How much has America changed since the end of the Trump presidency? Bill Scher on U.S. public policy and political culture after two years of Democratic governance. â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â Midway How much has American political life changed since the end of the Trump era? Bill Scher on U.S. public policy and political culture after two years of Democratic governance. Anastasia Fomina For the first time in a century, the U.S. House of Representatives failed Tuesday to elect a Speaker on the first ballotâadjourning with a divided Republican Party unable to unite around Representative Kevin McCarthy as the leader of its new majority. Itâs a chaotic start to a new era of divided government in America, two years into the presidency of Joe Biden. At his inauguration in 2021, Biden pledged âto restore the soul and to secure the future of America,â after Donald Trumpâs tenure ended with his supporters rioting at the U.S. Capitol as the former president continued to claim that Biden had stolen the 2020 election. Since taking office, Biden has won legislation for pandemic-relief funding, infrastructure improvements, limited gun-safety measures, and support for U.S. manufacturing; butâwith a Republican Party shaped by Trump back in powerâhow transformative has it all been? Bill Scher is an American journalist who contributes to The Washington Monthly, RealClearPolitics, and Politico Magazine. In Scherâs view, Bidenâs legislative successes havenât been as transformative as Barack Obamaâs reforms of Americaâs health-care and financial sectors, and most Americans probably donât recognize the tangible effects of most of his policies, which plausibly helps explain his low approval ratings. But two years from now, Scher thinks, the president will have a story to tell voters about how heâs made government function; and itâs a story that could sound all the more compelling if, meanwhileâas early appearances suggestâthe fractious Republican conference in the U.S. House of Representatives devolves into chronic dysfunction. Graham Vyse: The Trump administration was a dramatic timeâbut how did it actually change public policy in the U.S.? Bill Scher: The truth is, Trumpâs administration was ineffective at changing public policy. He didnât have many legislative accomplishments, and the courts struck down much of what he tried to do through executive actions. At the same time, he certainly set in motion the Supreme Courtâs overturning of Roe v. Wade, which ended the nationwide right to abortion in America, as a result of his appointments to the Court. Those appointments may have more significant policy implications in the future. Some of Trumpâs influence on U.S.-Mexico border policy also lingers. [The American governmentâs Title 42 policy, which Trump invoked in 2020 as an emergency public-health measure, has since been used more than two million times to expel migrants from the country.] The tax cuts he signed into law havenât been reversed, though U.S. tax policy has fluctuated a lot in recent decades: George H.W. Bush raised taxes, then Bill Clinton raised taxes, then George W. Bush cut taxes, then Barack Obama raised taxes. Changes to tax policy tend not to be significant legacies for presidentsâin part because those changes can be adjusted through Congressâ parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation. Another notable piece of Trumpâs legacy is the First Step Act, which built on the Obama administrationâs criminal-justice policies and was a bipartisan, even mildly progressive accomplishment [that reformed federal prisons and sentencing laws]. If bipartisan criminal-justice reform were to continue, history might regard Trumpâs law as a meaningful achievement, but reform appears to have stalled under Biden. Republicans have shifted toward a more âlaw and orderâ style of politicsâaccusing Democrats of being soft on crimeâwhich diminishes bipartisan harmony on criminal-justice issues. Vyse: Beyond policy, how do you see the Trump years having changed Americaâs political culture? Advertisement Scher: A lot of Trumpâs behavior isnât really unprecedented in Americaâs political culture. He wasnât the first president or presidential candidate to lie. He wasnât the first president or presidential candidate to wage a culture war or campaign in a nasty way. This isnât the first era in American politics to be polarized or divisive. Heâs unique, however, in that he lies, wages a culture war, and campaigns in a nasty way all at the same timeâand in such a blunt, brazen, and extreme fashion. Trump changed Americaâs political culture by elevating the nationalist and isolationist traditions in the Republican Party. Isolationism and internationalism have existed in both major U.S. political parties over the last century, but the internationalist forces have generally dominated, especially in the party holding the White House. Trump was really the first president who didnât want to continue an internationalist foreign policy. He boosted the Republican Partyâs far-right, conspiratorial factions, and heâs raised questions about the partyâs essential nature. What are its defining characteristics? What are its abiding principles? Vyse: I happened to see a [tweet]( last week from the national Republican Party, which said, âRepublicans believe in limited government.â I found it somewhat surprising, because Trump really deemphasized limited-government rhetoric in favor of his right-wing populist messaging. Scher: Itâs definitely not a settled issue in the party. Many Republicans love Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who may be a candidate for the White House in 2024, precisely because of his aggressive wielding of government power in an effort to change American culture. [DeSantis attacked the Walt Disney Company over its opposition to his Parental Rights in Education law, which critics believed to be anti-gay. He also signed a law revoking the companyâs special tax status in Florida.] Trumpâs eagerness to instigate intra-party fights also greatly changed the internal culture of the Republican Party. He did away with Reaganâs â11th Commandment,â âThou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.â Reagan didnât actually follow that commandment, but Trump abandoned it entirely. He pours gasoline on every fire. The events of January 6th, and Trumpâs role in them, were unprecedented in American history. Weâve never seen a presidentâs supporters rioting at the U.S. Capitolâand with his sympathy. Trumpâs attempts to deny the results of the 2020 electionâand his efforts to elect other election deniersâhave deeply warped the politics of the Republican Party. His efforts largely failed in important races last year, but the country now has a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives who question or outright deny the 2020 results. Their party is still living with this toxin Trump injected into its bloodstream, even as most American votersâa coalition of Democrats, independents, and pro-democracy Republicansâreject it. Darren Halstead More from Billl Scher at The Signal: âItâs striking how much Biden has done on a bipartisan basis. It was an open question whether any bipartisanship was possible in the United States in such polarized timesâmany thought Biden was simply naive to believe it was possible. They thought heâd be humiliated if he pursued it. I wouldnât say that what Biden accomplished is revolutionary; U.S. industrial policy doesnât have the scale and scope of Chinese industrial policy, for instanceâbut itâs helping to prevent America from being eclipsed by other nations.â âAmong Bidenâs policy accomplishments, there arenât many the average U.S. citizen will feel very acutely. His infrastructure law will produce a lot of infrastructure improvements, but those donât happen overnight, and Americans may not recognize that individual projects are the result of the Biden administrationâs work. I live in a town where thereâs an Amtrak train station as a result of Obamaâs Recovery Act, but I donât think most people connect those dots. Bidenâs semiconductor law should produce more semiconductor manufacturing jobs in the U.S. than would have existed without the law, but its effects will be limited.â âThe biggest Obama lawsâthe Affordable Care Act, the DoddâFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Actâare all more significant than Bidenâs major laws. Obama achieved more reform of the U.S. health-care industry than Biden has, though Biden has extended and augmented Obamaâs reform. DoddâFrank marked the end of a deregulatory era for the financial industry in America and the beginning of a new regulatory era.â [Continue reading ...]( [The Signal]( explores urgent questions in current events around the worldâto support it and for full access: [Subscribe now]( The Signal | 1717 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20011 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}](
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