When I share with people that Gordon Lloyd and I have published a new book, How Public Policy Became War, they invariably nod and comment on the timeliness of the topic. Of course, they are thinking of the partisan war-like environment in Washington in which very little is done, and that is part of the story. As former Vice President Joe Biden is learning in his presidential campaign, however, the root of the problem is longer and deeper than today’s hyper-partisanship.

When you have been in politics as long as Biden has, you develop a track record that is subject to attack, especially as times and politically correct opinions change. It turns out that Biden was a strong supporter of two domestic policy wars, the war on drugs and the war on crime, that are now unpopular with Democrats. In the 1980s and 1990s, Biden was known as tough on crime and said that President George H.W. Bush’s war on drugs did not go far enough. As chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden led the charge in setting longer prison terms for drug offenders and building more prisons. Some say he invented the term “drug czar” to describe the general who would oversee that war.