Many qualities, beliefs, and actions differentiate President Joe Biden from his disgraced predecessor. One of them spends a great deal of time encouraging his supporters to hate their fellow Americans—not just public figures, but regular people as well. The other, while strongly criticizing specific positions taken by leaders on the other side, aims to strengthen bonds across lines of party, as well as those of race, religion, region, and more.
Comparing just one statement from each of these men reveals how stark the contrast is.
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Biden offered the following statement on Oct. 4, shortly after Rep. Kevin McCarthy went from being barely speaker to being chewed up and spit out by Rep. Matt Gaetz:
“More than anything, we need to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. I know we have strong disagreements, but we need to stop seeing each other as enemies. We need to talk to one another, listen to one another, work with one another. And we can do that.”
On May 28, 2020, The Man Who Lost An Election And Tried To Steal It chose to endorse a rather less kind way of speaking about his political opponents. He retweeted a video consisting of one of his acolytes saying: “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” That’s exactly the poison Biden referred to.
What the current president said represents more than just pretty words for him. They inform the approach he—along with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took to legislation as well during Biden’s first two years in office, when Democrats had razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate (where Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia were often resistant to legislation supported by the rest of the Democratic caucus).
The 117th Congress was one of the most productive legislative sessions in many years. But here I want to focus on three significant pieces of legislation passed with bipartisan support: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which dealt with gun violence and mental health.
It’s important to note that these three were all Democratic bills that got some Republican support—the Democratic caucus voted unanimously for the infrastructure law and the Safer Communities Act, and all members, except Sen. Bernie Sanders, voted for the CHIPS Act. These weren’t laws drawn up in the mushy middle, where progressives were overwhelmingly opposed along with the most extreme right-wingers. Schumer and Pelosi held their caucuses together, and Biden helped bring over the necessary number of Republicans to get the legislation passed.
McKinsey & Company explained that the CHIPS Act “invests $280 billion to bolster US semiconductor capacity, catalyze [Research & Development], and create regional high-tech hubs and a bigger, more inclusive STEM workforce,” and added that it is “designed to boost US competitiveness, innovation, and national security.” The infrastructure law will pump $1 trillion into “roads, bridges, railways and broadband internet”—including charging stations for electric vehicles—all over America. Plus, the federal money will also spark additional private investment in elements of our infrastructure such as the electric grid and others. These two bipartisan laws will have a major impact on our economy and society. The gun law, while limited in scope, is nonetheless the first major gun safety law in decades—thanks to the staunch opposition of the NRA, and their total dominance over Republican elected officials, until, apparently, when Joe Biden gets to work.
One of Biden’s most effective rhetorical tactics has been calling out "extreme MAGA Republicans" and seeking to separate them from the rest of the party. This helps to provide space for enough Republicans in Congress, on occasion, to break from the Trumpists and deliver the votes necessary to overcome Senate filibusters and pass legislation, such as the examples cited above. Biden has employed this kind of rhetoric many times, including in his powerful speech in defense of democracy on Sept. 28, delivered in Tempe, Arizona:
“And there is something dangerous happening in America now. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA Movement.
“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, adhere to the MAGA extremist ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”
Look at what the president does here. He declares his willingness—proven over decades as well as during his presidency—to work across the aisle with those who are willing to fashion reasonable compromises. Biden draws a line between the extremists and the rest of the GOP, and provides succor for the latter by arguing that they represent a majority.
Testing his claim is impossible, and perhaps it is aspirational more than accurate, but saying it might just help make it a reality. Biden purposefully does not condemn all Republican politicians—he certainly doesn’t wish death on them—because he knows they can help him (and the American people) now and again.
Just as importantly, Biden did something Trump never does—he emphasized the humanity of those who vote for the opposing party:
“I believe there is no place in America—none, none, none—for political violence. We have to denounce hate, not embolden it.
“Across the aisle, across the country, I see fellow Americans, not mortal enemies. We’re a great nation because we’re a good people who believe in honor, decency, and respect.”
Along similar lines, Biden added: “I believe every president should be a president for all Americans. To use the Office of the President to unite the nation, uphold the duty to care for all Americans.”
Contrast those words to what Trump said at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. The then-president attacked the idea of providing aid to parts of America that didn’t vote Republican: “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as [sic] example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed.” He cares about only the people who do something for him.
We can also contrast Biden’s record of bipartisan success with Trump’s. The latter’s one major legislative accomplishment (outside of COVID relief packages, which consisted of onetime or temporary measures, and passed all but unanimously despite Trump calling one of them, the CARES Act, a “disgrace”) was the Rich Man’s Tax Cut of 2017, which became law without a single Democratic vote. Trump couldn’t get any Democratic support for repealing Obamacare either, and couldn’t even keep his own party in line, as Sen. John McCain famously cast the deciding vote, joining Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins along with the Democrats, putting a thumbs-down to the effort.
What’s so frustrating to many Americans about Trump’s absolute rejection of bipartisanship is that presidents and members of Congress from his own party used to, at least on occasion, make an effort to work with Democrats. In many ways, it was the norm in the not-so-distant past, as seen in so many instances, including the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, which passed the Republican-controlled House 390-33, the Republican-controlled Senate 98-0, and which George W. Bush signed into law (although in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court gutted that law seven years later in a 5-4 decision).
