Hope has once again surged into the US with the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris combine and an experienced set of leaders. But if they focus on just undoing the Trump legacy, they would have missed the mark. They have to leapfrog to deliver on promises long deferred. The complex issues that have to be tackled are staggering. Biden brings the right temperament to the task, but does he bring the urgency? Will his and his team’s competency be enough to deliver the goods, asks ROHIT TRIPATHI.
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THIS seemingly delayed analysis is actually timely. What would normally have been the conclusion of a normal presidential election way back in early November was anything but that. The results put into motion the darkest two months of the American republic, culminating in an unbelievable insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. It was not until the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the US on January 20 in the presence of 25,000 US troops, an American Green Zone, that the nation could exhale.
Sometimes the present is all-consuming and it is hard to look at the future with any optimism. At least in the US, a viable, competent and unity proclaiming alternative is now set to take power. Thus, a good dose of optimism is warranted. But the insurrection should have woken up every single believer in democracy in the US to the perils of a post-truth political system that is bent upon disfiguring it. We are dangerously close to the rupture we saw a century ago that led to the lowest form of human behaviour at Auschwitz and the likes. Democracy was an early casualty and humanity, its ultimate. For better or worse, the state of democracy in the US matters. Imperfect examples are still better than no examples.
Moving Fast
It’s an open question if Biden and Vice-president Kamala Harris can meet this moment. If they focus on just undoing the Trump legacy, then they would have missed the mark. The American energy that propelled both to the highest offices is demanding a leapfrogging to deliver on promises long deferred. Meeting this moment with incrementalism will make cynics out of America’s most hopeful. Don’t get me wrong. The range of complex issues at hand is simply staggering. Joe Biden is not a perfect man, but he is a decent one. We can’t say that for a good number of leaders today. Biden brings the right temperament to the task, but does he bring the urgency?
When I think of how Biden-Harris will do this, the word that pops up is “healing”. Biden often talks about unifying the country and allowing it to heal. The challenge is that in a post-truth world, is that even possible?
Let’s break this assessment into two parts: What is the Biden team going to look like and how will it achieve the goals of a hungry-for-change base? Biden has assembled a diverse, competent, experienced, yet forward-looking team. If I had to call out some of the early emerging themes based on his appointments, then they would be: return to science as a tool for decision-making, human rights and humanitarianism, multilateralism and economic equality through the prism of race and identity. These translate into a focus on climate change, values-based foreign policy, alliance restoration and targeted economic empowerment.
Credit: AndYaDontStop; Source: Creative CommonsJanet Yellen at Treasury, Antony Blinken at State, Eric Lander as a cabinet-level science advisor, Alejandro Mayorkas at the Department of Homeland Security (immigration among other areas) and Marty Walsh at Labour (tight with Unions) exemplify these priorities. Meanwhile, his number one scientific priority is beating back the pandemic. Biden is putting the scientific community back where it belongs in deciding the course of action.
Healing the Country
When I think of how Biden-Harris will do this, the word that pops up is “healing”. Biden often talks about unifying the country and allowing it to heal. The challenge is that in a post-truth world, is that even possible? How much political capital should be spent on people with their heads in the sand? What to do when choices are not Path A vs Path B to solve a problem, but fact vs fiction?
Biden’s instinct is to build consensus. The hope is that the obstructionism of the Obama years has taught him a lesson about how much effort to expend on adhering to that instinct.
Progressives want no time wasted on cajoling the intellectually dishonest as they use “fairness” as a tool to defer things to future elections with no intention of constructive debate. Political capital in these divided times is too precious to be frittered away. Biden’s instinct is to build consensus. The hope is that the obstructionism of the Obama years has taught him a lesson about how much effort to expend on adhering to that instinct. If the opposition doesn’t elevate to a certain level of reasonableness, then Biden must proceed with the momentum that got him into office and execute his agenda.
While the domestic front will be a moving target for Biden and Harris, with right-wing extremism now genuinely in the mix, the administration will need to invest heavily in foreign policy as well. Biden was a long-time member and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He knows most of the world leaders, knows what’s happening in most major countries and has an opinion on them. He understands how diplomacy works and is ready to re-engage the world to re-establish American leadership in multilateral fora. The question is, how much the world is interested in engaging.
The pursuit of a value-based relationship will bring the US face to face with the domestic actions of the Modi regime.
Tackling China
There is no doubt that China is on top of his list of challenges. A safe prediction is that Biden will probably be less tariff-happy and more multilateral when dealing with China. He believes in the power of alliances as they increase bargaining power. He will try to get the EU to form a bloc with the US when it comes to China. The 5G rollout in the EU will be something to watch as Chinese firms push to capture that market, not to mention the massive sphere of influence China already has in Africa. For greater regional pressure, Biden will most likely turn to India.
I have advocated that India and the US have a relationship based on shared values. The Thoreau-Gandhi-King connection gives us a basis to develop our partnership beyond calculations of the realpolitik of international security. But until that sense fully dawns on policymakers, I feel the US will remain ambivalent about India — is it an ally or a bulwark against China?
Source: Creative CommonsThe pursuit of a value-based relationship will bring the US face to face with the domestic actions of the Modi regime. The State Department and the National Security Council have folks who are quite familiar with India. Both Anthony Blinken, incoming Secretary of State, and Jake Sullivan, incoming National Security Advisor, have worked closely with current influential counterparts. While some believe they won’t press the Modi regime too much on human rights, at least publicly, I don’t believe they are going to look the other way if something like the National Register of Citizens is executed.
India’s Human Rights
Also, diaspora progressives and their champion supporters in the Congress will ensure the pressure is maintained on human rights issues, especially on UP and its leader. There is a precedent for taking action against a sitting chief minister from India. Also worth mentioning is that two Indian-Americans on the National Security Council–Sumona Guha as senior director for South Asia and Tarun Chhabra as senior director for Technology and National Security–have a deep commitment to human rights.
The economic re-imagination is what intrigues me. It holds a lot of promise. I will keep a close eye on incoming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo who has a relatively extensive working relationship with Infosys.
Looking at the India-US relationship through the Chinese lens, there are two paths that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One is that of increasing military cooperation, and the other is of tighter economic relations. The military cooperation path is relatively easy to predict — more joint exercises and perhaps a few more deals for American defence companies.
The economic re-imagination is what intrigues me. It holds a lot of promise. I will keep a close eye on incoming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo who has a relatively extensive working relationship with Infosys. Her state of Rhode Island is emerging as an important US location for the Indian IT giant. The hope is that she finds an equally entrepreneurial and creative counterpart to forge a new partnership that is less focused on giving conglomerates more access and more focused on building new bridges between small and medium enterprises. Perhaps the next generation of trade relations are to be defined by the services the two nations can trade beyond commodities and other staples.
The global democratic experiment is in a perilous state the world over. Yet, there is hope because, despite all its inadequacies, America has a competent set of leaders back at the helm. Will their competency be enough? Only time will tell. But for now, it seems like there is at least one more chapter in our story of democracy. Let’s keep writing.
(Rohit Tripathi, is based in Maryland, United States of America. He is the founder of Young India, Inc, a policy advocacy group. He’s also a business strategist with a focus on innovation. The views are personal.)
