A cockeyed complaint arrived recently at the Washington Examiner from a fellow who pompously asserted, “You had no right to publish information quoting my name, etc. I never signed a waiver or consented to your publication.” Where are these putative waivers to be obtained? Perhaps we’ll ask President Trump, who presumably signed one to let news organizations cover him so extensively these past five years.
It’s not just nonentities who don’t understand how news works. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer seem not to either. They gave their first post-election press conference the other day to claim that Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election was a mandate for them to pass left-wing legislation on Capitol Hill. Pelosi told reporters to ask only about the coronavirus and Trump’s election lawsuits, not to venture into questioning about why congressional Democrats lost the election.
Sorry, Nancy, that’s not how news works. Polls — remember when they were helpful? — forecast that a blue wave would deliver more seats to her and a majority to Schumer. Instead, Republicans gained House seats and have probably also retained their grip on the upper chamber. So there are lots of questions — that is, pleasingly, there are serious doubts — about how much Democrats can achieve of their wrecking program.
In light of top Democrats’ refusal to deal with the true message of the election — voter refusal to sanction left-wing extremes — it was deliciously ironic to hear Schumer tell Republicans to take off their blindfolds and accept that Biden won. “The Republican refusal to deal with reality is hurting our country in many ways,” he said. Democrats’ refusal to face reality is, obviously, completely different.
So Biden arrives in office with weak backing in Congress and facing Mitch “The Knife” McConnell. This is going to make it very difficult for him to push a radical agenda. That’s why the president-elect is bound hand and foot in our cover illustration this week under the ironic headline “Biden Takes Charge.” Joseph Simonson unpacks Biden’s career, which has echoes of Randolph Churchill’s summary of Disraeli’s career as “failure, failure, failure, partial success, renewed failure, ultimate and complete triumph.” Biden has been in Washington 47 years, and he is finally president. We will see whether he can keep his promise to unite the country. Given today’s divisions, that really would be an ultimate and complete triumph.
Zaid Jilani reveals how the Democrats are struggling with the politics of a multiracial America.
In a wonderfully rich Life & Arts section this week, Aris Roussinos reviews Alexandria, the third and final novel in Paul Kingsnorth’s Buckmaster Trilogy; Daniel Ross Goodman asks and answers, “Who Was Stanley Kubrick?”; Graham Hillard reports that The Queen’s Gambit is brilliant; and Eric Felten and Rob Long meditate on upmarket watches and upmarket cancer.
