Joe Biden has an agenda as opposed to screaming about culture war issues and bleating about how the world is laughing at us and throwing down tariffs willy nilly. And guess what? Biden’s policies are almost all broadly popular:
There are even a few Republicans on board with most of them. Of course, our politics aren’t driven solely by policy, particularly once they are mischaracterized by propagandists on the right. Still, these are all good policies and it’s good to see most Americans in favor. (I do have to laugh at the fact that the one issue Republicans are totally against is stopping the building of that stupid wall and adding noncitizens in the census. They are so sadly brainwashed…)
Perry Bacon at 538 has some analysis:
The popularity of these policies is notable for a few reasons. First, Biden’s emphasis on trying to unify the country in his inaugural address has created a debate in political circles about exactly what constitutes “unity.” These early executive orders meet one definition — adopting policies that a clear majority of Americans support, which necessitates that at least some Republicans back them…
Secondly, the popularity of these orders with the public is another illustration of what public opinion has long suggested: Americans are divided into two roughly equal-sized camps in terms of electoral power — in part because structures such as the Senate and the Electoral College have skewed the vote toward Republicans, at least in recent years — but that divide does not always show up in terms of policy issues. For example, protecting undocumented people brought to the U.S. as children from deporation (the DACA program) has long had a fair amount of support from people who vote for and identify with the Republican Party, which tried to wind down DACA in the Trump era.
You might be skeptical of polling that seems favorable to Democrats after many polls in 2016 and 2020 underestimated GOP strength. But there are a number of recent examples of liberal policies being supported by voters who also back Republican candidates. This happened last fall in Florida, where a proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour got 61 percent support, but the presidential candidate in favor of that idea, Biden, received only 48 percent. So I tend to think these numbers are reliable and that a bloc of Trump voters agrees with many of Biden’s new policies.
Thirdly, the popularity of these orders suggests that Biden will govern differently than his predecessor. In the case of many of these orders, Trump implemented a policy that polls clearly showed was unpopular and Biden is simply reversing it. Biden positioned himself during the Democratic primary as a candidate who would eschew controversial ideas to appeal to more centrist voters. And we are only a week into his presidency, but it looks like Biden is trying to follow through on his campaign approach.
Interesting to see these policies defined as “centrist.” This is actually a good thing. It means that ideas that were considered left wing very recently have now become mainstream. Progressives worked hard to make that happen and after some years of keeping their eye on the ball, fighting off the right and pushing for good ideas, many items on their agenda have now become “the center.” That’s a good thing and it’s how progress is usually made.