Despite our nation’s striking polarization, every American can agree that the 2020 election has been   historic and influential. This year’s voter turnout shattered records, with both candidates breaking the record for most votes cast for a presidential candidate, previously held by Barack Obama. For the majority of voters, and myself, this election was about restoring character, decency, honesty, and hope in our nation, all of which were lost amidst the turbulence of the Trump administration. I, along with many Americans, want more policy and less politics, more facts and less lies, and more unity and less division. For nearly 80 million people, these ideals could only be fulfilled by a Biden administration. Aside from the feelings of overwhelming joy from Biden supporters as well as despair from those who backed President Trump, Joe Biden’s win will have tremendous effects on the COVID-19 pandemic, the course of the Democratic party, and foreign relations.

  COVID-19 under a Biden presidency

    At the forefront of voters’ minds right now is COVID-19. Many believe that President Trump’s handling of the pandemic has been disastrous, but what does a Biden presidency mean for our future? First and foremost, a Biden administration would work more closely with scientists and qualified professionals, like Dr. Anthony Fauci. This will be essential in creating a unified response to the pandemic, unlike the politicized nightmare that resulted from Donald Trump. The COVID-19 response should not be about Republicans vs. Democrats, but about the health and safety of the American people, a message that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have repeated consistently. In addition, Biden has been a strong proponent of mask-wearing, something President Trump has mocked. Trump’s approach to masks has been highly irresponsible, resulting in the infection of at least 130 Secret Service officers, according to the Washington Post. We will most certainly not see this irresponsibility with  a Biden administration. In  regards to reopening, Trump has pushed false rhetoric that Joe Biden’s presidential agenda does not prioritize bringing kids back to school. However, the Biden/Harris website says that, “Creating the conditions to make it possible for schools to reopen safely and effectively should be a top national priority.” President Trump and his administration had several months to help schools reopen, but have failed to do so. Biden has released a promising plan on how to reopen both businesses and schools safely. Keeping our children and workers safe is key to reopening and a strong economic recovery.

Will the Biden administration be moderate?

     One of President-elect Biden’s favorite mottos is “I will not be a Democratic president, but an American president.” This statement is a perfect example of his willingness to work with both Democrats and Republicans. Throughout his history in the Senate, Joe Biden has reached across the aisle several times. Some even consider him one of the best deal-makers in Congress’ history. During his time as Vice President, Biden was Barack Obama’s go-to for reaching out to Republicans. A good example is his successful effort to gather the three necessary Republican votes to pass Obama’s Recovery Act in 2009. Given that Biden is a traditional moderate, largely seeking to restore damages done by the Trump presidency, I don’t think he will prioritize the agendas of Bernie Sanders and “the squad” of left-wing congresswomen. His main focus for the time-being will be to help our country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, given his age of 77 years, I don’t think it is likely that Joe Biden will seek reelection in 2024. That being said, his policies will not be aimed at pleasing the far left to retain support for the next election.

Foreign policy

     The issue of foreign policy and relationships with our international allies has been another factor in the election. Trump’s “America first” motto and questionable foreign policies have received much criticism from lawmakers. Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has made enemies with our friends, and has attempted to make friends with our enemies. He has been unwilling to cooperate with our allies in Europe and has even threatened to pull out of NATO, an absurd and potentially disastrous proposition. Joe Biden will undoubtedly improve relations with our allies abroad, shown by the enthusiasm of many foreign leaders in reaction to his victory. In addition, President Trump’s role in the Middle East and whether his “progress” in the region will continue under Joe Biden has been a highly debated topic. Most notable of Trump’s contributions to the Middle East is his peace agreement between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. The two Arab nations have a history of hostility with Israel, and Trump claimed that this U.S.-brokered agreement was “the dawn of a new Middle East.” However, one cannot give Trump much credit for this since, according to Foreign Policy, the UAE and Israel “had been cooperating on security matters for years behind the scenes.” It appears that Trump has done much more harm than good when it comes to foreign policy.

     Another foreign policy issue that will certainly be affected by a Biden presidency is the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The deal forced Iran to redesign and shut down its nuclear weapons facilities. In exchange, all economic sanctions related to their development of nuclear weapons would be lifted. In 2018, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, saying it was a “one-sided deal” that favored Iran economically. While I do acknowledge the inherent flaws that President Trump cites, the JCPOA would have prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons for about 10-15 years. That being said, I don’t think there was an alternative that would have ensured the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, better than the Iran deal. As for the future of the deal, it seems that Joe Biden will rejoin the accord. Whether or not the Iranians will be complicit, though, is uncertain. However, any progress Biden will seek to make with Iran, may be curtailed by President Trump’s antics during his final two months in office. Very recently, Trump sought options to launch attacks against Iran to stop its nuclear program, but was dissuaded by his advisors. Such foolish behavior from the commander-in-chief would compromise any hopes for an agreement and would likely escalate conflicts in the region. A peaceful Iran deal is certainly a much better alternative to President Trump’s imprudent agenda.

