The Biden administration has already zipped through two familiar stages of the modern presidency. First came the high expectations: Dreamy headlines compared Joe Biden to Franklin D. Roosevelt, an unrealistic standard for a president with the thinnest possible margin in the Senate and just a four-vote majority in the House. Then reality intruded—COVID-19 didn't go away, inflation and the withdrawal from Afghanistan was even messier than expected. Biden's plans for social spending and voting reform were blocked by senators in his own party. This initiated the All is not lost. As a headline on a New York Times, op-ed by the senior Obama adviser David Axelrod declared, “It's Not Over for Joe Biden.”
The president's approval rating these days fibrillates just above 40 percent. Historically, when that number has been less than 50, the president's party has lost an average of 37 House seats in the midterms. The next stage in the Biden presidency's journey will undoubtedly be lighting a candle at the shrine of Harry Truman, the patron saint of presidencies stuck in the mud. Truman, the 33rd president and the subject of Jeffrey Frank's The Trials of Harry S.
Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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JOE ROGAN IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NOW
What happens when the outsiders seize the microphone?
MARAUDING NATION
In Trumps second term, the U.S. could become a global bully.
BOLEY RIDES AGAIN
America’s oldest Black rodeo is back.
THE GENDER WAR IS HERE
What women learned in 2024
THE END OF DEMOCRATIC DELUSIONS
The Trump Reaction and what comes next
The Longevity Revolution
We need to radically rethink what it means to be old.
Bob Dylan's Carnival Act
His identity was a performance. His writing was sleight of hand. He bamboozled his own audience.
I'm a Pizza Sicko
My quest to make the perfect pie
What Happens When You Lose Your Country?
In 1893, a U.S.-backed coup destroyed Hawai'i's sovereign government. Some Hawaiians want their nation back.
The Fraudulent Science of Success
Business schools are in the grips of a scandal that threatens to undermine their most influential research-and the credibility of an entire field.
