“Look, I think I can work with Republican leadership in the House and the Senate…we can get things done…Once this president is no longer in office, I think you’re going to see his impact on the body politic fade, and a lot of these Republicans are going to feel they’ve got much more room to run and cooperate.”
(Joe Biden)
After the inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden will inherit a failed government with a severe economic crisis and deteriorated healthcare amid the coronavirus pandemic. But Democrats are so confident that Biden compromise with Republicans will make their way easy.
Not only this, but he will also face the opposition, driven by Trump’s ideology, who refused to accept the American mandate.
The blind following of Trump by the Republicans is clear proof that they are not going to let the rhetoric of election fraud go. Joe Biden talked about unifying America as he reiterated that he is also ready to work with the GOP in the American interest.
However, the Republican party, dominated by Donald Trump, believes that the election was illegal, and so does the president of the United States. Trusting Trump-led Republicans will be falsified and misled approach by the Biden administration, as doing so will only disappoint them later.
It seems that Biden has established an optimistic tone toward Republicans responsible for the destruction of the United States during the four years of Trump’s presidency.
Despite pursuing Biden compromise and optimism, convincing Republican leaders who have not even admitted his win is a whole new challenge.
More than 125 Republican congressmen sided with Trump in the recently filed Texas lawsuit. Similarly, only 26 Republicans have so far congratulated Biden for the election win.
Amid all this, what will be the Republicans’ approach to maintain a balance between their boss Trump and the Biden administration? How will they face the wrath of the Trump base, given that Trump is eyeing the 2024 presidential campaign? Is all the optimism of Joe Biden misguided, and will it backfire? Let’s explore.
An Optimistic Yet Falsified Ideology of Biden Compromise
President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will inherit a deeply divided country. American politics had decency in the past, which is no longer here, as the gap between Democrats and Republicans is growing unprecedently.
The hate-driven politics pursued by Donald Trump damaged the country more than anything else. Similarly, the prevailing health crisis also depicts the falsified narrative of Donald Trump, which he propagated amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The worrying part is that most Republicans believe that Trump did not do any harm to the country.
Biden has pitched himself as a person who can compromise with the Republicans for the interest of America. The episode of the coronavirus stimulus package demonstrates how Republicans played politics to make Biden’s presidency hard.
Despite this, Biden compromise settled Democrats for a package of $900 billion instead of their initial demand of $2.2 trillion.
His dream to bridge the gap has been termed unrealistic by progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders, as they believe that GOP leaders cannot be trusted and should be kept away from governmental affairs.
Owing to a rampant divide in both political ideologies, it isn’t easy to anticipate the kind of bipartisan legislation that could be introduced. Climate change, for instance, will be a topmost priority of the Biden administration.
However, Trump refuted it for a long time. Similarly, the foreign policy approaches of both parties also differ drastically. While Biden wants to expand the US role globally, Trump pursued cutting off America from the rest of the world.
These extreme policy approaches evince that despite Biden compromise, it is not easy to bring Republicans to the table.
How Republicans Will Backstab Biden:
“Lindsey’s been a personal disappointment because I was a personal friend of his.”
(Joe Biden)
Lindsey Graham was an old Republican friend of Joe Biden. As Biden won the election, he did not even endorse the victory. Instead, he propagated the baseless claims of election fraud of Donald Trump. Biden expressed his disappointment, but there is a lesson hidden deep inside it.
Leftists believe that compromising with the Republicans will make them realize that they should also join hands with Biden. They further voice that making them friends and urging social media outlets to take down hate-speech can bring people together.
However, this remains highly debatable if such things could bring about any change to the MAGA-hat wearers who perceive Donald Trump as God.
The 46th president of the United States can also pursue compelling the less polarized state governments to break the ice. Still, it will require a lot of effort, as Trump’s base is spread all over the country, and any Republican compromise will make them angry.
Many believe that if the Republicans try to speak sense, this will ease things. However, this is also a false notion, as the Republicans who accepted the election results were highly criticized not only by Donald Trump but also by his supporters.
For instance, former Republican Senators Jeff Flake, Bob Croker, Senator Mitt Romney, and others who endorsed the election results faced the brunt of the Republicans.
