Why Can’t Joe Biden Force His Agenda Through Congress?

President Biden speaking in Statuary Hall on January 6th, 2022. Photo by The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Liberals are disappointed at the current trajectory of the Joe Biden administration. The news cycle has subsumed his earlier successes entirely. Instead of being proud that they were able to pass a year of child benefits, liberals are aghast that those benefits have now expired. The $1200 checks from earlier this year have been spent and are barely remembered by a majority of the population. COVID-19 and its impact on the electorate waxes and wanes with every new variant and news cycle. Whatever their feelings on his earlier accomplishments, the Democratic base clearly wants more out of the president they once saw as a potentially transformational leader.

Over the past six months, the left has developed the theory that Biden and Democrats are simply not trying hard enough to overcome their largest obstacle: Joe Manchin, the senator from West Virginia. They have investigated nearly every aspect of his life and career. They have looked into his family’s dealings. They have even swarmed his car and tried to prevent it from leaving his garage. The less militant have suggested that Biden use the bully pulpit and push Manchin to act or risk a grassroots backlash.

As precedent, liberals point to the tough-nosed presidents of an earlier era. They look to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and especially Lyndon Johnson as their ideals in this regard. Roosevelt kept a bipartisan coalition together to pass some of the most consequential legislation in American history. He passed important laws in all four of his terms and was so successful he could actually gain seats in a midterm. Roosevelt forced his agenda through with votes from both the liberal North and the conservative South, an agenda that included labor protections and a form of a planned economy.

The pictures of Lyndon Johnson towering over his opponents and bending them to his will are legendary. He used Senate machinations and personal threats to move some of the most important social reforms in history through Congress. Johnson’s tenure as Senate Majority Leader and his pugnacious attitude, according to some liberals, are the main reasons why the Civil Rights Act and Medicare became law.

But FDR and LBJ benefited from a number of factors Joe Biden cannot look towards at the present moment. Both presidents had sizable majorities. Their success came from landslide victories over their Republican opponents, victories which made them formidable adversaries to any wayward members of their party. They passed their agendas with a certain amount of Republican support. FDR and LBJ dealt with world-historical movements and phenomena that made the nation and its lawmakers amenable to sweeping legislation. They also had the benefit of strict party discipline. Both presidents accomplished their reforms in an era with strict seniority requirements for party committees and powerful House and Senate leadership. Corporate spending on elections was lower than it is today. Furthermore, corporate spending was counterbalanced by union spending, which could help push politicians to the left on major legislation.

Another factor that many Democrats forget when discussing FDR and LBJ is that both presidents had a limit to their agenda success. FDR attempted to use the bully pulpit to force through a Supreme Court reform bill in 1937. When that failed, he again used his power to influence a number of primaries in 1938 that would have removed much of his conservative opposition in the South. That effort failed as well. FDR’s main target in this effort, South Carolina’s “Cotton Ed” Smith, won despite being disliked by a majority of South Carolina voters. LBJ, on the other hand, could not will himself to a second full term. His agenda was mostly enacted but still felt inadequate to many supporters of civil rights. He also failed to rally the nation around the Vietnam War, which he saw as a righteous effort to curb the spread of communism.

Joe Biden has few of the benefits that his liberal lion predecessors had. Biden came within 45,000 votes in three key states of losing the presidency. He has a razor-thin majority and a polarized nation where half of the electorate believes he is an illegitimate president. His party is weak and his opposition is in line with decades of political habit and practice. Joe Biden should certainly try harder to overcome or accommodate his recalcitrant senators, either by proposing legislation to their exact specifications or finding a combination of carrots and sticks to persuade them.

But history shows that his efforts may only go so far.