Democracy and Accountability

We know that Joe Biden, President-Elect of the United States, has vast expectations for his presidency resting on his shoulders. That challenge grew only greater when it became clear Democrats would likely not control the Senate for the first two years of Biden’s presidency. But beyond specific legislation or executive actions there is something more basic we should focus on – something Democrats have often done poorly at, not least in the presidency of Barack Obama, in which Biden served as Vice President. It is never enough to govern well and trust that voters will reward good governance. It simply never works that way.

Policy can never be separated from politics or the work of using policy to create the political power which can make policies enduring. This is all the more the case with the mix of constitutional and political forces which in the last two decades have made it increasingly possible for political minorities to hobble government action while escaping the responsibility and blame for doing so.

Quite simply, everything that happens during the first two years of the Biden administration must be planned and organized through the prism and organizing principle of the argument Democrats will make to voters in the 2022 midterm election.

For some this will seem obvious. For others it will seem deeply wrong. It’s Republicans who treat policy as simply an extension of campaigning. Worse still it’s Trump who shoveled billions on to farmers in the Midwest to cushion the blow of his ruinous trade war and keep them on team for his reelection. But elections are about accountability. They are the public’s grade for what you’ve accomplished. Governance that is beyond their understanding or over their heads is not good governance. Trumpist politicians may be able to win votes by breaking things. Democrats cannot.

So what will the Biden administration do to confirm the support of the constituencies that ensured his election? What will he do to build support among constituencies that remained beyond his reach? More focusedly what will the administration do to show concretely and clearly that Democrats taking control of the Senate in 2023 will advance the public interest, mean a positive impact on voters’ lives? These questions are absolutely critical and everything that happens should be organized around answering them.

One of the chief ways Mitch McConnell profited during the Obama years was paralyzing the government and then profiting electorally from public frustration over that paralysis. Biden simply cannot let that happen again. How you prevent that, how you put that reality on full display for the public is a complicated question and task. But it’s not just what you can get done in the face of that intransigence. It’s what successes and failures can best illustrate the importance of that intransigence and put before voters the importance of putting the Senate in Democratic control.

These simply aren’t questions that figure strongly enough into Democratic policy making and governance. And that needs to change. The 2022 election campaign starts right now. And anyone who doesn’t understand that is in the process of losing it.

I mentioned before the importance of a democracy agenda that should inform all actions Democrats take going forward. This is joined at the hip to governing around the organizing principle of the next election. The country faces a crisis of accountability and democracy. A central part of the Trump presidency was that wrongdoing didn’t seem to matter. You break the law. You misbehave. And yet it doesn’t matter. You get millions fewer votes for President. And yet you can still win. You vote and yet your votes may not be counted. You win an election but the loser may not leave. Republicans did well in down ballot races in 2020 and that may put control of the House out of reach for Democrats for the next decade even if they get more votes.

These facts are not wholly new but they are real and accelerating. They amount to a crisis of democracy and accountability. To unwind the pattern you need a politics that ensures that the franchise is accessible (no waiting hours in line to vote); that votes are counted; that majorities will govern; and that majorities governing brings actual change. Each of these necessary things, each of these links in the chain of civic democracy have broken down. The breakdown is a core reason for the growth of populist extremism and the politics of resentment. Repairing them is how we fix the country. It’s the baseline for a better and better governed country.

So again, facing the very real challenge of an obstructionist Senate and an endangered House majority, what can the Biden administration do to build on its 2020 coalition and lay the groundwork for a winning argument in the 2022 midterm election.