Biden Has Gotten A Lot Done. Acknowledge Him.

Biden Is The Reigning Legislative Champion Of American Politics

I confess that I did not believe that Joe Biden would have the latitude to get much done substantively in the first few years of his presidency. With narrow congressional margins and the absolute mess of things that Trump made, I believed that stopping the bleeding and merely resetting things to “normal” was the best we could collectively hope for.

Thankfully I was wrong. Not only was the American Rescue Plan filled with more direct spending than the 2009 Recovery Act under President Barack Obama, but Biden followed it up with a roster of serious legislative achievements that will resonate for a long time. The CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and most importantly the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Even the legislation where I would argue that the results are middling – the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – at least he got something on the books about guns, which hasn’t been done in a long time.

With this in mind, there’s a notion swirling around in some Democratic pundit/advice circles that the president shouldn’t be too triumphalist. The argument was recently articulated by former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod:

Axelrod, who was former President Obama’s campaign strategist, said it’s “absolutely true” that the economy has significantly improved under Biden.

“But that’s not the way people are experiencing the economy,” he said in a CNN appearance. “They are experiencing it through the lens of the cost of living. He is a man who’s built his career on empathy, why not lead with the empathy?”

“I think he’s making a terrible mistake,” he continued. “If he doesn’t win this race, it may not be Donald Trump that beats him, it may be his own pride.”

In most contexts this is a silly notion, but in the context of the world we operate in at this time, its really dumb. We don’t live in a subtle age and frankly America has never been a subtle nation. This is the country that began its life as a middle finger to the vaunted British Empire and for better or worse bragging is a core component of our national character.

This election is about a choice between Donald Trump and Biden. With Trump we have oodles of braggadocio with nothing but failure to show for it. He screwed up the COVID response. He couldn’t do basic things like acknowledging the Holocaust in a competent way. He even screwed up on conservative priorities: He never built his wall, nor did he get Mexico to pay for what little of it he erected in the first place.

On the other hand, Biden got things done. You could certainly make the argument, with no disrespect to the Recovery Act and Obamacare, that he got more substantive legislation in four years than Obama got in eight.

I make no bones about the fact that I am a wrestling fan and one of the best gimmicks in wrestling over the last few years was bad guy heel Roman Reigns during his time as the WWE Universal Champion. Reigns was champ for years in a world where title reigns usually last for a few months. Every time he came to the ring, he would march in to an over-the-top musical fanfare accompanied by his glittering title belt. He would soak up the boos from the crowd as he stood in the middle of the ring. Then, Reigns would take the microphone and begin every appearance with the same two words.

“Acknowledge me.”

It was essentially Reigns telling the audience that he is great, that he owned the title, and that he would defeat all challengers. He would sometimes go on to define himself as operating in “GOD mode,” aka “Greatness On a Different level.” It was ridiculous, especially because usually Reigns held onto the belt by cheating.

But it’s just the right kind of posture to take for our time. I’m not saying Biden has to be an ass about what he has done and certainly should demonstrate a level of empathy – another bonus for him over the moral vacuum that is Trump – but he should operate with the same confident posture on his legislative wins as Roman Reigns.

Trump didn’t get the job done, Biden beat him at the big title bout in November 2020 and since then Biden, with the assistance of almost exclusively Democratic votes in the House and Senate, scored a series of wins in the major political fights over the last four years.

Economic stimulus? Acknowledge him. Infrastructure spending? Acknowledge him. Gun safety bill? Acknowledge him. Green spending? Acknowledge him. Cutting insulin costs? Acknowledge him. Restoring sanity to the highest elected office in the United States? Acknowledge him.

Everything isn’t perfect and there is enormous room for improvement but when it comes to the things he has unabashedly gotten right, Biden should be the loudest advocate for what he got done that others could not, especially the failure that directly preceded him in the office.

Acknowledge Joe Biden.

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— Oliver

Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Threads @owillis1977

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