Biden must promise a more conservative second term
To win a second term, Biden has to do what he has always done, except more recently: upset his party. The moderate voters who trusted him in 2020 have to know that he is theirs, not the left’s.
In 1962, after making a powerful speech, the then leader of Britain’s Labour Party sat down to a deflating review from his wife. “All the wrong people are cheering.” She meant the left. What enthused them was far from certain to enthuse the wider electorate.
As fluent and vigorous as Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was last week, the wrong people were (and still are) cheering. If the happiness of committed Democrats, to whom the speech was tailored, distracts the US president from swing voters, who decide elections, the event will go down as a disastrous success.
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Financial Times
Janan Ganesh is the principal political columnist for the Financial Times.
