US Politics

Last week was a critical time in the global response to the climate emergency: the US vowed to cut its emissions by at least 50% by 2030, while the UK government committed to reducing emissions by 78% by 2035, relative to a 1990 baseline. Both announcements were important steps that reflected the significance of one particular tool in climate governance: the target. From the legally binding targets in the UK’s Climate Change Act (2008) to those of the 2015 Paris agreement, targets define a sense of direction and signpost of ambition. Alone, however, targets are not enough. We need more than just targets to transition to a post-carbon future. We need planning.Despite what free-market economists may suggest, markets are not “free”, nor do they emerge spontaneously. They are created and sustained by governments, laws and political institutions, which plan how they operate and whose interests they serve. What’s more, the global economy, far from being organised by the anarchy of competition, is itself structured by institutions with vast planning power. Targets may dominate the headlines, but it’s these institutions of planning that are central to the climate struggle.Central banks are at the apex of economic planning. The actions of central banks during the Covid-19 emergency, such as buying assets to stabilise turbulent financial markets and controlling interest rates, reflect the coordinating function they perform. Financial institutions, from banks to treasuries, also structure the global economy and plan our economic and environmental future by choosing which businesses and activities to invest in. Decisions about who gets liquidity and who doesn’t are the difference between a business living or dying, stagnating or thriving.These economic institutions all have a common theme. They are responsible for planning, and therefore bringing to life one particular version of the future that is accelerating environmental breakdown and stark inequality. The world’s biggest 60 banks, for instance, have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since 2015. The Bank of England’s corporate bond holdings as of June 2020 are consistent with – and contribute towards – catastrophic average temperature increases of 3.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and provide no-strings attached finance to carbon-intensive companies. These priorities are also reflected in the UK’s public policies; while the government has committed itself to climate targets, it still supports the development of fossil fuel extraction and carbon-intensive infrastructure, while providing inadequate support for low-carbon public transport or net-zero housing.Announcing new climate targets without rethinking how our global economy is planned can quickly amount to “greenwashing”. In 2018, the increase in fossil fuel production was more than three times higher than in renewables. Since then, fossil fuel giants have announced “net-zero” goals that still envisage a critical role for oil, gas and coal in 2100. In this way climate targets can give a green veneer to plans that merely continue the carbon-intensive status quo.The political challenge is to ensure that planning itself is more democratic and centred on meeting our needs and decarbonising our economy. To reach the UK and world’s climate targets, we’ll need to reimagine planning: the tools we use, the time horizons involved, the voices and values that shape these plans, and how they are enacted. This is not about centralising power in an unresponsive and overweening state, turning our futures over to algorithmic decision-making, or further concentrating corporate power. Instead, it’s about prioritising our ability to plan for the common good: in our homes, in our communities, and in a democratic economy, from workplaces and markets to the state.What might this look like? As John Maynard Keynes foresaw when he called for the steady socialisation of finance and the “euthanasia of the rentier” in 1936, investment should be organised by needs, rather than short-term profits. In our era of sustained economic stagnation, we can’t afford to wait for a revival of capitalist dynamism to trigger investment. Instead, governments should be coordinating a green industrial strategy and heavily investing to build the low-carbon infrastructures, industries and institutions we need. There is so much to be done, and yet current plans fall dangerously short; even Biden’s much-trumpeted infrastructure plan fails to deliver the levels of public investment needed to decarbonise at the pace and scale the climate emergency requires.If we’re to rethink how planning works, central banks will play a crucial role. By consciously embracing their planning function, central banks could steer societies toward rapid decarbonisation. They could do this through changing the relative cost of “green” versus “dirty” capital, for example, by enforcing higher capital requirements for carbon-intensive industries and guiding credit to low-carbon activities. They could also introduce new, socially just rules for carbon pricing that would ensure private investment is geared towards tackling the climate crisis.Part of rethinking planning will also involve rethinking the tools that are used to organise the global economy: the legal contracts, accounting and auditing processes, property claims and financial flows at the heart of it. Currently, these tools and processes are geared towards maximising short-term returns in an economy that excludes ordinary workers and communities from decision-making. We need to refocus these on securing social and environmental wellbeing.Targets are necessary, but they’re only half of the picture. In addition to setting ambitious goals, governments now need to decarbonise the global economy and democratise how it is planned and organised. Our economy isn’t a natural state, but a malleable creation. We still retain the power to reimagine what version of the future it is hurtling towards – and now we must urgently embrace this. More

