As we lick our wounds following the devastating failure of two historic voting rights bills in the Senate, let’s try to look to the accomplishments of President Joe Biden’s first year in office and our Democratic Party.
As former President Barack Obama before him, Biden entered office with a deep hole to climb out of.
Former President Donald Trump left a trash fire of sick, conspiratorial Americans doubting their own election, as well as the science that could lead us out of the pandemic and climate change. He opened the door and invited in white supremacy, gave tax breaks to the ultra-rich, and broke an already broken country further apart. Let’s not even get started on the country trying to heal from an attempted coup on the U.S. Capitol.
But, despite the horrors of the insurrection, the Biden administration passed a $1.9 trillion emergency COVID-19 relief package to cover vaccines in the middle of a raging pandemic, reopen schools, and support the nation’s small businesses and families. Over 70% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and this week, the government made it possible for families to order free at-home COVID-19 testing kits.
Unemployment is down nearly 15% under Trump, from 6.2% to 3.9%; wages are up, and the administration created over six million new jobs.
Congress went on to pass a much-needed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, something both parties had been clamoring to do for decades, as the Center for American Progress Action Fund points out.
The Senate confirmed 40 of President Biden’s judicial nominees, the most judges confirmed during a president’s first year in four decades. And more Black women were appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals than ever, by any president—even those in office for eight years.
Speaking of racial and gender diversity, Biden has the first majority non-white cabinet in history, with the most women in the cabinet, including the first woman Treasury Secretary, first Native American and openly LGBTQ+ cabinet officials, and the first woman Director of National Intelligence.
Biden also has the most diverse Administration by every metric, comprising the most women, people of color, officials living with disability, openly LGBTQ+ appointees, first-generation Americans, and first-generation college graduates of any administration in American history.
Despite elevated inflation, the country has made progress in lowering its exceptionally high rate of child poverty, with additional stimulus checks, expanded unemployment insurance benefits, and expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payments.
But, it’s not all roses and buttercups. It’s been a year since the violence of Jan. 6, and Trump and his MAGA-cronies are still propagating the Big Lie and working hard to get their ilk into office in 2022. And the stagnation of Build Back Better and the death of voting rights legislation are both bitter pills to swallow.
And we must face the reality that we have two Trojan horses in the Senate—Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—and they’ve made it abundantly clear that democracy is something they give lip service to, but will not do anything to defend. And we know Republicans don’t care about protecting voting rights, particularly for Black and brown communities. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even said as much Thursday, when he made clear that he doesn’t even think Black people are American.
Biden’s approval ratings are low, but a lot of what the administration does gets brushed aside for a number of reasons—the pandemic and a new and highly contagious variant, a polarized nation, and a media bombarded daily by insane proposals from the GOP toward Handmaid’s Tale-style policies.
As former President Barack Obama before him, Biden entered office with a deep hole to climb out of.
Former President Donald Trump left a trash fire of sick, conspiratorial Americans doubting their own election, as well as the science that could lead us out of the pandemic and climate change. He opened the door and invited in white supremacy, gave tax breaks to the ultra-rich, and broke an already broken country further apart. Let’s not even get started on the country trying to heal from an attempted coup on the U.S. Capitol.
But, despite the horrors of the insurrection, the Biden administration passed a $1.9 trillion emergency COVID-19 relief package to cover vaccines in the middle of a raging pandemic, reopen schools, and support the nation’s small businesses and families. Over 70% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and this week, the government made it possible for families to order free at-home COVID-19 testing kits.
Unemployment is down nearly 15% under Trump, from 6.2% to 3.9%; wages are up, and the administration created over six million new jobs.
Congress went on to pass a much-needed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, something both parties had been clamoring to do for decades, as the Center for American Progress Action Fund points out.
The Senate confirmed 40 of President Biden’s judicial nominees, the most judges confirmed during a president’s first year in four decades. And more Black women were appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals than ever, by any president—even those in office for eight years.
Speaking of racial and gender diversity, Biden has the first majority non-white cabinet in history, with the most women in the cabinet, including the first woman Treasury Secretary, first Native American and openly LGBTQ+ cabinet officials, and the first woman Director of National Intelligence.
Biden also has the most diverse Administration by every metric, comprising the most women, people of color, officials living with disability, openly LGBTQ+ appointees, first-generation Americans, and first-generation college graduates of any administration in American history.
Despite elevated inflation, the country has made progress in lowering its exceptionally high rate of child poverty, with additional stimulus checks, expanded unemployment insurance benefits, and expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payments.
But, it’s not all roses and buttercups. It’s been a year since the violence of Jan. 6, and Trump and his MAGA-cronies are still propagating the Big Lie and working hard to get their ilk into office in 2022. And the stagnation of Build Back Better and the death of voting rights legislation are both bitter pills to swallow.
And we must face the reality that we have two Trojan horses in the Senate—Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—and they’ve made it abundantly clear that democracy is something they give lip service to, but will not do anything to defend. And we know Republicans don’t care about protecting voting rights, particularly for Black and brown communities. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even said as much Thursday, when he made clear that he doesn’t even think Black people are American.
Biden’s approval ratings are low, but a lot of what the administration does gets brushed aside for a number of reasons—the pandemic and a new and highly contagious variant, a polarized nation, and a media bombarded daily by insane proposals from the GOP toward Handmaid’s Tale-style policies.