Does Biden Understand Contemporary Politics?

With rare exceptions, Joe Biden throughout his presidency has stressed his determination to cooperate with the GOP whenever possible and has minimized his personal confrontations with Republican leaders on both the national and state levels. That strategy has yielded the tangible benefit of the big bipartisan infrastructure bill now marching toward Senate approval, likely in the next few days. It has also allowed him to build strong working relationships with several Republican governors over combating the coronavirus pandemic and distributing the vaccine.

But, until somewhat sharper comments on Tuesday, Biden’s approach has left him largely silent as other Republican governors in states from Florida and Georgia to Texas and Arizona bar cities, school districts, and higher-education institutions from mandating masking even while COVID-19 cases rapidly rise. And although Biden has been more publicly critical of the restrictive voter laws advancing in those same GOP-controlled states, he has similarly frustrated many civil-rights advocates by resisting a head-on confrontation with Senate Republicans over federal legislation to reverse those changes.

All of these dynamics make clear that one of Biden’s most consequential choices has been to pursue a generally conciliatory approach toward the Republican Party. It’s a distinctive strategy that has many Democrats asking the same questions: Is Biden artfully outmaneuvering the GOP? Or is he sentimentally refusing to acknowledge how far to the right the party has moved since his glory days in the Senate? In other words: In his dealings with Republicans, is Biden being shrewd—or naive?

On one side, the White House, and many party centrists, argue that his pleas for national consensus position him and Democrats for future success by reflecting the public’s desire for unity after the