally appropriate that right-column pundit Bryan Williams, a former GOP operative in Southern California counters McCraw’s proposals without much serious disagreement. While Williams supported the populist-nationalist Trump in the 2020 election (though not the 2016 election), his own pro-business, laissez-fair agenda is more reminiscent of old-fashioned Mitt Romney conservatism. 

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ACB on the Court Means the End of Gay Rights, Roe vs. Wade

By Chase Wheaton

Before Monday evening’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke to the Senate and painted a vivid picture of the GOP’s mindset regarding its role in the current political landscape, saying “A lot of what we've done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

It seems to me that Senator McConnell has seen the proverbial writing on the wall, and that he knows that the American electorate is turning out in record numbers to demand change, which is why he capitalized on the Supreme Court vacancy before his power as Senate majority leader comes to a close. Whether McConnell believes that Biden will win, that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, or that both will occur, he knows that he will never again be able to influence the country in the name of conservative politics like he can now, and so, similar to a child flipping over a board game just before he or she loses, Donald Trump and the entire GOP knowingly went against the will of the majority of Americans to shape the legal and political landscape of this country in their image for decades to come.

This means that McConnell and Trump have successfully created a Supreme Court that’s more conservative than it has been in almost 70 years, and that represents their own interests, ideals, and beliefs rather than those of the American people. 

Given President Trump’s legislative record, and compared with the number of Supreme Court appointments by previous presidents, this is by far Trump’s greatest accomplishment. For perspective, President Trump, in his one term, has appointed more Supreme Court justices than any other one-term Republican president since Herbert Hoover in 1929. In fact, in recent history, while the Republican party has lost six of the last seven popular votes, they have appointed five of the last nine Supreme Court justices. 

If the Democratic Party has any hope of passing meaningful legislation or creating significant change in the next 10 to 20 years, they must seriously consider expanding the court and adding justices that reflect the values of the American people, and not those of a one-term, impeached president and a power-hungry white man from Kentucky. Otherwise, in a few years, as a gay man, I will be waving goodbye to my right to get married, and millions of women will be waving goodbye to their right to an abortion.

Wheaton is a higher education professional working in university housing, based in Greenville, N.C.

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