Joe Biden has been US President for a year, and not everything went badly for him. But his now failed reform of the electoral law shows how increasingly hopeless it is for him to govern the USA successfully.
Joe Biden doesn’t tweet as much as his predecessor, but he does on a regular basis. Ironically, on the day of his first anniversary he had bad news for his 32 million followers: “I am deeply disappointed that the Senate has not succeeded in standing up for our democracy,” he wrote. The US President referred to the vote on his electoral reform that just failed. Like hardly any other Biden project, it exemplifies his almost hopeless struggle to govern the USA in 2022.
His balance for the first year is not so bad: the economy is booming and has recently grown by six percent, six million new jobs have been created in the past twelve months. He also got through a trillion dollar infrastructure project. Nevertheless are Biden’s approval ratings in the basement. His office may be dazzling, but it is thankless. Because with the upswing, inflation is returning, Omicron is raging everywhere and the debacle of the Afghanistan withdrawal has not yet been forgotten. He seemed weak in those August days when the most powerful military in the world fled from the Taliban. He didn’t seem quite up to par when he appeared at the official anniversary.
A task perhaps too big
Biden wanted to “heal” his fractured and grim country. Reunite, fill in the ditches that his presiding officer had dug with delight. A task that is perhaps too big. Because the division is increasing and it is particularly bitter for him that he cannot even close his own ranks. This was already evident in the dispute over his gigantic climate and social package called “Build Back Better”. With almost two trillion dollars, the US President wanted to give the country a modern social network and a climate protection program. It failed because of a democrat and the political system that can hardly be repaired.
Joe Manchin is the name of the inner-party rebel who almost single-handedly prevented his president’s masterpiece – and he is also the one who has now voted against the electoral reform. Manchin is a 74-year-old Senator from the conservative and impoverished state of West Virginia. Because the Democrats in the US Senate only have a one-vote majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris, one dissenter is enough to bring down any legislation. That was essentially the case with the Build Back Better package and now with Biden’s attempt to ensure the integrity of the election.
To understand the full extent of Biden’s dilemma and that of the United States, a few loops are needed:
When the 46th US President was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, the noise of the mob that had stormed the Houses of Parliament just days before was still echoing. Was it an attempted coup or just a degenerate demonstration by “patriots”? The Americans still can’t agree on that. But the lie that preceded the storming of the Capitol about the “stolen presidential election” is seeping deeper and deeper into the public consciousness. More than 40 percent of Americans doubt that Biden is the rightful president, an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy for the office.
The election was preceded by months of discussions about the trustworthiness of postal voting and early voting. After the election there were countless recounts and control recounts, none of which encountered any irregularities worth mentioning. So the system works, but nearly two dozen conservative-governed states have now passed changes to their electoral laws. Democrats and numerous experts see it as an attempt to make voting more difficult for minorities such as Afro-Americans, who mostly vote democratically. A popular means of doing this is “gerrymandering”. Put simply, constituencies are tailored in such a way that the US majority electoral system guarantees the Republicans victory, so to speak. The Democrats also use this trick, but not nearly as extensively as the Conservatives.
Georgia is one of the states where Republicans are going a lot further. In 2020, Joe Biden had only won the “Peach State” by a hair’s breadth, with a lead of 14,028 votes. The parliament there recently reshuffled the top election committee and got rid of some members of the democratic party. Lincoln County’s plans were recently announced to close all but one polling station. Civil rights activists are appalled by the obvious restrictions on the right to vote. Torben Lütjen, political scientist and US expert, considers parts of the conservative party to be explicitly “anti-democratic”, as he puts it star said.
Joe Biden didn’t choose Georgia by accident
It was no coincidence that President Biden chose Atlanta, Georgia’s capital, a few days ago to underline the urgency of his electoral reform: “The danger to our democracy is so great that we have to find a way to pass, debate and debate laws to protect the right to vote to vote,” he said. “If that is blocked, we have no choice but to change Senate rules, including the ‘filibuster’.” And with this keyword, the next loop of a dysfunctional US policy opens, which makes it almost impossible for even a president with a majority in both houses of parliament to govern.
A “filibuster” is actually what is called a so-called fatigue speech in the USA in order to hold up votes with a speech marathon. In order to end the process and begin the actual voting, 60 of the 100 votes in total are needed in the US Senate. The original aim of the regulation was that the dominant party should seek a compromise in the event of a narrow majority. In reality, however, it allows the minority a blockade – which both Republicans and Democrats have made extensive use of in recent years.
January 20, 2009: Barack Obama becomes the first black President of the United States
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In order to be able to reach decisions at all in view of the de facto stalemate in the parliamentary chamber, Joe Biden wanted to end the “filibuster” procedure. The 50 votes of his Democrats plus the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris would have been enough for that. But Joe Manchin opposed it, as did Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic Senator from Arizona. The latter said it supported electoral reform but would not do anything to make America’s “disease of division” worse. Manchin defended his no by saying: “The filibuster plays an important role in protecting our democracy from the ephemeral passions of the majority and respecting the contributions of the Senate minority.”
Credibility in the election deeply shaken
The electoral reform, called the “Freedom to Vote Act,” was supposed to set nationwide standards for elections, including the right to vote by post and turning election day into a public holiday. Nothing will come of it now. Biden also pushed the changes because midterm elections to the US Congress are scheduled for November 8th. Then all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 senators will be elected. The Democrats then face the loss of both houses of Congress. However, the tinkering with the state election laws may pose much greater problems – the credibility of the elections themselves is at stake.
“We are now at a point where neither side considers the other side’s success to be legitimate,” says political scientist Torben Lütjen. “If Donald Trump or whatever Republican runs in 2024, say, wins in Georgia, the Democrats will say the election was rigged, even though they know the state is so conservative that Republicans can win it without cheating .”
After a year in office, Joe Biden finds that his ambitious agenda is being blocked not only by the Republicans, who in any case are only active in fundamental opposition, but also by his own people. The irony here: a year ago, the left wing of the Democrats was still considered a potential problem faction. So far, however, she has supported the man in the middle, if only grudgingly. Should this truce also crumble, the number 46 in the White House and the rest of the country will face an uncomfortable three more years.
sources: “New York Times“, axios, CNNDPA, AFP, daily NewsFiveThirtyEight, Joe Biden on Twitter, “Handelsblatt“, Electoral Board Georgia