In his inaugural address on 20 January, Joe Biden declared: “We will be judged, you and I, for how we resolve the cascading crises of our era.”The new US president outlined four crises facing America: the coronavirus pandemic, climate, economy and racial justice. Here is an assessment of his progress on each in his first 100 days:Coronavirus pandemicIn the first and more pressing crisis, Biden has been largely successful in changing the trajectory of the pandemic. Vaccine distribution has accelerated and the White House has been active in fighting hesitancy.The administration has also made a point of celebrating its milestones for vaccinating the public – in late April the Biden team passed the 200m shot milestone.There have been some bumps. The White House had to rethink its mass-vaccination site program while Johnson & Johnson had to temporarily halt distribution of its vaccine after a tiny fraction of recipients suffered blood clots. At moments the Biden team has had to fine tune and clarify statements on proper health protocols for staving off the pandemic.Dr Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president, has also gotten into proxy sparring matches with Republican elected officials over the pandemic. But if Biden’s presidency is to be judged on the pandemic, the figures speak for themselves.Jeffrey Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said at a press briefing last week: “This crucial milestone of 200m shots in less than 100 days enabled more than 52% of adults across the country to have at least one shot. That’s more than 135 million Americans who are on their way to being protected from this virus.“Importantly, seniors accounted for 80% of Covid deaths. But now, we’ve seen an 80% reduction in deaths and a 70% reduction in hospitalization among seniors, proving just how effective vaccination is in preventing death and severe disease. This significant progress in a short period of time is a direct result of our deliberate, whole-of-government, wartime effort.”But even as the Biden administration oversees the end of the pandemic, some states are still struggling with coronavirus cases. There is also the outstanding question of how the Biden administration will do in helping the rest of the world battle the pandemic. On Monday the United States announced it would start sharing its stores of AstraZeneca vaccines with other countries.Climate crisisEarly on in his presidency, Biden appointed former secretary of state John Kerry to be climate czar and elevated that to a cabinet-level position. He issued a number of executive orders reversing the Trump administration’s moves weakening car emissions and energy efficiency standards.In February, Biden restored the pricing standard for carbon to the level it was at during the Obama administration. At the time though that fell short of boosting the cost to the level some climate scientists were recommending. Later the administration increased the cost again to keep up with inflation.Last week Biden convened a summit with 40 world leaders to discuss the climate crisis. He said: “The steps our countries take between now and Glasgow [host of a UN climate change conference] will set the world up for success to protect livelihoods around the world and keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5C.“We must get on the path now in order to do that. If we do, we’ll breathe easier, literally and figuratively; we’ll create good jobs here at home for millions of Americans; and lay a strong foundation for growth for the future. And that can be your goal as well.“This is a moral imperative, an economic imperative, a moment of peril but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities. Time is short, but I believe we can do this. And I believe that we will do this.”Nevertheless, the Biden administration has had to grapple with trying to accomplish its climate change goals with a narrowly divided Senate. The threat of filibusters in the Senate makes it very difficult for the administration to see its policy proposals move through federal legislation.Economic recoveryCoronavirus vaccinations are up, unemployment is down and businesses are reopening. Whether he is talking about infrastructure or the climate crisis, Biden has been pushing a message hard for anyone on the left or right to disagree with: jobs, jobs, jobs.The economy added 379,000 jobs in February and 916,000 jobs in March, exceeding expectations. The unemployment rate now stands at 6%. Weekly unemployment claims have fallen to their lowest level since the pandemic began. Growth