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Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
There are three things Joe Biden can’t get rid of: his Secret Service guards, his own shadow, and the phrase “. . . since Lyndon Johnson. He is described as the most important Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson. He is said to have brought about the greatest expansion of the federal government since Lyndon Johnson. The historical comparison is well-intentioned. In fact, it underestimates him.
In turning ideas into laws, LBJ had considerable advantages. Democrats outnumbered Republicans about twice as much in both houses of Congress for much of the 1960s. After replacing the assassinated John F. Kennedy, he started with the goodwill of the nation and was able to present his reforms like the unfinished work of his predecessor. Biden had neither the numbers nor the moral lead. Yet last week the Ukraine aid package joined the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, and a sweeping infrastructure splurge in the canon of important (or at least expensive) legislation. of Biden.
What should we learn from this prolific actor? As we near its end, what is the lesson of this surprisingly fertile presidential term?
One thing above all: eloquence is overrated. The same goes for charisma, defining a vision and all other aspects of the “performance” of politics. Biden was an average to poor communicator even before his age-related deterioration. He has no signature speech or even epigram to show for half a century in front-line politics. What he does have is a more intimate experience of Washington – of its details, of its unwritten codes – than any other president. The result is a one-term legacy that surpasses what tongues like Bill Clinton managed to achieve in two.
The haggling over Ukraine was instructive. For weeks, Biden privately lobbied Mike Johnson, the House speaker, showing him intelligence briefings but never harassing him in front of voters or fellow Republicans. Biden understood, as his more apparently gifted predecessors did not always understand, the importance of the face. Another thing too: he knows how to count.
A leader cannot be so incompetent as to be unelectable. But once this low level is reached, the returns to star power are diminishing. Britain’s two greatest post-war leaders were the taciturn Clement Attlee and the hard-working communicator Margaret Thatcher. (Much of his charisma has been attributed to him in retrospect.) Their nation-changing qualities – stamina, focus, certainty – lay in the private side of politics, which is most politics.
Liberals need to hear this more than most. Americans in particular can be overwhelming snobs when it comes to education and speech. In The west wing, they must create their ideal president. The result? A hyper-articulated Brahmin Yankee. Likewise, it took decades to correct the overvaluation of Kennedy, with his polish and mastery, compared to Johnson. (Camelot. What a telling aristocratic metaphor.)
But the ultimate beneficiary of this liberal obsession with rhetoric was Barack Obama. It wasn’t even deep rhetoric. “In no other country on Earth is my story possible. ” What? In no other country can the son of an African immigrant become a provincial legislator? (Obama was a senator from Illinois when he said this.) That’s some nice hokum. But this was enough to blind people to the faults of an administration now revised downwards. Biden is to Obama what Johnson was to Kennedy.
In the distant past, when the state did little besides war, it inspired people was the essential task of leadership. Hence the study of rhetoric in classical education. Once government assumed a social and economic role, legislative mechanisms took on greater importance. But the perception of what constitutes a leader has never caught up. Because people overestimate what they are good at, the educated political-media class overvalues eloquence.
I say all this without being a particular admirer of Biden’s domestic bills. If he loses re-election, the culprit will be inflation, to which his spending has likely contributed. Its protectionism almost guarantees immense waste and fragments the global trade order that allowed the postwar United States to bind countries to it. What is now its offer to the nations gravitating around the Chinese orbit? And while Johnson’s work lasted—God help the politician who dabbles in Medicare—Biden’s might not. The US debt situation will not allow endless new subsidies.
Yet there are other times to discuss how Biden uses his political skills. Just recognize this skill and how little it relies on words. If a “great” leader is one who changes things, for the better or not, this is an administration of mumbled, mumbled greatness.
