Faced with the provocations of North Korea and Russia, the slump in inflation and the parliamentary collapse of a major electoral reform, Joe Biden on Friday hailed one of the rare victories for his presidency, namely a major infrastructure project.
“There’s a lot of talk about getting frustrated with things we’m not doing, and I’m adding that we’re going to do a lot. But we did,” Joe Biden told the White House. He rolled pictures of more or less damaged bridges.
What the Democrats did was vote for a $ 1.2 trillion investment in roads, bridges, and the Internet, a historic amount that even benefited from the support of some Republican lawmakers.
But the reminder of this undeniable victory contains something almost terrible.
When the speech was approved with great fanfare on November 15, Joe Biden invited Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema to speak in praise of the speech.
On Thursday, the same Kirsten Cinema, in a few words, was buried in the Senate Gallery, a key electoral law that Joe Biden promised would protect access to the referendum for African-Americans against restrictions imposed by some conservative states in the south.
Turning
This speech marks a turning point that Joe Biden wants to take: in two recent speeches, the President issued warnings about the unprecedented attraction to American democracy. He also launched unprecedented attacks on his predecessor, Donald Trump, and on the opposition in general.
Therefore, for this electoral reform program, there is no hope of mobilizing Republican lawmakers to achieve the “majority” of the required 60 votes in the Senate.
So Democrats have devised a procedure to force a simple majority – 51 of the 51 votes they control against the opposition. But, like another moderate Democratic senator, Kirsten Cinema rejected the maneuver, denouncing the reform itself.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a vaccine requirement the president wanted to impose on big business. The White House has acknowledged that the threat of a new conflict in Ukraine has not been eliminated after a serious diplomatic standoff with Russia.
One black day in a disaster week, Joe Biden, reminded us that he had invested a year ago and made big promises with little room for maneuver.
His control over Congress hangs in the balance, and he must deal with the Supreme Court, which Donald Trump has made so conservative.
Small rabbits
From an economic point of view, inflation is at its highest level since 1982.
The United States has surpassed the record for the number of hospital admissions with the new wave of Covit-19s evacuating supermarket shelves that have faced a series of shortage problems since the outbreak began.
On Friday, North Korea conducted its third missile test of the year, and the United States imposed a provocative new sanctions.
What about the referendums that confirm the president’s strong unpopularity one after another? Most polls give a rating of about 42%.
“A plan will not end in a year. We will continue to fight for every component,” White House spokeswoman Jen Zhaki assured Friday, listing both the fight against the economy, epidemics and the fight against climate change and civil rights.
But if Joe Biden has some weapons to fight, he also has less time. In the fall, he will face by-elections to the legislature, which has historically been difficult to come to power and could lose control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
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