increased to 6.4% in the first quarter of 2021, up from 4.3% in the final quarter of last year.And the stock market has seen better returns in Biden’s first hundred days than under any president in the past 75 years, despite former president Donald Trump’s prophecy of a Biden crash.Promising to “build back better”, Biden moved fast to sign a $1.9tn rescue plan on 11 March. It was the biggest federal recovery effort in a generation and more than double the size of Barack Obama’s stimulus package that followed the 2008 financial crisis.The legislation, which gained no Republican votes in Congress, sent more than 150m stimulus checks to US citizens, extended unemployment benefits, expanded food assistance and boosted health insurance subsidies. Its historic expansion of the Child Tax Credit aims to cut child poverty in half.The pandemic has exacerbated inequality. The rescue plan did not include a federal $15-an-hour minimum wage but is expected to boost the incomes of the lowest 20% by 20%. After four decades of Ronald Reagan’s low tax, trickle-down economics, it marked a restoration of faith in big government.Then came a $2tn infrastructure bill, which is likely to take longer and face more significant amendments in Congress. Biden, again touting job creation, is proposing to pay for it by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% – lower than the 35% it stood at before Trump but still a stumbling block with Republicans.In the meantime, experts predict that the US economy could grow as fast as 7% this year – a potentially strong tail wind for Democrats going into the 2022 midterm elections.Racial justice“The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer,” Biden said in his inaugural address, and he appointed a historically diverse administration that includes, in the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in cabinet.The administration vowed to embed racial equity in its policies as never before. The $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, for example, $5bn for Black farmers, and was described as the most significant legislation for this group since Civil Rights Act more than half a century ago.Biden’s first 100 days also coincided with the trial of ex-police officer Derek Chauvin, found guilty of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis. The White House is pushing for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to improve police training, curb use of excessive force and end techniques such as chokeholds.It shouldn’t take a whole year to get this done“George Floyd was murdered almost a year ago,” Biden said after the Chauvin verdict. “It shouldn’t take a whole year to get this done.”The contrast from last year, when Donald Trump sided with police against Black Lives Matters supporters, was startling. In a sign of Biden’s resolve to exert federal oversight over police, the justice department launched an investigation into the Minneapolis police department.But Biden has gone back on a campaign promise to create a national police oversight commission in his first hundred days, reportedly after consulting civil rights organisations and police unions and concluding it might be used by Congress as an excuse to procrastinate.Some observers suggests that Biden, 78, is not undergoing a personal transformation so much as keeping in step with the Democratic party, which belatedly recognises racial justice as a defining issue.Rashad Robinson, president of the group Color of Change, told the New York Times: “Biden is actually being Biden by being inside of all of the ways in which the current landscape is sending him messages. That is good, but I don’t want to be classifying this as some sort of out-front radical leadership. That would really not represent everything that could be possible if we leaned in more.” More

US news outlets aligned with Falun Gong, a religious movement locked in a decades-long conflict with the Chinese state, have been increasingly successful in promoting conspiracy narratives about Democrats, election fraud and communists to the pro-Trump right in America.Experts say that in a future post-pandemic landscape, the cable news channel NTD, and especially the multimedia enterprise the Epoch Times, may amplify the efforts of Republicans to link Joe Biden and Democrats to the Chinese Communist party (CCP), and to harden US public opinion against China.According to Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of the media watchdog Media Matters for America, these outlets, and especially the Epoch Times, were always critical of China, and somewhat right-leaning, but were not commonly counted as problematic during the 2016 election as spreading falsehoods across social media platforms like Facebook.But in a telephone conversation, Carusone said Epoch Times pivoted hard from 2017 towards material which stoked conspiracy narratives, and began spending freely in order to make sure that their message was prominent on platforms like YouTube.