Bipartisanship

There are serious, unanswered questions about the impact of America’s bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites. Three stand out. How much was actually destroyed? Where is the highly-enriched uranium that Iran apparently removed from the Fordow site before the bombs fell? And is America threatened by Iranian sleeper cells, perhaps hidden among the more than 700 Iranians whom the Biden administration released into the American interior after they crossed the border illegally? Nor are they the only threat. We have no idea how many terrorists are among the 2 million “got aways” who were seen on surveillance cameras crossing the border but never apprehended.  Those are serious questions about serious threats, and they deserve thoughtful, bipartisan inquiry. They won’t receive it.

Could 2025 give Democrats a do-over for how they misplayed the results of Donald Trump's first election? Early signs point to yes — and that could come at the consternation of some conservatives. Let's consider some political alternative history for a moment. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, it's easy to forget how many Democrats started sounding a note of reconciliation with the incoming president. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were all open about their willingness to find common ground with the new White House on infrastructure and other policy areas, hoping their views would be closer to Trump's than more fiscally conservative Republicans.

Trying to make horseshoe theories of left-right politics happen is harder than it seems. Much as the topic of a political realignment has dominated discussion in Washington since the rise of Donald Trump, there has always been something missing: actual legislation to prove such a realignment is possible as policy. I included this point in my piece on the New Right this spring:  One astute observer of national politics, supportive of the New Right’s goals, told me he believes the real fault is the lack of a single clear legislative victory.

J.D. Vance gained prominence in 2016 for appealing to two camps. His critique of the roots of rural poverty, relayed in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was generally well received on both sides of the aisle. After crediting the American Conservative magazine for putting Elegy on the map, the New York Times’s Jennifer Senior wrote in a review of the book that Vance used “a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans.” Fast-forward seven years, and a lot has changed for Vance. He has evolved from Never Trump conservative to enthusiastic MAGA disciple. And he has also gone from bestselling author to United States senator.

Combatants within our nation’s political class never suffer for lack of insults — and in recent years they’ve taken to hurling back and forth a particular aspersion with increasing frequency: “un-American.” In recent weeks we’ve heard pundits and politicians declaim that it’s un-American to blame gas prices on Joe Biden, to tax billionaires, to let states decide their own abortion laws, to oppose admitting Ukraine to NATO, to forbid sex-change surgeries for ten-year-olds, and to treat Disney like any other Florida corporation. Still others have declared “whiteness,” the NFL draft and racial disparities in student debt to be un-American.

Viewed in one light, last week’s overwhelming rejection by the New Hampshire state legislature of a bill to put secession to a vote was a resounding win for unity in a fractious time. But it probably won’t be the last time we see such a proposal in a state house. A fatalistic argument from one of the bill’s thirteen supporters explains why: “National divorce is going to happen. It’s inevitable, and we have a chance to get ahead of this.” He may be right, if polls are to be believed. Last fall, a survey out of the University of Virginia brought the depressing news that 40 to 50 percent of Biden and Trump voters claim “it’s time to split the country.” Commentator David French declared the finding unsurprising, because Democrats and Republicans “loathe each other.

Conservatives view Joe Manchin as an untrustworthy flip-flopper. Liberals see him as a roadblock on their path to Woketopia. But for President Joe Biden, Manchin might be something else — a much-needed excuse. Every party needs a pooper, right? Well, Manchin might be the buzzkill the Democrats’ out-of-control shindig needs. Unlike 'Lunch Bucket' Joe, who has killed thousands of Keystone XL Pipeline jobs and proposed trillions of dollars in spending, Manchin is in-tune with the average American. That isn’t saying much. Joe Biden has spent more time conversing with the members of the Squad and answering questions from YouTube influencers than he has spent reaching out to Republicans. In 2021, it is easier for a politician to fall fully in-line with their respective party.

Who wants bipartisanship? The short answer is: neither side, so neither is getting it. Activists in both parties have been clear about that. There was a moment, last spring, when it seemed Democrats might opt for centrism. It came when Rep. James Clyburn endorsed Joe Biden, who went on to defeat Bernie Sanders and capture his party’s nomination. Biden promised general election voters a center-left agenda and extensive bipartisanship, though he did bow occasionally to his party’s left-wing. Biden may have been promising moderation and bipartisanship, but Donald Trump was not. Quite the contrary. He was a populist candidate who actually governed like one.

As the pandemic accelerated, an epidemic seemed to recede from headlines. But it did not stop. More than 40 states reported an increase in opioid-related deaths, with more than 81,000 between May 2019 and May 2020, the highest one-year death toll ever reported. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one cause stood out: fentanyl overdoses spiked by nearly 40 percent. As a Schedule II controlled-substance, fentanyl is already highly regulated. The drug is several times more powerful than morphine; when used appropriately the pharmaceutical can treat severe pain post-surgery. Unauthorized use — possession, manufacturing, or distribution — is illegal. Synthesized analogue versions of the drug are just as deadly, but can skirt regulation because of chemical differences.

Joe Biden was elected as a moderate-left Democrat, but he is not governing as one. He pledged repeatedly to work across party lines, but he is ramming through the biggest, most expensive progressive agenda in American history without any Republican votes. He is almost certain to try it again with his next two spending proposals, the largest since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. As the White House pushes these mammoth bills with only Democratic votes, Americans are realizing they got a very different president from the one they bargained for, the one they were promised during the campaign. What’s unclear is whether they will recoil from this new reality. Throughout the summer and fall, Biden ran as a unifier who could work across party lines.

We’re all Trumpologists now. Like the Kremlinologists of the Cold War, monitoring the line-ups at missile parades to see who was in or out of the Politburo, we track the president’s Twitter twitches and off-the-cuff quips, then guess which way he’s going to go next. The Soviets were rational actors, and so was Donald Trump when he responded to the midterms. He called the split Congress a ‘beautiful, bipartisan-type situation’ — beautiful because the situation places Trump at the fulcrum of power, bi-partisan because no legislature will pass without both sides on board. Trump is the president who spent his first few days in the White House annulling Barack Obama’s executive orders.