Democrats often do that, and I have a sneaking suspicion they will do it again before too long. But this time it’s the Republicans who have dusted off their playbook from the last administration and it’s likely that it’s going to be lazy and ineffectual:
Dan Pfeiffer’s newsletter this week takes on that subject. His recounting of what happened in 2009 is especially interesting since he was on the inside:
Earlier this week, Senator John Thune, Mitch McConnell’s deputy, predicted that every Republican Senator would vote against the Biden plan. Thune’s reasoning was typically cynical. He said the Republicans wanted to “make the Democrats own a piece of legislation that I think is going to have long-term adverse consequences.”
This was the latest example of Republicans saying the quiet part out loud. Thune is admitting they are making a bet that the Biden plan won’t work, and Republicans can reap the political rewards of a sub-standard economy in 2022. This is the same bet the Republicans made in 2009 when they decided to oppose Barack Obama’s efforts to address the financial crisis.
Politically, the 2009 bet paid off. The Republicans rode a wave of economic discontent to control of the House and a massive set of wins down-ballot that would impact politics for more than a decade. But just because it worked then doesn’t mean it will work now. The Republicans may be making a massive miscalculation by re-fighting the last war.
What happened in 2009:
If Republicans fighting tooth and nail to stop a Democratic President from cleaning up a mess made by a Republican President sounds familiar, it probably means you are old enough to have been around in 2009. As the Washington Post recounted1:
On inauguration night four years ago, pollster Frank Luntz organized a strategy session for leading Republicans at the Caucus Room, a steakhouse in downtown D.C. The widely reported dinner has become the creation myth of the Obama opposition, in which Luntz, former speaker Newt Gingrich, Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Paul Ryan (Wis.) and other leading Republican lawmakers from both chambers plotted how to confront the president. The Republicans giddily came away from the four-hour dinner with a plan to weaken Obama through blanket opposition.
The first test of this strategy was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — Obama’s first bill to address the spiraling financial crisis that was causing the economy to spiral and unemployment to spike. While the parties have always clashed, they have historically put those differences aside during times of national crisis. The Great Recession was one of those national crises. But this time, there was no unity. Every member of the House voted against the bill. All but three Senate Republicans did the same — and one of those three was under such assault by the GOP base that he became a Democrat a few months later.
The nearly unanimous opposition allowed the Republicans to sit back, watch the world burn, and win some elections. That is very clearly their plan again, but the circumstances and politics are very different this time around.
Biden’s bill is more popular
We live in the middle of an era of tremendous polarization, yet Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan is shockingly popular. It’s one of the most popular, least polarizing pieces of legislation in recent memory. According to a recent Politico/Morning Consultpoll, 76 percent of voters support Biden’s plan, including a majority of Republicans.
It’s worth noting that most polls show that 70 percent or so of Republicans believe Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. Therefore, a large segment of people who think Biden stole the election also supports his COVID and economic recovery plans.
Obama’s Recovery Act was never this popular. A January 2009 Gallup poll found that the public favored Obama’s plan 52 percent to 38 percent.
These are good numbers but nowhere near the sky-high popularity of the Biden plan. At the time of this poll, Obama’s approval rating was hovering around 70 percent. Biden’s plan is more popular than he is — Biden’s job approval is 52.8 per FiveThirtyEight. That disparity is evidence of Biden’s COVID plan’s political durability — and the dangerous game Republicans are playing by opposing it. People who don’t like Biden but like his plan are the exact people who the Republicans need to win over to take back Congress.
Biden’s plan is more likely to work, more quickly
The mess that President Biden inherited from Trump is much worse than the one Obama inherited from Bush. However, the solution is more simple, and a quick turnaround is much, much more likely.
[…] The cause of the current economic difficulties is singular. The solution is simple — in conception, if not execution — vaccinate as many people soon as possible. The combination of vaccinations and economic aid is highly likely to make the Biden plan’s success widely felt when people start voting in 2022. Even the notoriously pessimistic Congressional Budget Office is optimistic. According to CNBC:
U.S. economic growth will recover “rapidly” and the labor market will return to full strength quicker than expected thanks to the vaccine rollout and a barrage of legislation enacted in 2020, according to a government forecast published Monday.
Notably, this rosy prediction does not factor in the passage of the American Rescue plan. It is reasonable to project that if everything goes as planned, the economy could look very good in November 2022.
Imagine the collective euphoria we will all feel when we can gather together again. Simple acts like attending a concert or a ballgame will be cause for celebration. Republicans are deciding to take no ownership of that success — a decision they could very much regret.
Republicans will only pay a political price for their blanket opposition if voters remember. And voters will only remember if we remind them. While every news outlet in the country ran a story about the House passage of the bill, it happened in the early hours of a Saturday morning — the single worst time to make news. The bill’s limited coverage — and the GOP opposition — was quickly overwhelmed by Trump’s speech at CPAC and a bunch of trumped-up controversies about absurd issues like a potato-shaped toy and Dr. Seuss. Democratic campaigns will need to start advertising quickly to drill home that Republicans are on the wrong side of this very popular and important plan. At every juncture, all of us need to remind our networks that Republicans deserve no credit for the success we very much hope is around the corner.
After passage of the Recovery Act in 2009, Republicans responded to every piece of economic news by screaming, “Where are the jobs?” at the top of their lungs. Democrats should respond to every piece of good vaccine and economic news by screaming at Republicans, “Where were you?”
Two years is an eternity in politics, and a lot can happen, but as we sit here today, it seems that the bet Republicans are making is much riskier than the one they made in 2009.
I agree. The Republicans are clearly planning to run on culture war nonsense for the foreseeable future because that’s the red meat their followers have now been indoctrinated to crave.
And they are out of ideas. Their ideology is stale and they are into a new, untried right wing populist nationalism that isn’t fully fleshed out. Without the demagogue in chief blindly signing off on judges and tax cuts while feeding the base what it demands, they are all at sixes and sevens.
Maybe this will work again. If things go wrong, they’ll certainly try to take advantage. But if things go right, I think they’ll just keep shrieking like harpies over the Dr. Seuss and Mr Potatohead outrage of the day while everyone else is out and about, enjoying life and thanking the Democrats for ending the pandemic — and the previous five years of hell under Donald Trump.