“After social media sites moved against the fake news outlets, it left a gap,” Carusone said. “What Epoch Times did so well was to step right into that gap.” And, he says, they secured their niche by handing money to big tech platforms.After Epoch Times spent about $11m on Facebook ads in 2019, the platform banned them from advertising on the grounds that they had violated rules around transparency in political advertising. But the outlet simply took its business elsewhere: according to data from Pathmatics that was analyzed by Media MattersIn the year to date, Epoch Times has spent an estimated $930,000 in digital advertising promoting videos and desktop display ads. Over 95% of their spending was on YouTube.Through 2020 and into the early life of the Biden administration, Epoch Times and NTD alike promoted conspiracy theories related to the QAnon movement, the supposedly compromising international ties of Hunter Biden, and even sold merchandise outlining half-forgotten conspiracy theories such as “Uranium One”, which held that Hillary Clinton, as US secretary of state, engineered the sale of uranium deposits to Russian interests in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation.While US rightwing outlets like One America News and Newsmax have profited by supplying the seemingly bottomless appetite among the rightwing grassroots for material that depicts American politics as a tangle of elite conspiracies, Carusone says it is a mistake to view the Falung Gong-aligned outlets as normal media companies.The principal goal of Epoch Times – now publishing in 36 countries under the supervision of a network of non-profits – is not to generate profit, he says, but to mount a long and broad “influence operation”. And the goal of that influence operation, in turn, is “to foment anti-CCP sentiment”.By leveraging the deep partisan polarization in US politics, and by tapping into a long tradition of anticommunism on the American right, according to Carusone, the outlets have sought to link Biden and the Democratic party to radical leftist movements like antifa, and then publish “anything that ties them to CCP influence”, however spurious.He envisages the possibility that Republicans will cooperate with these outlets – who have also spread significant amounts of disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic – to ask “what is Joe Biden going to do about China causing coronavirus?”Although there is no evidence of direct cooperation, they have already shown a willingness to echo anti-China messaging with the likes of the former Trump aide Steve Bannon and billionaire Chinese exile Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok, who has financed Bannon’s activities through consulting contracts and donations.From as early as January 2020, Bannon and Kwok were attempting to spread a narrative alleging that the pandemic was caused by a Chinese bioweapon, both on Bannon’s radio program and on their shared media venture, G News. The Epoch Times followed that April with a documentary that repeated the bioweapon claims, and have taken further opportunities to allege, without basis, that China’s government started the pandemic deliberately.According to Carusone, such opportunistic retreading of existing conspiracy narratives is characteristic of these outlets. “They’re not drivers, they’re not weaving new conspiracy theories, they’re amplifying what’s already out there,” he said.This effort appears to be increasingly well-resourced. Although the financial arrangements of the many Epoch Times non-profits vary, the original Epoch Times Association Inc, headquartered in New York City, saw revenues and donations increase sharply every year between 2016 and 2019 according to IRS 990 declarations inspected by the Guardian. While in 2016, the association took in $3.9m in revenue, in 2019 they brought in $15.4m, and cleared $1.86m after salaries and expenses.Neither outlet has ever explicitly confirmed its links to Falun Gong, a religious organization which emerged from the so-called “qijong” movement, which teaches adherents to practice breathing, movement and meditation exercises. But former employees reportedly say that they are run by movement adherents, and that Falun Gong founder and leader, Li Hongzhi, and others in the movement’s hierarchy exercise a powerful influence over the outlets’ anti-China messaging.Alongside the English language outlets, Chinese language outlets and a dance troupe spread the group’s messages.Though Falun Gong emerged in China in the 1990s, its founder now lives in the US.The Epoch Times, which began as a print newspaper in 2000, has been a steadfast opponent of the CCP, which has persecuted Falun Gong and other, related qijong movement groups since the late 1990s.The newspaper was founded in Georgia by a Chinese-American Falun Gong adherent, John Tang, and a group of like-minded businessmen. Over the next half-decade it expanded internationally.Carusone says that the intensification of conspiracy messaging in the output of NTD and the Epoch Times, along with their embrace of Trumpism could make them more influential as the far right regroups in the coming months and heads towards the 2022 midterm elections.“There’s an incredible demand for a version of the world centered on one big villain.” he said. “Epoch Times provides that very simple narrative.” More

During a speech at a drive-in rally in Duluth, Georgia, to mark 100 days in office, Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by protesters calling for an end to private prisons, a demand that Biden agreed to, saying that the US was ‘working to close all of them’.
