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      Fauci: US could face ‘fifth wave’ of Covid as Omicron variant nears

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      Fauci: US could face ‘fifth wave’ of Covid as Omicron variant nears
      Collins and Fauci emphasise need for vaccines and boosters
      Warning that variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility
      Coronavirus: live coverage
      Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections amid rising cases and stagnating vaccination rates. He also warned that the newly discovered Omicron variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility.Biden and Harris briefed as US braces for arrival of Omicron Covid variantRead moreAs Fauci toured the US political talkshows, countries around the world including the US scrambled to guard against Omicron, which has stoked fears of vaccine resistance.A White House official told reporters Joe Biden would meet members of his Covid-19 response team, including Fauci, regarding the Omicron variant.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Fauci discussed why Omicron has raised such alarm.“Right now we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant,” he said, “and they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus.“In other words, the profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it’s going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from the monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies.“So it’s not necessarily that that’s going to happen, but it’s a strong indication that we really need to be prepared for that.”Fauci also pointed to how Covid case numbers shifted dramatically in South Africa, where Omicron was discovered, over a short period.“You were having a low level of infection, and then all of a sudden, there was this big spike … and when the South Africans looked at it, they said, ‘Oh my goodness. This is a different virus than we’ve been dealing with.’“So it clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That’s the thing that’s causing us now to be concerned, but also to put the pressure on ourselves now to do something about our presentation for this.”The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said no Omicron cases have been discovered in the US.Fauci told NBC: “As we all know, when you have a virus that has already gone to multiple countries, inevitably, it will be here.”On CBS, Fauci said any fifth wave of cases “will really be dependent upon what we do in the next few weeks to a couple of months”.“We have now about 62 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated,” he added, “who have not yet gotten vaccinated.“Superimpose upon that the fact that, unquestionably, the people who got vaccinated six, seven, eight, nine, 10 months ago, we’re starting to see an understandable diminution in the level of immunity. It’s called waning immunity, and it was seen more emphatically in other countries before we saw it here.”Fauci said an increase in immunization rates and booster shots might prevent another surge – but the US had to act fast.“So if we now do what I’m talking about in an intense way, we may be able to blunt that,” Fauci said. “If we don’t do it successfully, it is certainly conceivable and maybe likely that we will see another bit of a surge. How bad it gets is dependent upon us and how we mitigate.”Politically charged resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health measures would seem to make a rapid increase in US vaccination rates unlikely.While more than 70% of US adults are fully vaccinated, the most recent CDC data indicated that cases had increased 16% over the prior week’s seven-day average. By Sunday there had been 48,202,506 cases in the US with 776, 537 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.Another senior US government scientist, the National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, discussed the Omicron variant on Sunday.“I think the main thing that has us focused on this,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, “and it’s caused a lot of us to be sort of 24/7 on Zoom calls in the last four days, is that it has so many mutations”.Collins also said there were “good reasons to think it will probably be OK but we need to know the real answers to that and that’s going to take two or three weeks”.On Friday, Biden said the US would follow much of the rest of the world and impose restrictions on travel from South Africa and seven other countries. The restrictions, which Biden called “as a precautionary measure until we have more information”, will go into effect on Monday.Collins told CNN: “I know, America, you’re really tired of hearing these things, but the virus is not tired of us and it’s shape-shifting itself. If you imagine we’re on a racetrack here … it’s trying to catch up with us, and we have to use every kind of tool in our toolbox to keep that from getting into a situation that makes this worse.“We can do this but we have to do it all together.”Boris Johnson ‘ignored’ my plan to tackle deadly Covid variants – senior officialRead moreOn CBS, Fauci was also asked about Republican attacks on his reputation, over federal research prior to the coronavirus pandemic and about his role in the response under the Trump administration.“Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this,” he said. “They’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me.”Asked if he thought attacks were meant to scapegoat him and deflect attention from Donald Trump’s failures, Fauci said: “You have to be asleep not to figure that one out.”“I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying,” he said.TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Trump stoked Covid in red states – but there are blue anti-vaxxers too | Robert Reich

