"If early predictions that Biden could successfully emulate FDR now seem lost in the failures to pass voting rights legislation and (thus far) the Build Back Better human infrastructure bill, I am reluctant to toss aside my early optimism that a Biden presidency can and will meaningfully turn the page on the horrors that preceded him.
"Yet we have seen how a hostile minority that embraces political violence, lies about election fraud, and dismisses democracy in an effort to take and keep power makes the road ahead more precarious. So does a troubled electorate that now mostly disapproves of him (53.4 percent disapproval vs. 42.3 percent approval.)
"That road is made more precarious by a media drumbeat set on defining Biden a failure. It’s no surprise that Fox and its right-wing acolytes are pursuing this strategy. (“BIDEN ADMIN IS A CLOWN CAR DRIVING OFF A CLIFF,” screamed a recent Fox banner.)
"It’s more disheartening to see traditional news media analyze Biden’s first year in the time-worn framing of two governing parties, as if Republicans and Democrats are two side of the same coin, rather than acknowledge that one is bent on ending the American democratic experiment..." -- Journalist and filmmaker Steven Beschloss, taken from a Substack post on the precarious path President Biden and Democrats need to take to save our democracy in the face of an obstructionist, authoritarian/ fascist party, and a media that seems incapable of adjusting their "both sides" narrative to meet the times.
