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Joe Biden promised voters they wouldn’t have to keep thinking about politics all the time. That hasn’t worked out for them, or him.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Plus: Scroll down to read Imani Perry’s picks from the newly launched Atlantic archive.
Hardly Reassuring
Political strategists and pundits sometimes talk about the quest to win the news cycle. These days, the question is less whether Joe Biden will win a news cycle than what kind of defeat he’ll suffer. The president’s struggles stem from a range of causes—inflation, foreign war, the lingering effects of COVID, a conservative judiciary, and sloppy messaging—but one way I’ve been thinking about them is this: Biden hasn’t managed to deliver the boring America he promised when he ran for president.
Biden’s pitch in 2020 was that he would bring a return to normalcy. To him, Donald Trump’s presidency was an aberration, a view that set him apart from his Democratic rivals who saw Trump as the culmination of long-running currents in American society and Republican politics. But for an electorate exhausted by the roller coaster of the Trump years and then COVID, Biden’s reassurance that politics could be boring again was pretty appealing.
As hard as it can be to be interesting, delivering dull is even harder. Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan supposedly quipped that the most challenging part of his job was “events.” Biden can surely sympathize. Last month’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade stripped Americans of what many consider a basic right. It is also, for the White House, a political migraine. The decision was the product of a Court stocked with conservative justices before Biden was elected. The White House couldn’t prevent the ruling, nor does the president have many (if any) good options to push back.
And yet Biden seems to have made the worst of a bad situation. His top lawyer was somehow taken by surprise by the timing of the decision, according to CNN—a claim that might seem difficult to believe if it weren’t for the lack of any unified response from the White House. The administration seems entirely reactive, announcing, for example, that declaring a health emergency is not a “great option,” before suddenly reconsidering it.
Over the weekend, Biden’s departing communications director slammed “activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party,” a peculiar place to train her fire. Maybe she’s trying to recapture the magic of the 2020 campaign, when Biden was at odds with progressive “Defund the police” activists but in step with voters. In this case, however, voter sentiment is clearly in favor of some access to abortion, and not just among Democrats.
This shiftlessness has taken a toll. As Ed Kilgore writes for Intelligencer, Biden is now polling lower than Trump was at the same point in his presidency. The New York Times seems to run a big step-back story about Biden being old on roughly a monthly basis. Today brought a poll finding that almost two-thirds of Democratic voterswould like to see someone else as the party’s nominee in 2024.
Perhaps this negative reaction to Biden is unfair. Even with narrow control of Congress, Democrats have passed blockbuster legislation, such as the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and a major COVID relief package, though they made the mistake of promising a Build Back Better plan that they have been unable to pass. Experts have widely praised Biden’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Last week’s unemployment report beat expectations. Gas prices are falling. Some of the other problems, including inflation and COVID, are largely out of his control.
That’s not what voters want to hear, though. They voted for Biden because he offered reassurance, and now he’s flailing because he … can’t offer reassurance. Writing in this newsletter almost a month ago, my colleague Tom Nichols pleaded for voters to leave Joe Biden alone. The problem is that they want to be left alone, too, without having to worry about the cost of filling up their tank or whether they’ll be able to get basic health care if they’re pregnant. And yet politics, or reality, keeps barging in.
Related:
Today’s News
After defying a congressional subpoena, Steve Bannon claimed that he is now willing to testify before the House January 6 committee.
The death toll from Russia’s Saturday strike on a Ukrainian apartment block in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar rose to 31.
When I was a teenager living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I often walked by the home of the abolitionist and Union officer Thomas Wentworth Higginson. I remembered that Ida B. Wells may have visited Higginson there, and romantically imagined myself in her footsteps, walking up Buckingham Street. So it has been particularly exciting to find Higginson’s abolitionist writings in the Atlantic archive.
In this essay from the June 1861 issue, he recounts the insurrection led by Denmark Vesey in South Carolina about 40 years prior. He isn’t as brutally honest about racism as Wells, but Higginson’s recognition of the nobility of self-emancipation is meaningful, especially at the dawn of the Civil War.
Two other writings from the archive that aroused my interest both come from the September 1859 issue. The first is a description of a trio’s visit to Martha’s Vineyard, long before the island became associated with the elite resort glamour that characterizes it today. The displacement of the Gay Head tribe, the whaling industry’s impact on the island’s ecology, and the local language and culture of New England are rendered vividly. If you are familiar with the landscape, the description of the Vineyard’s geography and beauty will be wholly familiar. But this story tells something about the root of the place and how it became the treasured enclave it is today.
The other article from that issue is another account set in what is now a popular tourist destination: Savannah, Georgia. Specifically, it is a laudatory review of a pamphlet by the American Anti-Slavery Society about an event known historically as “the weeping time,” the largest slave auction in United States history. As the pamphlet reveals, it was a Philadelphian who held the auction—a potent reminder that although antebellum slavery was centered in the South, its beneficiaries were elites all over the country.
Finally, this 1954 article, published two months after the Brown v. Boardof Education decision, gives a potent, if brief, history of school segregation. But what strikes me about it is the author Arthur E. Sutherland’s hopefulness regarding desegregation—a hope that was soon dashed by massive resistance and the anemic “all deliberate speed” mandate of the second Brown opinion. Now, of course, though Brown doesn’t appear to be immediately under threat, the ideology of white supremacy that undergirded legal segregation is on the rise. Nearly 60 years later, hope feels harder to come by.
— Imani Perry
More From The Atlantic
Culture Break
(The Atlantic)
Read. “Lucky,” a new poem by Carl Dennis: “No way to explain to a car, which always waits / Just where you leave it, the human capacity / To drift in thought away from the body / Just when the body is in need of guidance.”
Watch. Already seen Top Gun and in the mood for more explosive action? Watch DéjàVu (available on Disney+ and to rent on Amazon Prime),a 2006 Tony Scott–directed thriller with Denzel Washington that turns into a “sort of high-tech Vertigo.”
Or try something else from our writer’s list of 26 brilliant movies that critics were wrong about.
Drink. It’s Free Slurpee Day at 7-Eleven. What the hell is a slushie, anyway? Find out here.
It’s a pleasure to be filling in here this week, especially because it gives me a chance to celebrate the hottest team in baseball. I routinely search for consolation in Tom Scocca’s paean to the 2011 Baltimore Orioles, who finished last in the AL East but spoiled the playoff hopes of the hated Red Sox on the final day of the season. Scocca notes how small (even petty) victories can make rooting for a bad team feel worthwhile. The O’s will almost certainly finish in the basement again this year, but they’ve just won eight games in a row, and they’re guaranteed not to lose tonight, because it’s an off day. Here’s to small victories—or even better, eight of them.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