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      Trump stoked Covid in red states – but there are blue anti-vaxxers tooRobert ReichAmong my neighbors in the bluest region of the bluest county of the bluest state in America, many don’t trust big pharma or the government – or simply choose to put themselves first Is there a relationship between Covid and politics? Sure seems so.Michigan leads US in Covid case count, accounting for one in 10 new casesRead moreBy the end of October, 25 out of every 100,000 residents of counties Donald Trump won by wide margins had died from Covid. That was more than three times higher than the Covid death rate in heavily Biden counties, of 7.8 per 100,000.Counties where Trump received at least 70% of the vote had an even higher average Covid death toll than counties where Trump won at least 60%.Presumably, this is because Trump counties also have the highest unvaccinated rates in the US. Almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state.There are some obvious reasons why Trump voters have been hesitant to get vaccinated. Trump politicized the issue – making the jab a hallmark of his peculiar form of rightwing populism. He and Fox News spread false rumors and conspiracy theories about the vaccine. By the time Trump finally called on people to get vaccinated, the damage was already done.In other words, it’s the same trifecta of rightwing media, inadequate education and rejection of science that gave us Trump in the first place.But this isn’t the whole story, because the US as a whole trails every other advanced country in the rate of vaccinations. Why?In recent weeks I’ve discovered that several anti-vaxxers live around me – in the bluest region of the bluest county of the bluest state in America. I’ve known several for years. They are well-informed and well-educated. But they’re as opposed to getting a shot as any Trump anti-vaxxer.Some are ex-hippies, now in their late 60s and early 70s, who regard their bodies as “sacred” and don’t want anything or anyone to “invade” it.One, who grows her own food and lives by herself in a cabin not far from here, told me she didn’t want anything going into her body that she didn’t control. When I asked whether she had been vaccinated against smallpox, measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, she told me she assumed so but had been too small to have had knowledge or control.Others – also in their late 60s and early 70s – don’t trust big pharma. They see Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson as greedy global corporations in search of people to exploit and tax havens to park their exorbitant profits.“Why in hell would I trust a fucking thing Pfizer says or does?” one of them asked me.None of these people trusts the government. Their generation (which is also mine) came to political consciousness during the Vietnam war – a time when the American flag became an emblem of fascism, particularly in lefty coastal enclaves. They now believe the government has been so corrupted by big money that they don’t trust agencies charged with protecting the public.I’m sympathetic to their distrust of both big pharma and big government. But this doesn’t mean the science is wrong.One of them referred me to a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which found that about a third of the drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration between 2001 and 2010 had safety problems after reaching the market.I checked and he’s correct. But he left out a critical fact: as soon as the FDA discovered the problems it forced manufacturers to pull the drugs or issue warnings.Deep down, I think these blue anti-vaxxers are motivated by something different from mere distrust. When I pointed out that they could well be endangering others (including me), they remained unmoved.When I suggested that their concerns, however valid, had to be weighed against the public’s overall interest in conquering this epidemic, they said they didn’t care.My conclusion: They’re infected not by Covid but by a narcissism that refuses even to consider the risks and costs they’re imposing on others.Has living through Covid made me a hypochondriac? I asked some experts | Maeve HigginsRead moreI can’t say for sure that Trump anti-vaxxers share this narcissism, although the leader of their cult surely does. And, of course, my sample size was so small I can’t even generalize to all blue anti-vaxxers.If we blame Trump and the culture that produced him for the relatively low rate of vaccinations in the US, we’re missing a character trait that may offer a fuller explanation.This trait is found among Democrats and independents in blue America as well as Republicans in Trumpland. In fact, I think it’s been near the core of the American personality since before the founding of the nation – a stubborn, selfish, me-first individualism.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsCoronavirusOpinionUS politicsUS domestic policyDemocratsRepublicansUS healthcareInfectious diseasescommentReuse this content More

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      Biden basks in bipartisan triumph – but is it a new start or a swansong?

