Joe Biden’s Non-Existent Mandate
The new president seeks to transform the country without the broad mandate required.April 7, 2021|
12:01 am
Robert W. Merry
Just 10 weeks into the Biden administration, the new president’s governing vision has come into focus. He plans to transform America in multiple ways based on a popular mandate that doesn’t exist. This represents an audacity that likely will ensure that history will peg Joe Biden as a man who, when faced with a country in severe civic turbulence, further agitated the roiling waters of national politics.
To comprehend the significance of this development, compare Biden’s presidential victory last fall with those of the 20th century’s two most transformative presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Both redirected the course of American politics, and in pushing their bold agendas each had at his back a magnitude of popular support that constituted a mandate from the American people for change and experimentation. Absent that, a new president generally must build a mandate through careful and judicious decision making designed to fashion a governing coalition over time.
Roosevelt, as a challenger at the height of the Great Depression, amassed a popular vote total of 57.4 percent, with an Electoral College outcome of 472 to just 59 for the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover. FDR’s Democratic Party picked up 97 House seats that year and 12 Senate seats. After the election, Democrats controlled fully 313 House seats, compared to just 117 controlled by Republicans; in the Senate it was 59 Democrats to 36 Republicans.
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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/joe-bidens-non-existent-mandate/