President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the “stimulus”), which passed after the economy crashed in the final months of Bush’s presidency, won the votes of three Republican senators (Olympia Snowe and Collins of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania) to get past a Republican-led filibuster.
Even on an issue as contentious as comprehensive immigration reform, 14 Republican senators voted with every Democrat for a bill that Obama also supported. The bill was a real compromise that included priorities for both parties, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But that compromise died in the tea party-dominated Republican House. Speaker John Boehner bowed to the hard-right elements in his party and prevented the bill from reaching the floor, where it likely would have passed.
That action marked the end of Republicans working across the aisle at the federal level when they were in charge of a legislative chamber or branch of government. It’s no coincidence that the right-wing opposition to immigration reform stood behind that shift. (House Republicans did make an exception on bipartisanship when the criminality of George Santos became too blatant to ignore—it also helped that no actual policies or dollars were at stake in his expulsion.) Lest we forget, that anti-immigration sentiment on the right powered the Trump candidacy.
Furthermore, Kevin McCarthy, the first speaker of the House to ever be voted out of his job, lost his position a few months ago after working with Democrats on a bipartisan plan that prevented the U.S. from defaulting on its debt and avoided a government shutdown. McCarthy didn’t pass a new law with the help of Democrats, he just maintained the status quo and kept the frickin’ lights on. Even that was too much working with the other side for the Trumpists.
Thankfully, now we have Joe Biden in the White House. He is, of course, the leader of the Democratic Party. As such, he often has to act as a partisan, seeking tactical victories that will aid his party in upcoming elections, such as when he went after—on policy grounds, and without personal animus—Rep. Lauren Boebert over investments in her Colorado district made with funds authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act—a law she opposed. Nevertheless, Biden’s outreach and his repeated efforts to reduce the vitriol felt toward Republican officials and regular people who vote Republican provide a model for how all of us who identify as partisans can help reduce polarization.
On the matter of reducing polarization in our society, there’s a difference between the kind of work Biden has done and what regular people can do. Nonetheless, both kinds of work have real value. I sought out Mónica Guzmán to get her thoughts on these issues. She’s the author of “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.” She also appeared in Dec. 2021 on Daily Kos’s podcast “The Brief,” with Markos and Kerry Eleveld.
Guzmán’s book doesn't merely bemoan the hyper-partisanization of American society, she offers concrete, tested solutions for how people in everyday life can bridge that gap and more effectively communicate with folks from different political backgrounds. She's also one of the leaders—the senior fellow for Public Practice—of an organization called Braver Angels, which focuses on bridging the partisan divide in order to strengthen our democracy.
One key priority for Guzmán is to emphasize how we can build these bridges without compromising our own progressive values. As she told Markos and Kerry on “The Brief,” partisans are good and necessary. However, she also pointed out that if the goal is more productive interactions, then one can’t be all about persuasion and convincing without also listening and understanding. People have to feel heard first before they can be convinced of anything. Good advice.
Following up what she said to Markos and Kerry, I was curious how Guzmán thought her work on regular people applied to figures in the political arena. She spoke of the importance of candidness, and how one-on-one conversations between officials of different parties that take place out of the public eye can have a real impact. “That’s where I think there’s a lot of promise, the peer relationships between Democrats and Republicans in Congress … in statehouses all over this country. That’s where you can see some really fruitful, candid, amazing conversations. Past assumptions and judgment that can actually make change.”
As an example, Guzmán related the story of how Utah, one of the reddest of these United States, came to ban licensed mental health practitioners from doing so-called “conversion therapy”—which aims at somehow making queer people straight again—on folks under the age of 18. This ban became law because some key legislators who were opposed to it sat down with Troy Williams, a Salt Lake City LGBTQ+ activist and executive director at Equality Utah, and talked through the issue.
Guzmán explained that “we’re so divided [that] we’re blinded,” which is why we often don’t see the sincere concerns of those on the other side. Maybe not always, but sometimes we can actually resolve those concerns through honest dialogue, and that’s what happened in Utah, thanks to those conversations between Williams and some conservative Republican legislators. Ultimately, she noted, the bill passed unanimously, and LGBTQ+ minors won important protections. She continued: “The deepest harm we do to ourselves is not seeing each other. Refusing to engage and check our assumptions with reality. It’s killing us.”
We also talked about how the bridges built by the regular people her work focuses on can impact the broader political environment, and enhance the chances of an elected official like Biden achieving success in reaching across the aisle. Guzmán explained that the way we treat our neighbors and the “fears we have about people who disagree with us … trickle up,” and that politicians often “mirror that.” One of the biggest problems with our politics is that “the things we are incentivized to do for political gain add to the poison.” There’s that word again. She added that “politicians can only be as collaborative as the citizens in some ways.”
This tells me that we citizens engaging productively where we can, while still holding fast to our values, can not only help us get through a potential holiday dinner, but can actually aid Biden’s ability to help America.
The ways that the 46th and 45th presidents respectively speak about members of the other political party are the literal inverse of one another. Moreover, since taking office, Biden has shown that there are concrete ways to reach across the aisle and achieve positive changes without abandoning core principles—but only one party’s leader demonstrates any interest in doing so. His outreach-centered approach not only counters the polarization that riddles the bones of American society, it also produces more results in terms of concrete progressive policy achievements.
Biden’s approach helped him defeat the insurrectionist-in-chief by seven million votes in 2020, and reach the office from which he could enact those very policies. It is the only way forward for our party, and for our country.
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