The president praised the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd, and declared that ‘America is on the move again, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness’. Georgia is a particularly important state for Biden after he became the first Democrat to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992 

‘You changed America’: Biden marks first 100 days in Georgia – a state key to his victory More

Despite Joe Biden only being president for a little more than three months, some are calling his tenure ‘transformative’. Jonathan Freedland and Robert Reich dissect the US leader’s first 100 days in office

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On Wednesday Joe Biden gave his first address to a joint session of Congress, on the eve of his first 100 days in office. He promised a new era, a chance for America to heal – not only from the pandemic but from four years of Donald Trump. He announced plans to change the way the American economy works, and promised to spend trillions of dollars to help the nation recover. Anybody looking for proof of his commitment need only look at his first 100 days in office. Many are calling this three-month period “transformative”. So what will Biden do next? Jonathan and Robert share their thoughts. Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

Rudy Giuliani guilty? That’s what they want you to think! And who are they? The sinister cabal of Hunter Biden, the Lincoln Project and Department of Injustice, of course.That would have been the impression of Fox News viewers on Thursday night when Giuliani gave his first TV interview since federal agents seized mobile phones and computers from his New York apartment, part of an investigation into his dodgy Ukrainian dealings.The host was Tucker Carlson, whose smirking sympathy for the white supremacist “great replacement” theory, and insistence that making kids wear face masks is “child abuse”, have made him the true heir to Donald Trump as the rightwing conspiracy-theory king.A split screen of Carlson and Giuliani was not for the faint hearted. The former maintained his notorious expression, eyebrows furrowed, mouth open just enough to catch a fly. Giuliani, in suit and tie with white handkerchief in top pocket, was in his office, a bald eagle model and books including his own on display. Wearing a ring on his little finger, he played nervously with his spectacles.First, Carlson tried to coax Giuliani into a poignant, heart-tugging account of having his home raided at dawnWhat the former New York mayor turned legal hatchet man for Trump had to say didn’t make much sense, but left viewers with the notion that somehow it was all Hunter’s fault, so in that sense it was a great success. Such was the fixation that at one point Giuliani even said “Hunter” rather than “Tucker” by mistake.First, Carlson tried to coax Giuliani into a poignant, heart-tugging account of having his home raided at dawn. The ex-mayor, who on 9/11 touched everyone with his lament “the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear”, is less limpid these days.“Well, about six o’clock in the morning, there was a big bang! bang! bang! on the door and outside were seven FBI agents with a warrant for electronics,” he recalled. “And I looked at the warrant and I said it was extraordinary because I offered to give these to the government and talk it over with them for two years.“I don’t know why they have to do this. The agents seemed somewhat apologetic. They were very, very professional and very gentlemanly.”The FBI agents had taken seven or eight electronic devices, he went on, but had not been interested in hard drives that, Giuliani claims, contain evidence of Hunter’s wrongdoing. He offered them over and over but still they refused. Could it be they don’t spend their days watching Fox or diving down rightwing blog rabbit holes?Giuliani led an effort to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine before last year’s election. Prosecutors are investigating whether he illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs while also serving as Trump’s personal lawyer.Ingeniously, Carlson and Giuliani cooked up the argument that Hunter’s position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, and his fight against drug addiction, were equally worthy of a dawn raid. “We have a picture of him five days before, smoking a crack pipe behind the wheel of a car and then saying under oath that he’s not an addict.