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The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. (Photo: Wikimedia / Gage Skidmore)
The reality of Joe Biden’s status as president-elect is now sinking for many who chose to insist that it could somehow be stopped. But a world of trouble awaits him and his team.
Now, finally, we’ve reached the point where the delusional and delusional forces of Donald Trump have only one vaguely legal avenue left to cast a shadow over the election of President-elect Joe Biden. That will come in the first week of January 2021, two weeks before the inauguration, when the electoral votes of the states are recorded by the newly elected House of Representatives.
Of course, the disparate “militias” and other foil-hat armies may stage noisy, even rebellious, demonstrations and protests, but that will be very different from having a real effect on election results. Finally.
In theory, one or other of these electoral votes already duly certified for Joe Biden, already cast and certified in each of the respective state capitals within the confines of their state legislatures, across the country, could be challenged in Congress at once. of the final voting record. But that would require a challenge from both the Senate and the House of Representatives at the same time.
But it will be a freezing snowstorm from a snowy day in the middle of summer deep in the Brazilian rainforest before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allows any challenge from Republican House members to come from the House of Representatives. Camera. (Such an effort is be murmured by some Republican senators and congressmen, even after all electoral votes have been certified. This comes when the nation’s state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have not assisted the Trump campaign on any front.) In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been reported to be advising his group not to try this either. .
A sign of McConnell’s return to planet Earth from orbit of the intoxicating atmosphere on Trump’s Planet Zenon has been his rather belated words of congratulations to Joe Biden on his Nov. 3 victory.
It is also true that by offering those words of congratulations, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other remaining holdouts internationally, such as Brazil and Mexico, beat him to the core. However, McConnell’s newfound clarity of vision for the future can only speak to a possible possibility of at least very modest cooperation between the Republican Senate and the incoming administration.
Or as AP Morning Wire Editor-in-Chief Jerry Schwartz wrote, summing up the state of play: “More than a month after the election, some of the highest profile Republicans have begun to accept reality, accepting the fact that Joe Biden will be president soon. .
“Biden spoke with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who publicly congratulated the Democrat on his victory, reports Will Weissert. And Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of President Donald Trump, says he has spoken with Biden and some of his cabinet selections. There is still great resistance: Trump has not relented.
“Meanwhile, fending off a disorderly fight that could hurt Republicans before the Georgia Senate second round, McConnell warned fellow Republican senators not to join Trump’s extended assault on Electoral College results.”
Of course, speaking of the Senate, if the Democrats win the two special Senate elections in Georgia on January 5, McConnell’s control over the Senate will have barely escaped his hands. Such a double victory would turn the party’s split in the Senate into a 50-50 tie, with all tie-breaking votes cast by new Vice President Kamala Harris, including the holder of the title of Senate Majority Leader.
But even if the Republicans manage to keep one of the two seats (much less both), the main task of the Democrats will always be to remove several Republican senators to support at least some measures proposed by the incoming president. Without that help, the possibility of a big wave of legislation from Biden becomes extremely limited, even in these difficult times. Republicans may also throw bumps on the road to confirming a pair of Biden’s elections for executive positions that require Senate approval, such as his nomination of Neera Tanden to become head of the Office of Management and Budget.
Meanwhile, the president-elect continues to expand his roster of officials and cabinet, most interesting, perhaps, with the appointment of Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation. The 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and an unsuccessful but thoughtful articulate contender for the 2020 presidential nomination, might have been reasonably interested in returning to Indiana to try and win a Senate seat there, in the future. But with that state’s solid Republican status overall, a seat at the large table in a Democratic administration may simply herald a bigger role for him, a few years later, at the national level. That could be the case if the successful renovation of the national infrastructure truly becomes a concrete hallmark of the Biden administration, and one led by the always energetic, but always thoughtful Buttigieg.
In foreign affairs, as American allies and friends eagerly await the start of the Biden administration, the decaying Trump administration, now into its final month and turn, continues to make decisions that will only make it more difficult, or at least more complex. . – for the incoming president and his team.