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      Biden basks in bipartisan triumph – but is it a new start or a swansong? The signing of a $1.2tn infrastructure act was a much-needed win but Washington’s deep divisions were all too apparent“Here is what I know to be true, Mr President,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said on Monday, as she addressed Joe Biden. “You are equal parts believer and builder. And because you are, we are all better off.”Biden is a believer in the ability of the American people, US democracy and Democrats and Republicans to work together and get things done. It was the theory of his candidacy for president.Joe Biden signs $1.2tn infrastructure bill into law – liveRead moreBut his faith has been sorely tested since he took office.Reality keeps mugging Biden and yet he comes back for more, his convictions apparently unshaken. He refuses to be disappointed in America. His reward came on Monday when he signed into law a bipartisan trillion-dollar bill to repair roads, bridges and other infrastructure.The president told a gathering of about 800 mayors, governors and workers on the White House South Lawn: “The bill I’m about to sign is proof that despite the cynics, Democrats and Republicans can come together and deliver results. We can do this. We can deliver real results for real people.”Only the harshest of cynics would deny him this victory lap for the biggest public works bill since former president Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system in 1956. “Joe! Joe! Joe!” chanted supporters as the sun set, casting its light on him but leaving most of the crowd in the shade as chill winds blew.But it did not take a cynic to notice the clues that Washington still has a long way to go to heal its deep, dysfunctional divisions and live up to Biden’s idealism. This might be a new dawn of bipartisanship. Or it might be its last gasp.Infrastructure, after all, is a low bar to clear. Foreign visitors to the US are stunned to find the most powerful nation the world has ever known plagued by potholed roads, crumbling bridges and clapped-out airports. China and others are racing ahead. America had to act because it couldn’t not act.Six years ago, when Congress last approved a significant renewal of federal highway and other transport programs, it was backed by nearly every Democrat and robust majorities of Republicans.This time, the $1.2n infrastructure bill cleared the Senate 69-13 with Republican support, but scraped through the House last week with just 13 Republican votes. And they have paid a political price.Donald Trump, the former president, lambasted them. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist member of Congress, branded them “traitors” while tweeting their names and office telephone numbers.Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan said his offices received dozens of threatening calls following his yes vote. That included one obscenity-laced rant in which the caller repeatedly called Upton a “traitor” and expressed hope that he, his family and aides would die.If the Maga (“Make America Great Again”) wing of the Republican party was hoping to intimidate party members so they would stay away from Biden’s shindig, they appear to have succeeded. Only a sprinkling of congressional Republicans were present to hear this paean to bipartisanship.Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who voted for the bill, was notably not among them, apparently unwilling to enhance Biden’s political victory (the president thanked him in his absence, all the same).Instead there was the Republican senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who is not running for re-election and so has nothing to fear from the vengeance of Maga world.Biden joked: “Senator Rob Portman is really a hell of a good guy. I’m not hurting you, Rob, because I know you’re not running again.”This was not a Trumpian celebration of fireworks, military jets roaring overhead and tanks parked on the lawn. Nevertheless, the Rose Garden colonnades were bedecked with the Stars and Stripes and the flags of all 50 states were lined up at the south portico.Portman, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (neither wearing a coat despite the cold), the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, strode across the South Lawn as a fanfare played from a brass band.Sinema, a centrist Arizona Democrat, told the gathering: “How many times have we heard that bipartisanship isn’t possible any more or that important policy can only happen on a party line? Our legislation proves the opposite and the senators who negotiated this legislation show how to get things done.”But her prominent role summed up the ambiguity of the moment. Sinema has enraged many on the left by her enigmatic and intransigent approach to part two of Biden’s agenda, known as Build Back Better, which proposes $1.75tn in social and environmental spending. Republicans are uniformly opposed.That deadlock is not helping Biden’s approval rating, hovering around the 40% mark despite jobs growth, nor doing much to dispel the fear that the rot has set in for good in the body politic.But for one afternoon at least, Biden could be Biden, giving thanks to absent friends and reasserting his belief in America.“I ran for president because the only way to move our country forward is through compromise and consensus,” he said.TopicsJoe BidenThe US politics sketchUS politicsUS domestic policyfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Florida lawmakers’ special session aims to thwart Covid vaccine mandates

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      Florida lawmakers’ special session aims to thwart Covid vaccine mandates
      Governor Ron DeSantis promises to ‘strike a blow for freedom’
      Republican seen as contender for 2024 presidential nomination
      LA has one of the strictest vaccine mandates: will it work?