“And it’s the left that gets all perturbed about people who are mentally unstable having guns. Well, he was unstable, unfortunately and tragically, I feel sorry for that part of Hunter Biden. I think his father exploited him but the reality is he’s still a danger to the public driving an automobile or holding a gun but they don’t care about that.”Turning back to his own case, Giuliani said the FBI agents had hammered on his door “in a frightening way” but “I don’t get frightened very easily”. He added: “It is an illegal, unconstitutional warrant, one of many that this Department of Injustice tragically has done.”And so it went on, deflated campaign slogans for an election that was lost six months ago when Giuliani ended up at Four Seasons Total LandscapingThe search warrant was, he said, “purportedly based on one single failure to file for representing a Ukrainian national or official that I never represented”.Carlson sneeringly suggested that the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republican consultants, had known in advance about the raid but noted that Biden says he did not. Giuliani duly scored more Fox points by mocking the president’s age: “Maybe he doesn’t remember. I’m not sure if he can retain anything for more than about the time it takes to read it.”And so it went on, deflated campaign slogans for an election that was lost six months ago when Giuliani ended up at Four Seasons Total Landscaping outside Philadelphia. “Thirty years of the Biden crime family violating our laws. That is what’s on the hard drive that they have censored and that’s why they want to put me in jail.”Giuliani claimed his iCloud account had been snooped upon in the middle of his attempt to defend Trump against impeachment (the first time around, for those who are counting). Cue a rapid escalation to comparisons with the Stasi.“The prosecutors at the justice department spied on me and that is not taken seriously. If that doesn’t result in their being sanctioned, the case being dismissed and it stopping, this is no longer a free country. We might as well be in East Berlin before the wall fell. This is tactics only known in a dictatorship, where you seize a lawyer’s records right in the middle of his representation of his client.”After 10 minutes that felt like 10 years, the interview was done, not likely to join the annals of David Frost and Richard Nixon. Even so, it was manna from heaven for a certain viewer at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. For these guys, he’s still the one that counts. More

On his 100th day as US president, Joe Biden spontaneously lowered his black face mask, leaned towards the microphone and shouted: “Go Georgia, we need you!”It was a fitting moment in a state that has more claim than most to be the ground zero of a potentially transformative presidency.Biden had just marked the 100-day milestone with a drive-in rally in Duluth, about 30 miles north of Atlanta, to promote his $4tn plans to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure and vastly expand the government’s social safety net.Troubled by a cough, and briefly interrupted by protesters demanding an end to private prisons, the president gave an abridged version of his speech to a joint session of Congress the previous evening.But he paid particular attention – and gratitude – to an audience that has played an outsized role in the making of his administration.Towards the end of his campaign, he visited Warm Springs, the Georgia town that helped Franklin Roosevelt cope with polio. Come election day, Biden became, by a narrow margin, the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992.Then on 5 January, unexpected runoff wins by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia gave Democrats the balance of power in the Senate. If Republicans had retained control, Biden’s first hundred days would have looked very different.Jonathan Alter, the author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, said on Thursday: “Without the Georgia runoffs, you would not have that transformational presidency. It would be a completely different story. If 6 January is an important date in American history, so is 5 January because of those Georgia runoffs and none of what’s happening would be possible without 5 January.”Ossoff and Warnock joined Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, on stage at Thursday night’s rally. The four joined hands and held them aloft as the song (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher boomed from loudspeakers.Georgia has become a bellwether in a nationwide battle over voting rights. More than a hundred corporations, as well as civil rights organisers and sports leagues, spoke out against restrictions passed by Georgia’s Republican state legislature. Biden condemned the curbs as “just wrong” and called for Congress to pass nationwide protections.Last month Atlanta was the scene of a mass shooting in which eight people died, including six women of Asian descent, helping prompt Biden to take executive actions for gun safety and denounce hate crimes.Long a Republican stronghold, Georgia is now a diversifying swing state that will feature closely watched races for Senate and governor next year. It will almost certainly be one of the most competitive states