Biden and Trump Share One Thing, by Yuval Levin | OPINION

In January, ahead of the mid-term elections, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, he said he hoped to be highlighted by Democrats running for Congress. “I will be traveling a lot, taking the case across the country, with my colleagues running for re-election,” he said.

It didn’t happen that way. Instead, many Democratic candidates have practiced the delicate dance that politicians from both parties have had to master over the past two decades: to keep their distance from a president of their own party without openly disavowing him.

The four presidents we have had so far this century have been particularly unpopular. George W. Bush had a period of high approval ratings after the 9/11 attacks, but he spent much of his second term underwater. A graph of Barack Obama’s public approval looks slightly like a “W,” which briefly exceeded 50% in the two elections he won and at the end of his term, but otherwise spent much of his eight years reaching the 40 points. Donald Trump he is the only president who has never exceeded 50%. Biden he crossed that line at the beginning of his term, but hasn’t seen it since. Yet this lingering cliché prevents us from seeing the real contours of our strange constitutional moment. Biden y trump they could very well be the two weakest presidents.

They have been weak presidents of various kinds. Biden he largely refused to prioritize his administration and was so desperate not to split his party that he almost stopped. He thinks of any other modern president, including trumpand you can probably list two or three topics that particularly interested you. You can create a similar list for Biden?

Even when administrative power has been exceeded, such as with the legally questionable amnesty for student loans, Biden it acted under pressure from its party activists.

trump he exhibited another kind of weakness. During his presidency, he dominated most news cycles and sought to operate outside the formal framework of presidential power in ways that would ultimately pose real threats to the constitutional system. But within that system, in which our government actually rules, it was irresponsible and chaotic and largely failed to exert meaningful control over its subordinates as well. His most significant achievement was in the area of ​​presidential power that requires the least persistent prosecution: the appointment of judges, including three to the Supreme Court.

Blatant insubordination was routine in the White House of trump, and it has been accompanied by a bipartisan tendency in Congress to view the president’s words as meaningless and his actions as always open to reversal. Nobody took him seriously as a ruler.

But both with Biden as with trumpmany appointees could be forgiven for having no idea how the president would like them to make key decisions: trump because it was so unpredictable and Biden because he rarely set clear goals. This is a particular problem for our presidents because, unlike the job of Congress, the role of the president is defined by the obligations he has to fulfill. The presidency is best understood as a collection of duties rather than a disposition of powers, and presidential strength is a function of fulfilling those responsibilities and carrying out the main job: faithfully and predictably executing the statute and rules of drafting. stable administrative policies that can last beyond the next elections.

Until presidents realize that the responsibilities of their office are their strengths, they will remain baffled by their own weakness and unable to get the public to their side.

– Polished, edited and translated –

© The New York Times