      Florida lawmakers will meet on Monday for a week-long special legislative session called by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, with the goal of thwarting coronavirus vaccine mandates imposed by businesses or government agencies.Conservative judges block Biden’s vaccine requirement for businessesRead moreDeSantis recently announced he is running for re-election in 2022 but is seen by many as a potential presidential candidate in 2024 – particularly if Donald Trump decides not to run again.The special legislative session will be about “a combination of policy and politics”, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, adding that DeSantis is following Trump’s lead in being staunchly against mask and vaccine mandates.According to an agenda released by the governor’s office, a body of legislators dominated by Republicans will consider four bills to impose penalties on businesses and local governments that require workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19.“No cop, no firefighter, no nurse, nobody should be losing their job because of these jabs,” DeSantis said in a media release, echoing a previous plea for first responders from other states to relocate to Florida if they do not wish to be vaccinated by mandate.“We’re going to be striking a blow for freedom,” DeSantis said.Resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health measures to combat Covid-19 has spread in Republican states and among Republican politicians using it to buttress their pro-Trump bona fides and attack the Biden administration.By Sunday, the US had recorded nearly 763,000 deaths from Covid-19, out of more than 47m cases. Florida has recorded the third-highest state death toll, with more than 62,600, behind only California and Texas. Around 58% of the population is fully vaccinated. On Friday, a conservative federal court in New Orleans refused to lift a stay it imposed on a Biden administration rule which says businesses with 100 or more employees must insist on vaccinations or masks and regular testing from 4 January.The administration has said it is confident the rule is legal and will ultimately prevail.DeSantis has railed against vaccine mandates but is vaccinated himself, according to media reports. The governor “knows that Trump supporters don’t like masks or this vaccine”, Jewett told Reuters. “There’s no denying it’s politics with an eye not only on the governor’s race, but an eye toward the White House.“If passed into law, the new Florida bills considered in the special legislative session will impose fines on private businesses that do not allow employee exemptions to Covid-19 vaccine requirements.“This is something that his base will love,” Jewett said. “[DeSantis] is establishing himself as a freedom fighter.”TopicsCoronavirusFloridaUS politicsRepublicansUS elections 2024Donald TrumpUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Elon Musk targets Bernie Sanders over tax: ‘I keep forgetting you’re still alive’

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      Elon Musk targets Bernie Sanders over tax: ‘I keep forgetting you’re still alive’
      Tesla founder responds to senator’s ‘fair share’ tweet
      Musk sold nearly $7bn of stock after controversial Twitter poll
      Biden approval ratings plunge amid crisis over inflation
      Elon Musk waded into yet another Twitter controversy on Sunday, the Tesla owner and world’s richest person responding to a tweet about tax from Senator Bernie Sanders by writing: “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”If the super-rich want to live for ever our planet is truly doomed | John HarrisRead moreSanders, 80, wrote: “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period.”Musk, 50, is also the owner of SpaceX and has a personal worth estimated at around $271bn, making him by some counts the richest person ever.He also tweeted: “Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word …”Sanders did not immediately respond. Melissa Byrne, a progressive activist and former Sanders staffer, tweeted: “Folks, quit buying Tesla. Don’t reward abusive men.”This week, Musk sold nearly $7bn of shares in Tesla, more than $5bn after asking Twitter followers to vote on whether he should do so and more than $1bn on Friday.Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at Roosevelt Investment Group in New York, told Reuters: “We expect the share sales will continue, as Musk holds millions of options worth billions of dollars that would otherwise expire worthless, and he has also prearranged share sales.”Tesla’s share price fell after Musk’s Twitter followers said he should sell stock. But the shares remain hugely valuable.Musk staged the Twitter poll to make a point about a “billionaires tax” proposed by Democrats in Congress, saying: “Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”Proponents of the billionaires tax say they want to target “unrealised capital gains”, meaning rises in the value of stocks owned by ultra-rich Americans who currently pay very little in tax.Sanders is a democratic socialist independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate. He rose to global prominence with strong runs for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, losing out to Hillary Clinton and then Joe Biden.As chair of the Senate budget committee and a champion of fairness in taxation, Sanders is pushing for Biden’s Build Back Better package of spending on health and social care and climate crisis mitigation to make it out of Congress and into law.Build Back Better would be funded by tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy. The billionaires tax is not part of the package but its chief proponent, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, condemned Musk’s Twitter stunt last week.Saying he wanted to “ensure billionaires pay tax every year, just like working Americans”, Wyden added: “Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll.”Musk has a history of controversial – and sometimes costly – behaviour on social media. In October, he responded to Wyden’s tax proposals with a tweet.“Eventually they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.”TopicsElon MuskUS taxationBernie SandersUS politicsUS domestic policyTeslanewsReuse this content More

