Biden Seeks to Circumvent the GOP's Culture War

Given that the Republican policy agenda that seeks to shift wealth to the wealthy offers little or no economic benefit to working class and most middle class Americans, for decades the GOP has used the so-called culture wars to induce voters to vote Republican and against their own economic interests.  Hence the GOP obsession of pandering to right wing religious extremists through stances on abortion and LGBT rights and much more openly after Trump the appeals to racists and white supremacists.  Democrats can try to counter these GOP efforts by trying to educate voters but frankly, racial and religious based hatred and bias are difficult to undo, especially among older voters and uneducated white males who are the bedrock base of the GOP.  Joe Bid. en and his administration rightly see bringing tangible economic benefit to a wide cross section of voters as one of the best ways to undercut GOP efforts to fan the flames of bigotry - most recently by focusing on refugees at the southern border - is to have voters experience real economic gains.  People under less financial and economic strain are simply less likely to embrace the GOP's calls to open racism and religious based bigotry.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon.  Here are column highlights:

The Biden administration appears to have adopted a two-pronged strategy to reduce the corrosive impact of hot-button social, cultural and racial issues: first by inundating the electorate with a flood of cash via the $1.9 trillion Covid relief act and second by refusing to engage fractious issues in public, calculating that deprived of oxygen, their strength will fade.

The sheer magnitude of the funds released by the American Rescue Plan, the White House is gambling, will shift voters’ attention away from controversies over Dr. Seuss, who can use which bathroom and critical race theory. So far, the strategy is working.

Biden has a favorability rating of 52.9 to 41.9, according to the Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent surveys, and a Pew Research poll the first week of March found that a decisive majority of voters, at 70-28 percent, have a positive opinion of the Covid stimulus bill.

According to a rundown by the Center for American Progress of the bill’s exceptionally generous provisions, the bill will cut child poverty in half, . . . . This kind of money will focus attention where the Biden administration wants it.

In addition, a plurality of the beneficiaries will be white. Of the 39.4 million people at or below poverty in 2019 who qualify for the largest benefits, 17.3 million were white, 8.2 million were Black and 10.2 million were Hispanic, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The second prong of Biden’s strategy is to lower the volume on culture war issues by refusing to engage — on the theory that in politics, silence saps attention — exemplified by the president’s two-month long refusal to hold a news conference in which the press, rather than the chief executive, determines what gets talked about.

The strategy of diverting attention from incendiary social issues is spreading.

“Taking their cues from a new president who steadfastly refuses to engage with or react to cultural provocations,” Democratic officeholders “have mostly kept their heads down and focused on passing legislation,” The Week’s Damon Linker wrote in “Will the G.O.P.’s culture war gambit blow up in its face?”  That raises the possibility, Linker continued, that while Republicans are busy trying to bait Democrats on culture war issues, those Democrats end up winning public opinion in a big way by refusing to play along, changing the subject, and actually making the lives of most Americans concretely better.

Biden’s approach, Feldman continued, “is clearly putting many conservatives in a difficult position as they try to counter with stories about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head.”

Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster with decades of experience in federal and state elections, is optimistic about Biden’s current prospects, but he warned that the administration will have to gain control of immigration: “The border matters,” he said, “and Republicans will use images from the border to seer into people’s consciousness.

Biden and other Democrats, in Greenberg’s view, should “ignore cancel culture attacks” while making the case “that Democrats are fighting and delivering for the working class and it is Democrats you can trust to have a strong economy.”

Biden himself appears willing to tackle the potential political fallout the recent increase in migration might cause. In an interview on Tuesday with ABC News, Biden described his message to potential migrants as: “I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over,” before adding, “Don’t leave your town or city or community.”

“Immigration is way down on voters’ list of concerns,” she said. “With Covid and the economy voters don’t think that immigration is a serious concern.”

In the case of growing fears of a surge of immigrants seeking entry on the border with Mexico, Lake continued, There is not a crisis. There is a problem that has emerged because of mismanagement and uniquely flawed policies under Trump. What is needed is a road map to citizenship and reasonable, workable policies with leadership that returns to American values and workable policies.

Because of this, Lake argued, the most important strategy for Democrats is keep focused on vaccines, jobs, wages and small businesses. Voters will measure success by how much their families and communities are helped. Voters will ask in 2022 what did Democrats deliver.

The focus of the Biden administration on economic issues is, in part, a strategy to apply crosscutting pressures on white working class voters who have moved to the Republican Party.

While culturally conservative, many of these voters remain liberal on economic policy, suggesting that a Democrat who lowers the temperature on cultural issues while stressing an expansion of economic benefits could make inroads with this constituency. Even small inroads would provide huge political dividends.

In this context, one of the things Biden has going for him is the likelihood of strong economic growth in the near future. . . . . Economists have begun to talk of something stronger: a supercharged rebound that brings down unemployment, drives up wages and may foster years of stronger growth.

The steady diminution of Donald Trump’s presence is a godsend for Biden (and not just Biden). As Politico reported on March 14, “Trump was supposed to be a political Godzilla in exile. Instead, he’s adrift.”

While Biden “tried to work with Republicans on the Hill — and polls show that the public believes he was sincere in that effort — he also proved able to act on his own when the GOP party leaders blew him off,” Putnam told Salon. “His rising poll numbers show that he’s got most of the public, including many Republican voters, on his side.”

For the moment Biden has achieved respite from the chaos of the Trump years. The enactment of the American Rescue Plan was a major first step in the implementation of the Biden agenda. But the hurdles Fukuyama and others cite, and the persistence of a still powerful Republican Party — riddled with pathologies, determined to draw blood — suggest that the road ahead will be rough.