Tag: mandate

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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An ‘Agenda’ Filled With Executive Orders

By Bryan Williams

Copious amounts of ink have been spilled since Joe Biden became president-elect about his vision for the country. Some have even said he has a mandate based on the record 78.7 million people who voted for him. Really? 50.9 percent is a mandate?

I expect a lot of Joe's first 100 days -- or even the first two years of his term -- will be government by executive order. We have a divided government, and that will most likely still be the case after Georgia choses its two U.S. Senators in its runoff elections in early January. Divided government is good in that no one person or party can steamroll through a partisan agenda. Look at what the Democrats did with Obamacare when they owned the White House and the Capitol building, or what the Republicans did with the tax cuts early in President Trump's term.

I think we too often look towards the government to define American life and history when we should look more towards our people: no government told Henry Ford to build a car, no government told Jeff Bezos to sell books online, and no government told Andy Warhol to paint.

Joe Biden will most likely be a caretaker president and won’t make any sea changes. One area he may have a slight effect is in foreign affairs. There is a lot of work to do to re-engage America in the world after Trump's retrenchment. I am a bit fearful of what Biden may do regarding foreign affairs. I mean, he advised against sending in the strike team that killed Osama bin Laden. I'm sure he'll bring the US back into the Paris Accords, but last time I checked, the skies in my neighborhood wasn't so much polluted by CO2 released by humans as it was by massive forest fires that no international accord could account for.

Here's to governmental gridlock. May Joe Biden's term shift the focus to the innovators and people that fill our great fruited plain with ideas, hard work, and hopes and dreams.

Williams is a mental health professional and former Republican party official in California.

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It’s Not the Masks We Reject; It’s the Mandate

By Bryan Williams

Joe Biden is running on a promise to America that he would protect us better from COVID-19 than Trump and his team. He has even gone so far as to say he would implement a national mask mandate. If the past 7 months has shown us anything it’s that Americans really don’t like being told what to do. But we’ve known that forever anyway - I mean a bunch of dudes threw perfectly good tea into Boston Harbor in the 1700s because they didn’t like King George telling them what to do.

We can go back and forth all day, split hairs over when a travel ban from China was put in place until we’re blue in the face, or whether or not President Trump wearing a mask would have made a big difference in the number of deaths related to COVID-19. I have never really given much credence to any of the above, and just go with what I know from my little corner of the world, and yes, I know this is anecdotal.

At the height of the pandemic, I worked in a mental health crisis clinic. We had no employer-provided masks for weeks and the layout of our building made it so social distancing was simply not possible. We also had no limit to the number of people we could admit. Patients we admitted were anyone from anywhere, most of them users of substances that inhaled, ingested, or intravenously injected those illicit substances with other people most assuredly in distances less than 6 feet, and many of them homeless. No one at my clinic in March through May 2020 contracted COVID-19 (my last day there was in May).

Then, in June, my family and I visited my parents (in their 60s) and grandparents (83 and 82) in Northern Nevada. All of us have used our common sense during the pandemic: we’ve worn masks everywhere we go, we socially distance ourselves as much as possible, and we limit our contact with others. Not a single one of us has contracted the coronavirus, and I think it’s because of my family’s common sense, prudence, and overall good health (we don’t smoke, vape or drink alcohol in excess, and we’re not morbidly obese).

What’s my point? I don’t think political leadership has a lot to do with whether or not people begin wearing masks or socially distance themselves more. Now I now work in a hospital, and I am around doctors all day. I cannot begin to tell you how many of them “wear” their mask with their nose still protruding in naked glory. These are men and women that should know better! Joe Biden mandating mask wearing won’t make these doctors pull their mask up over their nose. That old American chestnut -- personal responsibility -- still holds. Please wear a mask, and don’t party, okay? I just don’t want Joe Biden to tell me what to do. Donald J. Trump gets that.

Williams is a mental health professional in California and a former Republican party official.

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