1/Today's Substack post is about Biden's chances of becoming a truly transformational president -- someone who will move U.S. economic policy onto a leftward track, as Reagan once moved it onto a rightward

2/Political scientist Stephen Skowronek has a theory that says we're due for a "reconstructive" President who will define a new paradigm for the next few decades.

https://t.co/p1usloRmsD
3/Like most people, I thought Biden would be an incrementalist centrist who would get little done other than restoring competence and morality to the executive branch (and that alone would have been plenty of reason to vote for him!).
4/When I read Skowronek's theory, I read it as a prediction of a Bernie or Warren presidency.

I did not imagine that Biden could be a transformational president.

BUT, it's looking like he just might be one!
5/Check out @mehdirhasan's rundown of Biden's rapid blitz.

https://t.co/o6nqPL97S8
6/Or check out @drvolts' rundown of Biden's climate actions!

https://t.co/FrFhE1RLSp
7/Biden has done more executive actions in the first 3 weeks of his presidency than Obama and Trump combined at the equivalent mark. Here's a list.

https://t.co/UkqOTmu49E
8/His legislative agenda is breathtakingly bold. It's -- dare I say it? -- Rooseveltian.
9/Now, Biden might be stymied on the legislative front. Mitch McConnell might filibuster much of his agenda to death (though I'm remaining cautiously optimistic this will not happen).
10/But remember, this sort of happened to Ronald Reagan too!
11/Reagan's true transformational influence came from:

1. Executive actions and appointments that weakened unions and regulation, etc.

2. An enduring ideological shift, which led eventually to Clinton's welfare reform and deregulations.
12/In the same way, Biden might usher in a new age where economic progressivism -- in the form of government sending people cash -- is the norm, and leaders of BOTH parties compete to see who can do it better.

Maybe this is the first glimmer:

https://t.co/eOQEeeroo4
13/Maybe individual leaders' temperaments and preconceptions are less important than the necessities of the times in which they lead.

Maybe it's not Biden. Maybe it's COVID making America finally realize that Reaganism is inadequate to the challenges we face.
14/In other words, maybe Skowronek is right -- maybe it's simply TIME for a transformational President. Maybe Biden just happens to be the person that the Hand of Destiny tapped on the shoulder.

(end)

https://t.co/k5xqLQ88Xq
And remember, if you like this kind of content, sign up for my free email list and get it delivered direction to your inbox! :-)

https://t.co/FGppA1M8W6

More from Noah Smith 🐇

Yes, we have been more divided than we are now. Within living memory.


Labor disputes used to kill hundreds of people!

In 1932 Douglas MacArthur called in tanks on protesting veterans, injuring over a thousand people!

In 1967 there were 159 race riots in cities across

In 1921, rioters used airplanes to bomb black businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma! Hundreds were killed in the riot!
When Republicans started to believe in racial bloc voting - when they stopped believing that nonwhite people could ever be persuaded to vote Republican - they started to see immigration as an invasion.

This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.


Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.

Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.

But they decided against this, and...here we are.

What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?

Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.

As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.

(end)
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.


2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.

3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a

4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).

5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".

More from Biden

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: 20 years a blogger; Will Biden bust trusts?; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/8eRWqssqXf

#Pluralistic

1/


20 years a blogger: Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.

https://t.co/XyvbPirvhE

2/


Will Biden bust trusts?: Obama's third term would be a disaster for antitrust.

https://t.co/FMc798VhI0

3/


#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire https://t.co/exhhsaAnzD;

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire https://t.co/6t7jy4xIRt

#10yrsago Interview with hacker anthropologist Biella Coleman https://t.co/uf1wSr4X4L

4/


#5yrsago Income inequality makes the 1% sad, too https://t.co/DYzjE2uRFz

#1yrago The bubbles in VR, cryptocurrency and machine learning are all part of the parallel computing bubble https://t.co/qWZmB7u1sD

5/

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