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This is Question of the Week,
from BU today.
Has Biden abandoned Trumpism and populist politics as promised?
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In this episode, Rich Barlow, senior writer at BU Today,
talks to Lauren Mattioli, assistant professor of political science at BU,
about whether Biden has lowered the temperature as he promised, and
abandoned the incendiary style of governance of his predecessor.
One year after the 2020 presidential election, Mattioli discusses which
aspects of Trumpism Biden has rejected, and which aspects he's embraced
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>> Thank you, Professor Mattioli for joining us this week.
>> Sure.
Happy to be here!
>> We are roughly one year after the presidential election of 2020.
Has Joe Biden abandoned Trumpism and populist politics as he promised?
>> I wanted to push you a little bit on your working definition of Trumpism to see
if we have the same one.
I think I might have a guess for what your definition of Trumpism is, but
if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit that would probably make it easier for
me to answer.
>> Well, partly, stylistically being the incendiary
center of attention 24/7 with tweets in the wee hours that consume the news cycle.
And substantively, I guess populist politics would be policies that
made up his MAGA platform, from immigration restrictions...
And I think, what a lot of people would say,
being a window, or a channel, for white grievance.
>> So yeah, it sounds like we're working with the same ideas.
I guess I was thinking, more about the substance...
I think the question of whether the Trumpistic style rhetoric has changed,
is pretty self-evident.
Not only do we see a different tone when Biden speaks, but
also he's letting the members of his administration do the talking sometimes.
And relying on his very competent communication staff and press staff.
So I think that's one feature of the rhetoric, that's really different.
Also, just in terms of the text analysis that I've done,
he's using less incendiary language.
He's not using the types of words that we would normally associate with
ideological extremism.
And then substantively, I guess,
I thought of Trumpism as having three primary components.
At least as far as he and Biden differ.
So, the sort of general International Relations isolationism where it
was a very America-centric isolationist policy.
And I think Biden, by re-engaging in the Paris Climate Accord,
and with the WHO reversing the travel ban from primarily Muslim countries,
rebuilding our refugee resettlement program that those are all
policy steps that he's taken that I think showing a distinct, substantive shift.
Another is...I think Trumpism, as you mentioned, is sort of a window or
a sounding board or a welcome set of thoughts around white grievance.
And to me, Trumpism was about conserving the status-quo around race and
gender and anti-progressivism on those fronts.
And I think Biden has made some progress on that.
He's done a couple of things within the administration, like creating this
gender policy council and asking the Department of Education to look back over
the their policies regarding education and sexual violence rules (which Betsy DeVos,
the education secretary under Trump, had rolled back).
President Trump talked about COVID as being the "China virus," whereas
the Biden administration has created a task force to combat racism against Asian
[Americans] and Pacific Islanders.
So I think that's a big distinction just in policy, and
in rhetoric around race, gender and sexual violence.
I forgot to also mention the reversal of the transgender ban on the military.
And last,
there was this element of Trumpism that was like very pro-business pro-elite,
which is sort of in opposition to what we would normally think of as populism.
But I think if anything, Biden is more populist in that regard,
in terms of focusing on labor and the economically marginal,
whereas some of the Trump administration policies were either
actively antagonizing problems that the economically marginal face.
But, I wouldn't say "complete abandonment" is the right characterization
of the Biden administration, because there's still lots of rhetoric that
is very popular around traditional isolationism, like this "By American"
policy within the Biden administration, which is reminiscent of, the economic
isolationism that was characteristic of the Trump administration.
[Biden has] maintained the steel tariffs that were so
controversial during the Trump administration...
Also I think the maltreatment of allies, which is not so
so bad in the Biden administrationm but was particularly heightened
during this recent debacle with the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
And so I don't think it was total abandonment of populist policies and
rhetoric, it's certainly a toned down.
It's definitely a shift away from this individual-centered,
charismatic leadership that's vested in ideological extremism.
And so, definitely a shift rhetorically and substantively, but
maybe not as far as Biden supporters might have hoped.
>> You mentioned [it's] not as far as his supporters had hoped...
critics would also say that Biden's immigration policy, and
his fumbled withdrawal from Afghanistan are also reminiscent of Trumpism.
What changes should he make in his approach?
>> I think I want to take those in turn.
So I think the Afghanistan withdrawal was gonna be thorny for
any president that tried to do something,
instead of just continuing to kick that policy can down the road.
But I think this was a particularly poor handling of it.
And policy obviously matters, but how we talk about policy decisions matters
[too] and I think Biden's rhetoric around Afghanistan was really problematic.
I think it was an Al Jazeera article that described it as "humility free," and I
liked that because we've come to associate Biden with being almost self-effacing and
a humble 'every man.' But then in discussing Afghanistan,
he really isn't owning the mistakes that are very clear to his detractors.
