Biden’s message to Democrats: Pass infrastructure for democracy’s sake

As the president heads to Europe, he wants to show that democracy can still work and be functional

President Joe Biden’s meeting with House Democrats after he announced the administration’s framework for its massive social spending bill was ostensibly to mollify progressive Democrats’ fears that his proposed social spending bill’s framework would be sufficient and to urge them to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill the Senate authorised earlier this year.

But his message to Democrats on Thursday morning raised the stakes even more for a president whose approval rating has significantly dropped: You need to pass legislation to inspire confidence in democracy.

The message came before Mr Biden headed to Rome for the G20 summit and then to Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Summit. It’s an early test for Mr Biden as many world leaders are still unsure about whether American democracy can be sustained after the chaotic presidency of his predecessor Donald Trump, which ended in a riot on Capitol Hill.

More recently, it’s also a test for him after many European leaders expressed doubt after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban amid the United States’ winding down military operations in the nation it had fought in a war for nearly 20 years.

These two events together have led many to wonder if the United States, which emerged after two world wars as a global superpower, can still be trusted.

Mr Biden, a longtime senator who built his credibility as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then as vice president for Barack Obama, essentially wants to reassure the world that his country can still do the most basic of tasks.

“He made it very clear that his desire is to be able to disprove the Vladimir Putins of the world who say ‘democracies can't get anything done, we're obsolete, we're yesterday's model, that we're dysfunctional,’” said Rep Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia. “He basically pled with us 'help prove him wrong, give me that bill,' with the understanding that the next bill is following and we've got a solid framework agreement that's agreed to.”

Mr Putin, who has slowly turned Russia into an autocracy during his presidency, has licked his chops at any hint of instability in the United States.

After the riot on the Capitol, Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, called the American democratic system, “archaic, doesn’t meet modern democratic standards, is open to numerous violations, and the US media have become a tool in the political fight.”

Similarly, this summer, Mr Putin pointed to Black Lives Matter protests after police in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd, a Black man, last year.

Now, Mr Biden appears to want to show that American democracy is still a viable alternative to authoritarian regimes like China or Russia.

In the end, some Democrats are arguing that the party needs to realise that their own pet issues are minuscule compared to the need to preserve the reputation of the republic.

Rep Tom Malinowski of New Jersey has advocated removing a cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) that were put in place during the Trump administration’s tax cut bill in 2017. But Mr Malinowski, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor in the Obama administration, said they would matter little if there were no democracy left.

“Look, we’re trying to save our democracy here,” he said. “As much as I care about the content of these bills, and one piece of content I care about is SALT, the most important thing is that we starting today, demonstrate to the people that we represent that this government still works, that democracy still works in the face of an opposition party that believes in nothing, that is trying to tear the system down, that feeds off of cynicism.”

But with the Republican Party wholly enthralled to Mr Trump – save for a handful of elected officials who have been labeled heretics – the Democratic Party’s divides are legitimate and display the birthing pains of governing, as some Democrats would prefer to vote first for the bill that passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis.

Meanwhile, some more progressive Democrats argue that their massive social spending bill must first be put into text and receive a vote around the same time. Along with traditional infrastructure needs like roads, bridges and mass transit, it also includes provisions for social welfare like pre-kindergarten education, home care for people with disabilities and elderly people and provisions to combat the very climate crisis Mr Biden wants to address when he heads to Glasgow.

Furthermore, some within his own party, such as Senator Joe Manchin of the coal-industry-reliant West Virginia, have actively weakened provisions to counteract the effects of climate change. It’s why Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that Congress cannot pass the two bills that would in total, increase emissions.

“I think that the credibility of the United States on climate is very much on the line,” she said earlier this week. “Any effort to reduce our ability to reduce emissions is going to chip away at that.”

Mr Biden’s hopes to show the United States can govern despite a radical Republican Party wherein many of its leaders refuse to admit they lost the last election is an admirable effort. But it also ignores that the healthiest form of government requires robust debate, rather than one where one or two Senators can stymie a whole agenda.