How centrist Joe Biden can turn division to advantage

An almost evenly divided Senate and a more closely divided House could be a combination that empowers moderates in both parties.

US President-elect, Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

At first glance, the 2020 election might seem to have produced the political equivalent of a dumpster fire: a deeply divided country, a bitterly contested presidential election and the prospect of divided government in an era of intense political polarisation.

But look a little more closely, with a dose of optimism, and perhaps a different picture emerges now that Joe Biden has been declared victorious in the presidential race: an alignment that actually could work for getting some things done.

In this more rosy view, Mr Biden in the White House, an almost evenly divided Senate perhaps still under the management of Republican leader Mitch McConnell and a more closely divided House could turn out to be a combination that drives all in the capital toward centre ground and empowers moderates in both parties.

Of course, the precise lay of the land can’t be known yet. President Trump hasn’t conceded the presidential race, and his campaign immediately made clear it intends to fight on in courts over the election outcome. Control of the Senate won’t be known until races in North Carolina and Alaska are called, and until the completion of two run-off races in Georgia in January.

The election has been called for Joe Biden, but US President Donald Trump isn’t going without a fight. Picture: AFP

Still, Republicans are more likely than not to claim at least three of those four, which would leave them in the barest of majorities in the Senate — and Mr McConnell in the majority leader’s chair. In any case, a President Biden would enter office with less congressional backing from his own Democratic Party than either Barack Obama or Bill Clinton enjoyed.

Still, the bigger question that always has hung over a prospective Biden presidency is whether he can keep control of the surging progressive wing of his own party, which tried throughout this year’s Democratic primary season and since to push the centrist Mr Biden further to the left than he really wants to go.

In the power structure that is emerging, Mr Biden can use his own performance in the presidential race, which was stronger than his party’s outcome overall, to claim a clearer mandate for his agenda than the more progressive one. In addition, he can point to Republican leverage in the Senate, and an expanded GOP base in the House, as a reason he can’t move as far as his party’s liberals would like on taxes, climate change and health care.

Moreover, in an evenly balanced Senate, whichever party holds control by a seat or two, centrists of both parties enjoy increased leverage. That means, at least potentially, increased power for the likes of moderates such as Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and newly re-elected Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. They can make the difference between gridlock and bipartisan action.

Joe Biden has plenty of reasons to smile today. Picture: AFP

Beyond that, Messrs Biden and McConnell showed in the years of the Obama administration that, left to their own devices, they know how to get the trains moving. When budget talks hit the rocks, the two of them retreated into a room for private talks and emerged with a way to move around those rocks.

“There is a scenario that you could get some good policy out of this,” says nonpartisan election analyst Charlie Cook.

Admittedly, this is an optimistic view of the path ahead, perhaps even a naive one. Certainly the argument for the reverse case — that we are headed toward hopeless gridlock — is a plausible one. It goes like this:

Even a defeated President Trump won’t go quietly into the night, but rather, in his bitterness, will find some different path to wage war on Democrats and any Republicans who compromise with them. He could scare or threaten Republicans away from compromise or co-operation with a president he will label as illegitimate.

Nor have the Democrats’ most strident liberals shown any sign of second thoughts about election results that showed their party losing ground amid assertions from the party’s moderates that the party was hurt by the left’s calls for defunding police and advocacy of policies Republicans called socialist. Mr Biden still could face a civil war within his own party.

Here’s how this must work in our great country: Every legal vote should be counted. Any illegally-submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process. And the courts are here to apply the laws & resolve disputes.

That's how Americans' votes decide the result.

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) November 6, 2020

For his part, Mr McConnell is a master obstructionist when he wants to be and will have the power to block confirmation of Biden judicial appointments, as he did the Obama-era nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and even Biden cabinet nominees. If Republicans in the Senate use a slim base of power to make a concerted effort to derail all Biden judicial picks, and a significant chunk of his cabinet, that could destroy hope of bipartisan goodwill.

Still, lawmakers who know they will face voters in 2022 in swing states won’t want to be seen as purely obstructionist, but rather want some record of accomplishments on which to run. That includes Republicans Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Democrats Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

And if the Senate flips to Democratic control, the party’s leader there, Chuck Schumer would have such a narrow margin that he, too, would have to pay attention to the more conservative members of his caucus, starting with Mr Manchin.

In short, a President Biden would enter office with a complicated power structure spread out before him. But if he is smart, and skilled, he could turn that to his advantage.

Write to Gerald F. Seib at [e-mail]