Houston Chronicle by ANDREW TAYLOR Nov. 11, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden feels at home on Capitol Hill, but the place sure has changed since he left.
The clubby atmosphere that Biden knew so well during his 36-year Senate career is gone, probably forever. Deal-makers are hard to find. And the election results haven't dealt him a strong hand to pursue his legislative agenda, with Democrats' poor performance in down-ballot races likely leaving them without control of Congress.
The dynamic leaves Biden with little choice but to try to govern from the vanishing middle of a Washington that's been badly ruptured by the tumult of the last decade. With the forces of partisanship and gridlock entrenched, ending what Biden called the “grim era of demonization†could be the central challenge of his presidency — and one that could prove vexing if forces on the left and right refuse to go along.
“There is a certain opportunity for bipartisanship, but it is all going to be deals in the middle,†said Rohit Kumar, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “What I don’t know is whether the (Democratic and Republican) parties will allow them to do that because the parties have gotten a lot more polarized.â€
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