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      Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflation

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      Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflation
      41% of voters approve of Biden in new poll despite victory lap
      Biden touts infrastructure win as midterms loom
      Aides to Joe Biden took to the political talk shows on Sunday in a bid to talk up the US economic recovery despite confidence in the president continuing to plunge amid a crisis over inflation and supply chain problems.Republican senator won’t condemn Trump for defending chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’Read moreIn alarming news for the White House, only 41% of voters approved of Biden in a Washington Post/ABC survey published on Sunday, continuing a steady downward trend in the president’s ratings.The new numbers, which come despite a victory lap over the passing of a $1.2tn infrastructure package and growing confidence over the prospects for a $1.75tn social spending bill, are a growing worry for Democrats with less than a year to the midterm elections.Only 39% approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, their confidence shaken by inflation surging to 30-year highs and the supply chain crisis threatening the availability of food and other essentials with the holiday season approaching.Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, and Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, tried to reassure voters that Biden’s policies had the US on the right track, amid warnings of inflation remaining high well into next year.“We will still have an economic recovery that will be strong and support ongoing growth,” Yellen told CBS’s Face the Nation when asked about the likely dropping of paid family leave – forced by moderate Democratic senators such as Joe Manchin – from Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending package.“We’re supportive, President Biden and I, of paid leave, and it’s something that we will try to legislate in the future,” Yellen said. “But there’s money in this package that will make it easier for people to work and care for family members at the same time.”Yellen blamed Covid-19 for the worst of the inflation and supply chain issues, and predicted that prices would likely “return to normal” in the second half of next year “if we’re successful with the pandemic”.“The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for inflation,” she said. “If we want to get inflation down, continuing to make progress against the pandemic is the most important thing we can do.“We passed the American Rescue Plan and unemployment has declined from almost 15% to under 5% now. Americans feel confident about the job market. They’re seeing wage increases. It really reflects the support that we gave to Americans to keep up their spending and make it through the pandemic.”Yellen’s upbeat position was mirrored by Deese. On NBC’s Meet the Press, he attempted to downplay attempts in the summer to paint rising inflation as a “temporary” blip.“Because of the actions the president has taken, we’re now seeing an economic recovery that most people didn’t think was possible,” Deese said.“If you look at the strong wage gains plus the direct support that we’ve provided to families, checks in pockets and the child tax credit, the disposable income for a typical family is up about 2% even after you take into account inflation.“That doesn’t reduce the frustration any more when somebody’s going to the gas station and they see prices go up. But it does mean that we are well positioned to try to address these challenges going forward.”On CNN’s State of the Union, Deese said: “We actually know what we need to do here. We need to make a fully paid-for investment that will unlock more opportunities to get more people working in the economy.”Whether rosy messaging about inflation sways voters remains to be seen. Republicans such as the Florida senator Marco Rubio continue to bash Biden over the issue. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, wrote in the Guardian this week that a lack of regulation has allowed corporate giants to continue raising prices while recording record profits.“They have so much market power they can raise prices with impunity,” Reich wrote. “The underlying problem isn’t inflation per se, it’s lack of competition. Corporations are using the excuse of inflation to raise prices and make fatter profits.“Price inflation is a symptom: the increasing consolidation of the economy in a relative handful of big corporations. This structural problem is amenable to only one thing: the aggressive use of antitrust law.”Deese, on CNN, said Biden was open to exploring the issue.“There’s a real concern of price gouging or market manipulation that could harm consumers,” he said. “So we’ve asked the Federal Trade Commission to take a very close look at that.”TopicsJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden’s infrastructure success is historic – and sorely needed | Gary Gerstle