during the 2024 presidential campaign.With a US national flag behind him, Biden told supporters gathered around vehicles: “Because of you, we passed one of the most consequential rescue bills in American history … You changed America. You began to change America and you’re helping us prove America can still deliver for the people.”That meant, he said, a hundred days that included the creation of 1.3m jobs, more than other president in history over the same period. It meant food and rental assistance, loans for small businesses and an expansion of healthcare. And, he said, the US is on course to cut child poverty in half this year.The president went on to tout the biggest jobs plan since the second world war, building infrastructure, replacing lead pipes to ensure clean drinking water and expanding broadband internet to rural areas.Tackling the climate crisis, Biden added, will “create millions of good paying jobs”, going on to repeat a line from his address to Congress: “There is simply no reason why the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”Biden also pushed his new $1.8tn families plan that includes free universal preschool, free community college and support for childcare. “I was a single dad for five years,” he said, recalling the death of his first wife in a car crash and how he had to depend on family members because he could not afford outside help.Republicans have questioned how Biden intends to pay for his bold plans. He insisted: “It’s real simple. It’s about time the very wealthy and corporations started paying their fair share … No one making under $400,000 a year is going to pay a single additional penny in tax.”In an emotional finale, Biden told the crowd: “Folks, it’s only been a hundred days but I have to tell you, I’ve never been more optimistic about the future in America.” America’s on the move again. We’re choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness.Biden, who has further campaign-style stops planned in Pennsylvania and Virginia in coming days, is enjoying popular support in opinion polls. A survey by Navigator Research found positive approval among 86% of Democrats, 61% of independents and even 59% of Republicans. Two-thirds of the public believe Biden’s pandemic-related policies have had a positive impact.Navigator also conducted three online focus groups with low-income Republicans and Democrats across the ideological spectrum in Florida, Nevada and Texas. The comments included a man from Florida saying, “I don’t feel like I have to doom scroll through my feed to see what the next thing is,” and a Nevada man commenting, “Almost immediately as soon he took office, everything just kind of calmed down and everyone’s like, ‘OK, we have a normal person there’.”But Republicans in Congress have condemned Biden’s spending spree, suggesting that he is exploiting the pandemic to smuggle in liberal imperatives and that his promise of bipartisanship rings hollow.Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, told Fox News: “We’re friendly. We’ve done deals together in the past. However, the reason we’re not talking now is because he’s not trying to do anything remotely close to moderate.“Think of it as the Biden bait-and-switch. He ran as a moderate, but everything he’s recommended so far has been hard left. Bernie Sanders is really happy. He may have lost a nomination, but he won the argument over what today’s Democratic party is – more taxes, more spending, more borrowing.”Earlier on Thursday, the Bidens visited former president Jimmy Carter, 96, and his 93-year-old wife, Rosalynn, at their home in Plains, Georgia. It was at least the third occasion this month on which Biden has spoken with one of his predecessors, following conversations with George W Bush and Barack Obama about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.Biden was the first senator to endorse Carter for president in 1976. Carter’s defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 ushered in an era in which calls for smaller government and lower taxes for big business and the wealthy were embraced as key to economic growth.Alter, also the author of the Carter biography His Very Best, said: “Biden wants to have a foreign policy that’s based on human rights and that goes back to Jimmy Carter.“He doesn’t want to have an Iranian hostage crisis but in terms of the aspirations for American leadership in the world, and standing up for American values in the world, that really does date from Jimmy Carter, who is no longer in bad odour in the United States, particularly in the Democratic party where in the past Democratic nominees have not really been thrilled to be associated with Carter because he lost in a landslide.“But that was more than 40 years ago. The sting of Reagan’s landslide has worn off and part of what Reagan is selling is a partial return to the pre-Reagan political universe.” More