Hasten slowly on divisive issues

It is no surprise that US Republicans are dismayed over the blizzard of presidential executive orders signed by Joe Biden in his first few days in the White House. There is nothing unusual about his use of the orders. They are what incoming US presidents use to reverse the signature policies of their predecessors, giving immediate effect to the mandate given to them by voters. But the 29 issued so far by Mr Biden far outstrip the five Barack Obama issued in the first few days of his first term, and the single executive order Donald Trump made immediately after he entered the Oval Office in 2017. There is widespread support for Mr Biden’s use of executive orders to ramp up and expand the Trump administration’s flawed response to the COVID-19 catastrophe, placing it on a WWII “wartime” footing. The promise of one million COVID-19 shots a day for his first 100 days is vital. But there are fears the new President could be going too far, too fast in other policy areas, undermining the widely held hopes for post-Trump bipartisanship and national healing.

Leading Republican senator Marco Rubio, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, said on Friday: “President Biden is talking like a centrist, but he’s governing like someone from the far left.” His view was echoed by Republican House of Representatives leader Kevin McCarthy, who warned Mr Biden’s promise to unify the nation after the divisions of the Trump years “can’t happen when he is making a liberal Democrat agenda his priority” through his slew of executive orders.

“What unity is there in closing the pipeline?” Mr McCarthy asked, referring to Mr Biden’s day one order revoking the Trump administration’s permit for the controversial 1900km Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. “You lose more jobs, the energy cost goes up.’’ The pipeline is a touchstone of Mr Biden’s policy intentions. Under Mr Obama, who barred the pipeline, the US State Department found on five occasions it would have no impact on greenhouse emissions. Yet unilaterally revoking Mr Trump’s permission for it to go ahead is now front and centre of the Biden administration’s return to the Paris accord under its new climate tsar, John Kerry.

Doing so is far from the only change causing angst among those who are concerned that despite his commitment to governing from the centre, Mr Biden, in some areas, is doing the bidding of the Democrats’ far left led by senator Bernie Sanders. Trump backers are indignant over executive orders that immediately reverse enhanced immigration controls, such as defunding Mr Trump’s “big, beautiful” border wall and lifting his ban on travellers from Muslim-majority nations. Thousands of would-be migrants are gathering south of the Mexican border in the belief the Biden administration will reopen the gates. There is anger, too, over Mr Biden’s intention to open a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans who arrived in the country as children, and his rescinding of Mr Trump’s so-called 1776 Commission report calling for a more patriotic syllabus in schools. Workplace discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation has been outlawed while the White House has announced it will reverse a ban on funding for overseas family planning organisations that “perform or promote” abortion. Such actions were part of Mr Biden’s manifesto; economic recovery, however, is the main measure by which he will be judged.

Opinion in Washington is divided about the Democrats’ determination to use their control of congress to press ahead with Mr Trump’s Senate trial following his impeachment over the January 6 assault on the US Capitol. On one hand, he should not go unpunished for inciting the violence. And weekend revelations by The Wall Street Journal show the former president’s conduct was more outrageous than previously known. He tried to compel Department of Justice officials to launch action to reverse his election defeat. Infuriated, they threatened mass resignations. On the other hand, the trial, set to begin on February 8, could imperil the unity and bipartisanship Mr Biden said, in his inaugural address, would underpin his every action.

The national shame of the onslaught on the heart of US democracy underlined the importance of bipartisanship and unity in confronting the many challenges facing the US, especially over COVID and the economy. With control of congress held by the Democrats by the slimmest of majorities, Mr Biden must be cautious. He needs to carry the country with him and not divide it further by acting precipitously. The US does not need a rerun of the Obama years.