And I think that's sort of interesting because that was what many
people thought was good about Biden as a contrast to Trump.
But I think on the Afghanistan thing,
the idea of not owning the problems—there may have been problems inevitably—but
I think failing to acknowledge them is undermining the overall effort.
It was going to be difficult no matter what.
But the way he's dealt with it, I think has exacerbated the problem.
And then on immigration (this is the characteristic of democratic
infighting)...
the rhetoric isn't the issue as much as the policy.
So in contrast to Afghanistan, yeah, the border has still I think as of two or
three days ago, it's still using public health measures to keep people
from entering the country, still putting children in cages.
And there's no rhetoric that can excuse that.
So I think the change you need to make on immigration is to stop using [Title] 42 to
expel immigrants.
It's offensive to the public health policy.
We can't say we have this new turning point in the administration of
a pandemic and then co-opt public health to serve a political agenda.
And then I think generally, the move after that sort of long term goal needs to be
developing a legitimate process for
dealing with asylum cases that can deal with this influx.
If the system is overwhelmed, it's not the asylum seekers' fault,
it's the system's fault and the system needs to be reformed.
And I think that would require effort and
also acknowledgement of the failures of the administration.
And I haven't seen that decisively.
>> You're a scholar of the American presidency in American government.
So let me play devil's advocate and ask you this: you talked about
the president's failures of humility on Afghanistan and policy on immigration,
but with Republicans bent on obstruction, pretty much of anything he does,
and Democrats bitterly divided among themselves, is quiet and
successful governance possible for any president these days?
>> This is a question that I might steal from you and
put on my final exam the next time I teach the presidency.
[LAUGH].
I'm not sure if we've ever had quiet successful governance,
I want to push back on that, [but] you're right, the policy for republicans in
congress has been total obstruction of a democratic president's agenda.
And that's forced democratic presidents and
some republican presidents facing divided government to act unilaterally.
And so the source of successful governance comes from the executive branch and
to a lesser extent the judiciary.
So the prospect for good governance if nothing substantive can come out of
congress, we still have options, maybe less attractive options and
less democratic, majoritarian options, but there's still possibilities for
governance through unilateral executive action and
through case-by-case policy-making, what I call judicial policy-making in the courts.
And democrats are divided on breadth and depth of policy change, and
the sort of exhaustion of effort amongst themselves is...I think they're
putting a lot into identifying precisely what policy should look like without
an eye towards actually getting those policies through congress.
Not to say that they're totally not forecasting the possibilities, but
I think the focus needs to be on overcoming obstructionism rather than
overcoming their own internal factions, which is easier said than done, of course.
And then, probably the better approach politically for
them will be focusing on winning a unified government come election time next year.
And in the meantime, putting Republicans in a position where
they have to make unpopular votes and force them to sort of call the bluff.
That's something that...we've seen the sort of "blame game" politicking that has
been successful to a certain extent in the past.
But who's gonna suffer are the people who need policy, like Americans
who need health care and need food aid and need unemployment insurance.
And so the cost of obstruction then is public good.
So a successful governance is going to have to come from some place other
than congress, I think, so long as trends continue as they have been.
>> And that place would be?
>> I think the executive branch and the courts.
I think the prospects for major policy changes—except for
maybe on infrastructure which is sort of shown to be the only bipartisan issue
that's getting real momentum—we'll have to see about any major policy advancement,
I think that's gonna have to happen unilaterally through the executive branch,
which will be unpopular, but so will not doing anything.
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>> I was going to ask, that's a gamble for the president, right?
>> Of course. Some pundits are saying,
"If he can't achieve anything between now and the midterms, or can't achieve much of
his agenda (and a lot of his agenda can't be achieved unless I'm wrong
solely by executive action) the Democrats can take a shellacking next year.
>> Yeah, I think democrats want to avoid committing the sins of the 2010 mid-terms,
where having a unified democratic congress, they were able to get a lot of
policies through and were basically saying we take full credit for
everything that's happened and then, sort of got blamed for
everything that didn't happen that may have been due to obstructionism.
Unified government doesn't mean complete consensus and everything.
So I think if they're smart, democrats will have to make
it clear what they're going to really take credit for.
And politicians are horrible about this, right?
They take credit for successes even if they aren't theirs,
and they reject their culpability and failures, even if they are theirs.
And then it'll be up to voters to decide, who's responsible.
So it's possible, you're right, that democrats could take a shellacking and
could really face defeat in the midterms,
if Biden doesn't get a lot of [his agenda] through, with the caveat that if he
can successfully blame Republicans, it may not be the case.
>> [MUSIC]
Thanks to Lauren Mattioli for joining us on this episode of Question of the Week.
If you liked the show, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and
never miss an episode.
I'm Dana Ferrante, see you next week.
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