Transformational

I don't say this lightly: Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is a transformational American president.

With yesterday's student loan forgiveness announcement marinating throughout the interwebs, it's time to acknowledge the ways in which Biden's accomplishments will completely revolutionize the future of our country.

We first have to admit that Biden's half-century in Washington has been critical to his success. Having worked in both the United States Senate and in the Oval Office, Biden was uniquely positioned to have seen the sausage making at both the legislative and executive branches of government. Combined with his role on the Senate Judiciary Committee and it can be argued that Biden even had extensive knowledge of all three branches of government prior to his 2020 presidential run. While lesser men have argued that somehow experience in government is a bad thing, Joe Biden is proving that being a lifelong politician and having accrued a half-century of knowledge and relationships both in and out of the Beltway can be exactly what is needed to deliver ground-breaking legislation that will help shape our country for decades to come. He's seen it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Perhaps most importantly, he saw just how far Republicans were willing to go to sabotage the country so that the Black Man in the Oval Office couldn't implement his visionary progressive agenda. He knew on day one just how intransient the GOP would be to him and his administration and he reacted accordingly.

Biden's experience has been the catalyst for his successes. He knows how to wine and dine someone like Joe Manchin on the Infrastructure Reduction Act. He knows when and how to bring Kyrsten Sinema front and center for a bill signing. He knows when to push and when to pull back, as Chuck Schumer recently acknowledged. But he also knows the power of the pulpit. He knows when to go on live TV and call out injustice. While many on the right mocked Biden calling out big oil, his public declaration that they were profiteering set in motion a series of events that has led to ten straight weeks of lowering gas prices, right at the exact time that Republicans were anticipating hitting him and Democrats with attack ads prior to the midterm elections. With the Senate soon debating marriage equality, Biden has put vulnerable Senate Republicans in a bind: be on the right side of history and lose your base or be on the wrong side of history and lose independents and moderates. He has truly been playing chess while the GOP has been playing go fish with a deck of Uno cards.

Biden also has been intentional in his priorities. Choosing infrastructure and convincing 19 Republican senators to cross over was a brilliant play. It showed him keeping him campaign promise of working across the aisle while simultaneously passing something that would have a visible impact for midterm voters. It's one thing to pass a law that would benefit Americans 5 or 10 years down the road, it's another entirely to see tens of thousands of new jobs being created repairing roads and bridges and for Democrats up for re-election to be able to point to this type of work in their very own backyards. The challenge Democrats faced in 2010 was the fact that Obama's signature law, the Affordable Care Act, was still in its infancy and the American people couldn't yet speak to the effectiveness of the law. This is not the case with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Biden made sure to prioritize it for exactly that reason. 

While the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was a great first move, Biden has also been purposeful in who exactly legislation is benefitting most. That is why he has gone to great lengths to enshrine new laws that create a pathway of success not just for the middle class but for Black Americans. They are, and will continue to be, the Democratic base and Biden has done more for them than any president in American history. Whether its through financial relief for Black farmers, historic funding for HBCUs, directly addressing infrastructure discrimination, or now with student loan and Pell Grant forgiveness, Joe Biden has gone to bat to address systemic injustice that Black Americans have faced for centuries. He said it during a town hall debate: the way for Black Americans to enter the middle class is to create generational wealth, something they historically have been unable to access. Creating pathways to success for the next generation of Black Americans has only solidified Biden's standing in the Black community and has set him and Kamala Harris up for a successful run in 2024 and beyond.

And while Black voters are unquestionably the Democratic base, Biden has also worked hard to make inroads with groups that traditionally vote Republican. For seniors, his Inflation Reduction Act will cap Medicare costs at $2,000 a month. For veterans, the PACT Act, which was only passed after Democrats stepped up for our nation's soldiers, will extend benefits for 3.5 million of those who were impacted by burn pits. For farmers, 99% of whom are White, Biden has provided $3.1 billion for USDA relief. Doing all this and not raising taxes a single cent for those making over $400,000 has put Biden and Democrats in the driver's seat in talking up their accomplishments both now and in the years to come. While these groups won't starting voting Democratic en masse overnight, giving moderate, anti-Trumpers tangible evidence that voting Democrats can actually benefit them and their communities is nothing to sneeze at.

Biden has done all this and more with a divided Senate and a razor-thin majority in the House. He has done all this with a radical Republican-controlled Supreme Court. And he has done all this in the most divisive political climate since the Civil War. But he knew all this going in. He knew the challenges and battles he would face both from Republican opposition but also from a feckless media that would like nothing better than to see him fail. He also proved to have remarkable adaptability when he oversaw one of the largest airlifts in world history, successfully rescuing over 82,000 Americans from a war-torn Afghanistan. For his efforts, he has been continuously criticized from both the right and the far left. His approval rating sank and is just now finally beginning to recover. But he has stayed the course. He hasn't listened to the haters. He hasn't put up with the media's bullshit questions and hasn't granted them the type of access they came to depend upon during the Trump Administration. He hasn't listened to the nothing-is-ever-good-enough blue checkmark Twitter. He has simply governed and he has done so with one eye to the present and one eye to the future. It is this type of analytical foresight that has put Joe Biden on the precipice of history and he still has over 6 years to go with Americans knowing now that he could do even more with a more Democratic Senate.

A thought that should scares the bejesus out of the entire Republican Party.