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      OpinionBiden administrationBiden’s infrastructure success is a historic – and sorely needed – win Gary GerstleInfrastructure bill’s passage opens a path to victory in 2022. Democrats should be encouraged by this breakthrough Mon 8 Nov 2021 06.19 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 11.08 ESTThe infrastructure deal struck late on Friday evening gave Biden a desperately needed win. It represents an opportunity to regain control of the political narrative that the Afghanistan debacle in August had stripped from his grasp. Since that time, his presidency has taken a series of damaging hits, culminating in the party’s dispiriting losses in Tuesday’s elections. The deal reached between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic party had to happen for the party to have any chance of keeping its congressional majorities in 2022.The passage of the billion-dollar-plus infrastructure bill is the largest appropriation of its kind since the Eisenhower Congress gave America its interstate highway system in the 1950s. Infrastructural improvements in the country are urgently needed and, if handled well, will be greeted with enthusiasm by Democrats and Republicans alike. The size of this bill, in combination with Biden’s $1.9tn American Rescue Plan passed last spring, and the likelihood that some version of the social infrastructural bill will pass Congress before the end of the calendar year, puts Biden’s ambition in New Deal-second world war territory. It will quiet critics of the FDR-Biden comparisons, at least for a time.The bill’s passage coincides with encouraging news on the economic and Covid-19 fronts: Friday’s jobs report was better than expected, the virulence of the Delta variant may have peaked, and Pfizer’s report of an effective treatment for those ill with the disease may turn out to have as much significance as the announcement a year ago that vaccines were on their way. Imagine if the Pfizer medicines, by election season 2022, turn Covid infections into nothing worse than a bad cold or the flu. Credit will fall to the Democrats.Friday’s victory is also notable for delivering on Biden’s promise of bipartisanship. Thirteen Republican votes in the House of Representatives hardly constitute a wave but they represent 13 more than the total cast by Republicans for Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010. Those 13 yea votes, moreover, breached the rules governing Trump-style politics, which dictate giving opponents no quarter. Trump will not take kindly to hearing reports that “sleepy Joe” has succeeded on infrastructure where the Great Leader himself had failed. It may be that a movement out of the Trump era, if it is to happen, will occur through a series of modest steps rather than through one big bang.It will take days and weeks for full reports of Friday’s tense negotiations to emerge. But already there are two details worth highlighting. First, Black politicians, this time in the form of the Congressional Black Caucus, came to Biden’s rescue much as Jim Clyburn had in the crucial South Carolina primary in February 2020. Nancy Pelosi helped this maneuver along by sending out Joyce Beatty, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, to deliver a message to the progressives that, at this critical moment, they needed to check their legislative utopianism at the door and vote for the infrastructure bill. Biden must take appropriate notice of this Black Caucus intervention, and find ways to reward it.Second, Biden must also understand that the progressives compromised more than the moderates did. For months, the former had pledged to hold up the infrastructure bill until its fraternal twin, the social infrastructural bill known as the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), passed as well. The skillful Pramila Jayapal, head of the House’s Progressive Caucus, extracted the equivalent of sworn oaths from key party moderates to vote for BBBA when it comes up for a vote (as it will) sometime in November. But these moderates will have an escape hatch: If the Congressional Budget Office’s costing of BBBA turns out to be much higher than expected, they will claim that such a “worrisome” estimate relieves them of their solemn obligation to vote yea.Biden and Pelosi cannot allow the moderates to wriggle free in this way. Progressives will regard this as a betrayal, and their willingness to contribute their essential energy and support to the Democrats in 2022 will ebb. Collaboration between progressives and moderates in the Democratic party has rarely been easy. But, historically, the party has made its greatest advances when the alliance has held. To sustain that alliance in this moment, both groups must come out of the current legislative season with a win.Biden must now convert his Capitol Hill accomplishment into economic and technological achievements. He must use his bully pulpit to talk up the virtues of his infrastructure bill. He must demonstrate in concrete terms that work on multiple projects is under way via hiring commencing, diggers breaking ground, cranes sprouting across city skylines, and landscapes transforming. Biden should emulate the success of the New Dealers in using infrastructural initiatives to demonstrate to Americans of all kinds that the federal government was working on their behalf. He doesn’t have a lot of time. He’d help his cause by finding and unleashing his own Harry Hopkins, the irrepressible New Deal administrator who was brilliant at cutting through red tape and moving major infrastructural projects from blueprint to reality.There will be challenges galore: completing environmental impact studies in a timely manner, pushing projects through the country’s balky federal system, honoring principles of diversity in issuing contracts while also overcoming labor shortages stemming from the “great resignation”, to name only a few. But this is also Biden’s opportunity to show that he, not Trump, is the man who knows how to make American great again. The passage of the infrastructure bill opens a path to victory in 2022.
      Gary Gerstle is Mellon Professor of American history at Cambridge and is writing The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022). He is a Guardian US columnist.
      TopicsBiden administrationOpinionUS domestic policyUS politicsJoe BidenUS economycommentReuse this content More