“We handed away votes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and then celebrated – dancing in the streets like fools,” Jecorey Arthur told us days after Biden’s victory last November. Despite running on a Democratic ticket for Louisville City Council in Kentucky, this racial justice activist was deeply sceptical of the incoming president – like so many we met across the US.
In Georgia’s critical Senate race in January, progressive canvassers were similarly lukewarm. These volunteers had flown and bussed in from all over the country to turn out the Democratic vote; their efforts helped deliver Biden a vital congressional majority. Yet few could muster much enthusiasm for the president-elect, describing him as a “corporate centrist”, a “neoliberal”; better than Trump, yes, but not capable or willing to take bold action on the climate crisis, poverty, healthcare, racial justice and much more.
Fast forward three months, and ‘Sleepy Joe’ has confounded many of those downbeat predictions. He has passed a record-breaking ‘American Rescue Plan’ – delivering $1,400 stimulus checks, extending unemployment insurance, and implementing a temporary childhood tax credit that some experts claim will cut childhood poverty in half.
In a reversal of Trump’s denialism, Biden has aggressively committed to climate action: rejoining the Paris Agreement, freezing new oil drilling on federal lands and pledging to cut carbon emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030.
He has put forward bold proposals for a global corporate minimum tax rate that would reverse a decades-long race to the bottom and force tech giants and multinationals to cough up billions that are presently routed through tax shelters. And he’s pushing for a nearly $2.3 trillion ‘American Jobs Plan’ and $1.8 trillion ‘American Families Plan’, which together would be the most significant public investment in infrastructure, education and childcare since President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ programme of the 1960s.
When Biden took office on 20 January, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. An average of 3,000 were still dying of the disease every day. Now the number of daily deaths is below 1,000, and the US is the world leader in vaccine development and deployment. Thanks to early investment by the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed and then efficient coordination by the Biden team, the US has rapidly delivered 200 million doses, with nearly half of American adults vaccinated.
Biden is, according to some, “giving Left parties the world over a masterclass in how to use power”. He is, in tone and character, the antithesis of his predecessor. Gone are the violence-bating, fear-mongering, science-denying tirades that emanated almost daily from the White House. Yet in substance, the new president’s agenda is a striking continuation of Trump’s in at least one key respect: ‘America First’.
The sabre-rattling with China continues. Despite the urgent need to co-operate over climate action and much more, Biden has framed the “ambitions of autocratic China” as being among the “great challenges of our time”, extending Trump’s tariffs and sanctioning dozens of Chinese officials before their first bilateral meeting last month in Alaska.
He has swiftly fulfilled Trump’s promise of an almost-complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. On the campaign trail, Biden said he would feel “zero responsibility” if the human rights of Afghan women and others were diminished as a consequence.
His administration’s tone on Saudi Arabia has been different, shutting off direct contact with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and ending official US support for Saudi’s war in Yemen. Yet quietly, arms sales continue.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.