The Return of Bill Clinton

President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, Thursday, February 2, 2023, at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

Joe Biden is an unpopular president. He has spent over two years with an approval rating near forty percent. His opponent, Donald Trump, is trusted more on nearly every social and economic issue from immigration to inflation and unemployment. Biden’s weakness has prompted a number of left-leaning third-party candidates to join the race, most notably Cornel West, Jill Stein, and to a certain degree Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Biden is in such a precarious position that it is front-page news when there is a story that his staff is not panicking.

Joe Biden still has advantages over Donald Trump. He has the benefits of incumbency, universal name recognition, and the ability to improve his image with economic success over the next year. But there is still a good chance that Biden will lose in 2024. If he does, such a defeat will not just push Biden into retirement, but will also lead to a substantial shift in the operations of the next Democratic president.

Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was not just a repudiation of the Trump administration. It was also a subtle rebuke to the way Democratic politics had been run for 30 years. Biden launched an experiment in Democratic governance. His administration would embrace youthful movements and government-focused economic policies. Instead of spending as little money as possible like the 2009 stimulus, Biden generously expanded welfare spending and gave out checks to American families. In marked contrast to the 2009 cap-and-trade failure, Biden passed the largest policy ever enacted to combat climate change with money for green energy companies and infrastructure. He became the embodiment of a neo-Keynesian approach to government that has gained steam for the past decade.

In order to implement his policies, Biden also used a different staff than his predecessors. His staffers are young, diverse, and committed to social justice and extending the power of government throughout society. They helped push the old and calcified Biden into policy areas that young people supported. He canceled billions in student loan debt in addition to the wide-scale cancellation overturned by the Supreme Court. He also changed the names of military bases named after Confederate generals and enacted a number of executive orders designed to promote racial justice and protect the rights of transgender people.

Biden’s accomplishments read as a partial wish list of Democratic activists for the past decade. But now, many Democrats are seeing holes in this approach. Massive amounts of government spending eroded income inequality and brought unemployment to one of its lowest levels in years.. But it also led to the rise of inflation. This inflation has helped contribute to “bad feelings” that have hampered the American response to economic growth and Biden’s handling of the economy. Biden’s various compromises in office have been viewed more for their failures than their successes. He is attacked for letting pandemic-era benefits expire more than for ensuring that many of them were large and generous. Instead of receiving support for pandemic checks, he is criticized for not sending out more.

Furthermore, Biden is criticized for not accomplishing all of the left’s program while being ignored when he follows their precepts. His withdrawal from Afghanistan was almost completely ignored by critics of America’s forever wars. He has received little to no support for keeping Ukraine from being swallowed up by Russia. But he is also attacked for his inability to stop the war between Israel and Palestine, including by many of his own staffers.

Democrats are learning that the model of Joe Biden may not work for the future. As a result, there is a growing likelihood that they will go back to the model of an earlier president who spurned the left and embraced a different approach to being a Democratic leader.

The Bill Clinton model currently looks attractive for many Democrats. The Clinton presidency was defined by low unemployment as well as low inflation. Clinton ran as a tough-on-crime president who took pains to spurn the left and reduce government spending. He always maintained friendly relations with Wall Street and reduced regulation at numerous possible opportunities. His connections with Wall Street meant that he could appeal to business and economics students for his interns and staffers, a group that leaned more to the right than today’s coterie of Democratic staffers.

The Bill Clinton approach to Democratic governance has its clear drawbacks. It is not an approach that prioritizes social justice and greater income equality. It is not populist and does not hold the best chance of ending the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. But the Democratic Party does not exist to accomplish these goals. It exists to win elections and continue the careers of its members. Democrats have to know that enacting policies will both help the country and aid their reelection. As activists learned three decades ago, the party will not continue pursuing policies that they are not rewarded for by the electorate.

Leftists would be wise to remember the example of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and the New Democrats of the 1990s as they criticize Joe Biden. The Biden administration has achieved more than many observers could have hoped for during that terrible first pandemic winter of 2020. They have repudiated a stale, calcified approach to governance that prioritized markets and cozy relations with power. But that approach could come roaring back the moment Democrats are convinced the left will never be satisfied with what they can do.