The Joe Biden Tragedy: Julian Zelizer on the Last New Deal President
Keen On America
The debate, decline, and historical memory
Zelizer discusses how Biden's debate performance and final year will shape his lasting historical image.
“His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It’s his failure to stop Trumpism from being such a dominant force in America.” — Julian Zelizer
On this Easter Sunday, can we resurrect Joe Biden’s reputation? Perhaps not — according to Julian Zelizer, the Princeton historian and editor of The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden, a collection of essays about the historical significance of the Biden Presidency.
Zelizer argues that Biden’s legislative record was more robust than most Americans remember — climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programmes. Rather than policy, the problem was the politics. Biden didn’t build a coalition that would last long enough for his ambitious programmes to mature. He is the last of an era: a New Deal Democrat who believed in big government, that the Republicans could be brought back to the centre, that politics could still work the way it used to. Joe Biden promised to save the soul of America from the Charlottesville moment. Instead, his administration was bookended by a President who saw “good people” on both sides of the Charlottesville neo-Nazi violence.
Zelizer makes an unusual comparison: Biden as Barry Goldwater. Goldwater lost catastrophically in 1964. Decades later, his anti-New Deal ideas colonised the modern Republican Party. Zelizer suggests that Biden’s domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, bringing jobs home — may follow the same trajectory. Victory on the heels of defeat. A resurrection of sorts. Maybe not such a tragedy after all.
Five Takeaways
• Biden May Be the Last New Deal President: He is a product of mid-twentieth-century Democratic politics — big government, big federal programs, the belief that Washington can help middle-class Americans. His formative period was the era of LBJ and the Great Society. The next round of Democrats will not make his mistakes. The style of politics he represents may be over.
• His Legislative Record Was More Robust Than Anyone Remembers: Climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programs, jobs brought back to the United States. The problem wasn’t that the programmes were broken. The problem was political: he didn’t build a coalition that would last long enough for them to mature. Even the New Deal wasn’t up and running within a year.
• He Promised to Save the Soul of America. He Couldn’t: Biden’s candidacy was a response to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. His promise was that Trumpism would not be at the centre of American power. His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It’s that his administration is followed by a much more radical Trump Two that undoes everything he put on the books and goes further.
• Biden as Barry Goldwater: Goldwater lost by one of the worst margins on record in 1964. Decades later, his ideas were at the core of the modern Republican Party. Zelizer argues Biden’s domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, semiconductor investment — may follow the same trajectory. The ideas may outlast the man.
• Bookended by Trump: There is no way to talk about Biden without talking about Trump. His candidacy was about what he was not going to allow to define America. The fact that he is followed by a more radical and destructive second Trump administration will always be at the centre of the conversation. Trump is the defining voice of this entire period.
About the Guest
Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich and the Rise of the New Republican Party and editor of the presidential assessment series including volumes on Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden.
References:
• The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment edited by Julian Zelizer — the book under discussion.
• Episode 2859: Stop, Don’t Do That — Peter Edelman on Bobby Kennedy. The progressive populism Biden couldn’t resurrect.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Chapters:
- (00:31) - Introduction: Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Joseph R. Biden
- (02:21) - Zhou Enlai and Kissinger: is it too early to tell?
- (04:34) - The historians were eager to participate
- (06:16) - A traditional president analysed in a traditional format
- (07:20) - Divided We Stand: Newt Gingrich and the pathetic quality of the Democrats
- (09:48) - Gramsci’s interregnum: frozen between the past and the future
- (11:35) - The soul of America: Biden’s promise and ultimate failure
- (14:18) - An unlikely person: plagiarism, alliances with segregationists, and luck
- (16:04) - Lincoln’s widow at the theatre: why did anyone fancy this guy?
- (18:54) - No ideological coherence: the compromise candidate
- (21:13) - The CHIPS Act looked great on paper
- (23:38) - Who was running the show?
- (25:30) - The debate: clearly at best out to lunch
- (28:26) - Biden as Barry Goldwater: ideas that outlast the man
- (30:38) - Kamala Harris and backward momentum for female candidates
- (34:38) - Foreign policy: the irony of his supposed strength
- (38:25) - The Hoover comparison: the end of a chapter in American history
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