Similarly, Republican governors who did not support the Texas lawsuit were on the hit list of Donald Trump. Donald Trump took to social media and wrote,
Who is a worse governor, Brian Kemp of Georgia or Doug Ducey of Arizona??? These are two RINO Republicans who fought against me and the Republican Party harder than any Democrat. They allowed states that I won easily to be stolen. Never forget, vote them out of office.
(Donald Trump)
The Republicans will even deny the conservative Supreme Court if it throws out the Trump campaign’s baseless lawsuits against the 2020 elections.
Fox News, a favorable channel for Republicans, also became the center point of the discussion recently, as they broke the news against Trump. Trump also criticized this media outlet, which had a massive contribution in his 2016 win, for speaking against him.
Right-wing media channels, especially the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, need to portray the truth to make people aware of how Trump pursued the falsified narrative of election fraud.
According to the annual report of the Public Religion Research Institute, Fox News has been working for decades to structure conservatism in American politics and shaping Republican partisan politics. The report also mentioned that in the last four years, Trump had used news channels as his personal platform to forge an insulated, radicalized movement making 40 percent of the Republicans immune to logical reasoning.
So, even if Biden makes a lot of compromises, the change is not expected to come until media outlets voice a narrative that being on a common platform of Biden will bring benefits for the country.
Remembering the Merrick Garland episode: Never Forget
It seems that Joe Biden believes that the only radical individual in the Republican party is Donald Trump, as he said during his campaign trail,
“The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House.”
(Joe Biden)
Yet history suggests otherwise. Donald Trump is just a pawn in a whole bigger system.
In 2016, when Joe Biden was serving as the Vice President to Barak Obama, his many policies, and especially the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, were held hostage by the Republicans.
Garland, a Harvard-educated Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals, was nominated for the Supreme Court by then-president Barack Obama. However, the Republican-dominated Senate declined to vote in his favor. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate President at that time, argued that the nomination belongs to the next president.
Moreover, in a speech that year, Mitch McConnell recalled that it was the proudest moment of his life when he looked into the eyes of President Barack Obama and said that,” Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.”
McConnell also mentioned that the most important thing they wanted to achieve was to see President Barack Obama serving one term.
Joining hands with Republicans will mean joining hands with Mitch McConnell, who will try his best not to let the Democrats serve two consecutive terms. Biden wants to mend the divide in American politics and re-establish the two-party system.
Joe Biden even said during his presidential campaign in the Democratic primary that he could consider a Republican running mate.
President-elect Joe Biden should remember his past with Republican lawmakers before entertaining them further.
Republican lawmakers, in general, are to blame equally for the deep-divide in the country started by Trump.
Trump could not have done anything without the support of the Republican lawmakers who endorsed all of his policies. All of the Republican lawmakers tried to be in his good books, just not to be criticized.
Modern GOP, Just Another Name of the Old Beliefs
There is no doubt that Biden will need cooperation from GOP lawmakers if they succeed in maintaining their Senate majority in the Georgia run-offs. Biden is committed to project his victory’s credibility against the groundless claims of Donald Trump.
There has been a conflicting tone of Biden concerning GOP leaders. He has criticized them for the Texas lawsuit, which would have invalidated nearly 20 million votes. Yet he has also said that the only thing wrong with GOP is Donald Trump, and he would be ready to work with GOP after Donald Trump.
Many Democrats are now voicing their concerns that, if not stopped, the Republicans will seek to subvert every future election. Joe Biden should re-consider the possibility of reaching bipartisan agreements with the Republicans when they perceive him as an illegal president. Doing this will encourage them to continue playing on both sides and continuing this behavior in the future.
Another important thing to consider regarding the modern GOP is the influence of the Trump base. Most of the Republican decisions are evaluated under their acceptance by the Trump base. It will not be wrong to say that Trump followers drive the modern GOP. Even if Biden ignores this fact and joins hands with Republicans, he will be ready to entertain the groups he always negated.
Conclusion
The deep divide in American politics, in recent years, is created by the radical policies of Donald Trump.
The decency and honor that used to prevail in the country are now completely absent.
Along with reviving the economy and saving the citizens from a pandemic, Biden has to bring the legislatures on a single platform. However, joining hands with GOP leaders to achieve peace should not be considered, as it will only disappoint him.
While Biden’s intentions are fair, too much optimism is bound to backstab. Many events decry that any such optimistic Biden compromise will only waste time, which America cannot afford in the times when the country is surrounded by unprecedented challenges.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.