At least at this point, several cabinet positions remain unnamed, the most important of which are attorney general and the secretaries of labor, commerce, interior and education, as well as the director of the CIA, along with most of the undersecretary candidates. and all those assistant secretaries in almost every department and every ambassador, save that of the United States ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, now back to cabinet rank.
To Biden’s world, various sectors of the Democratic Party universe are yelling at the president-elect about whether his top leadership is diverse enough, ethnic, racial, gender-wise, and across the party’s rebellious ideological spectrum. In truth, the various diversity quotients of cabinet elections matter less than their respective levels of competence, bureaucratic nous, ability to work well together as a cohesive team, and sympathy for the president’s priorities.
That, in turn, depends substantially on the respective caliber and experience of the deputies, undersecretaries, undersecretaries, and the heads of congressional relations and budget specialists from the departments. But the diversity discussion is about acknowledging the various parts of society that helped Biden cross the finish line and thus becomes important in keeping the broader range of Biden supporters happy, members Congress, progressive political activists and sympathetic commentators, or at least appeased.
In the meantime, there are huge and consequential issues that need congressional (and therefore presidential) action to address, at the very least, a new Covid relief and stimulus package and the government budget. The government’s budget issues include a defense and security package that has controversial elements such as the relabeling of military bases that now bear the name of Confederate generals and liability protections for various IT communications companies.
Reporters are growing optimistic on at least one of these. As Politician wrote Wednesday: “If you are betting or setting odds, a stimulus deal is very likely. Could be achieved today, maybe! Theoretically! – given that: Friday is the deadline for government funding, all leaders agree that a Covid relief deal should be combined with government funding, they have said they will not leave the city until it is signed and pass a Covid deal, and the nation’s top lawmakers are talking and optimistic. Things would really have to be put aside for this to fall apart. “
Nobody in Congress wants to stay for the Christmas / New Years break and then come back only to face this bunch of things to do immediately when the newly elected Congress arrives in Washington in the first week of January, and after various benefits of unemployment have already expired. . And of course, right behind that is a confusing situation with Covid vaccines as, so far at least, little federal money has been allocated for the actual distribution of the vaccines to the intended arms, rather than simply carrying the ones. roads even as the various state capitals or some major cities. If things get complicated by this, it will be Biden’s problem.
In foreign affairs, as American allies and friends eagerly await the start of the Biden administration, the decaying Trump administration, now into its final month and turn, continues to make decisions that will only make it more difficult, or at least more complex. – for the incoming president and his team.
Agreements such as the acceptance by the Trump administration of the incorporation of Western Sahara into Morocco as a sweetener for the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between that country and Israel; or the removal of Sudan from the terrorism list as an apparent sweetener of its new link with Israel, among others, will surely have repercussions in various ways, boxing in the freedom of movement of the new administration. The US deal to sell state-of-the-art military aircraft to the UAE has also added an uncertain dimension to the region.
Furthermore, recent revelations of a massive Russian hacking into the guts of US government agencies will complicate US relations with that nation. In addition, there is an ebb in US-China trade negotiations and China’s continued show of military force in the South China Sea; the mutual patriotism between the United States and Iran (especially after the assassination of a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist); and the gap in progress between the United States and North Korea after all those “love letters” combining to form a troublesome inbox for the Biden administration. All of this will be in addition to the renegotiation of re-entry to the Paris climate agreement and the six-party agreement on Iran’s nuclear circumstances.
Behind all of this will be the fact that US government policymakers must face a world significantly different from this seasoned Democratic team (as many are returning from their extended terms of service during the Obama administration). The global balance of power is shifting, new technologies are remaking old economic truths, and the sudden effects of pandemics and other problems have altered much of what was once the gospel about the virtues of globalization.
In January, we can expect the Biden administration to have a very short honeymoon of the foreign media, politicians, and nations, everyone. DM