Sources:

Biden Campaign Website

1. On reopening schools

2. COVID-19 economic recovery 

Washington Post

Secret service agents getting COVID-19 

New York Times

1. Trump’s foreign policy with Israel, UAE, and Bahrain

2. Trump withdrawing from Iran deal

3. Trump seeking to attack Iran

Foreign Policy

1. On Trump’s foreign policy ventures

2. On Biden’s ability to reach across the aisle

 Former Vice President Joe Biden has been a politician about three times as long as I have been alive. For most of his 50-year career, he was perceived as a moderate democrat. Surprisingly, his presidential platform is relatively progressive in nature. Reallocating resources away from the police, moving away from fossil fuels, downsizing immigration enforcement and border patrol, and promoting the manufacturing of products domestically are all positions the Biden campaign has expressed support for that the Senator Biden of old strongly opposed (The Federalist). All of this raises this question: Should he be elected president, will Joe Biden govern as a moderate, like he often has, or will he fulfill his campaign promises to govern as the most progressive president in US history?

  COVID-19 under a Biden presidency 

              In public opinion surveys, COVID-19 is usually identified as one of the top concerns of the voting public (Pew Research Center). Vice president Biden claims that he can offer a better policy response to the pandemic than the Trump Administration. While the government’s pandemic response contains many dimensions, I will address the dimension most relevant to us as students: what a Biden presidency means for our chances of returning to school. 

      Joe Biden recently announced who he plans on appointing to a “COVID-19 Adivsory Board” when he is inaugurated (Build Back Better). The Board’s proposed membership includes several “experts,” many of whom have expressed strong support for further lockdowns, such as co-chair Dr. Vivek Murthy and Dr. Michael Osterholm. These officials would not be responsible for making policy at the national or state level. However, they would likely influence executive branch proposals, and those proposals would have the potential to influence the policy response of state governments. It is not a stretch to assume that many states would enact COVID-19 policy consistent with the presidential administration’s preferences, especially those like California, whose governments are dominated by the Democratic Party. A federal policy response to the pandemic favoring some type of lockdown would be devastating to the school-reopening process, which has already been achingly slow, despite the fact that multiple studies have already shown that reopening schools with the proper precautions in place will not place students or faculty in danger (WSJ). Following the advice of his advisors, Joe Biden might be inclined to reverse the Trump Administration’s efforts to push schools to reopen safely (The White House).

Will the Biden administration be moderate?

           During the Democratic primaries, Former Vice President Biden pitched himself successfully as a moderate candidate. Upon his election, many conservatives speculate that the more radical wing of his party will attempt to push Biden to the left politically. Senator Bernie Sanders has made his intent to do so absolutely clear (National Review). When asked about pressure from the left, Vice President Biden has claimed that he is the leader of the Democratic Party and he will set its direction. However, there is reason to be skeptical that the 77-year-old former Vice President will have the fortitude to maintain moderate policy positions in the face of pressure from the progressive forces arrayed around him, from his running mate, Kamala Harris, to vocal, young progressive members of congress.

       The pressure of progressive forces within the Democratic Party on the Biden candidacy were revealed during his campaign when his policy positions regarding important topics frequently fluctuated. The most obvious example of his policy inconsistencies involved the controversy over fracking (New York Post). For the majority of his campaign during the Democratic primaries, Biden promised to eliminate fracking and move the country away from its dependency on fossil fuels. However, when he realized that rhetoric of that kind does not sit well with blue-collar voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, he began denying that he had ever said anything of the sort. Policy inconsistencies like this one have left many guessing whether a President Biden will act in accordance with the moderate policy positions he adopted during his presidential campaign or revert to the more progressive positions he promoted during the primaries.

Foregin Policy

     One of the Trump Administration’s most important foreign policy achievements has been the facilitation of several peace deals between Israel and Arab countries such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. These agreements are the first steps towards Middle Eastern peace that have been taken since the early 1990’s under the auspices of the Clinton Administration (National Review). Every U.S. president that has served since then has tried to further peace in the Middle East, yet they have all failed. 

      Joe Biden has made it relatively clear that his foreign policy views have not changed much since his days in the Obama Administration. That administration’s most notable “achievement” in the Middle East was the negotiation of the Iran Nuclear Deal. This deal involved removing sanctions from Iran on the condition that they would not further develop their nuclear weapons program for a period of ten years. On its face, this seems like a fair trade, however critics of the agreement alleged that the deal did nothing but empower and enrich Iran’s evil regime, which openly sponsors terrorism in other middle eastern countries. Not only did the agreement not prohibit the production of nuclear weapons indefinitely, meaning that when it expires Iran will once again have the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons, it released a hold on billions of dollars of Iranian assets, some of which were shipped to its leaders in the form of  plane loads of foreign currency (WSJ). In 2018, President Trump pulled out of the agreement, noting that in the end it did nothing but place temporary restrictions on Iran’s ability to manufacture nuclear weapons while at the same time enabling Iranian efforts to further promote terrorism and political instability in the Middle East. Vice President Biden has recently suggested reviving this agreement, which raises the question of whether a revived Iran deal would build on or impede the positive movements towards Middle Eastern peace achieved by the Trump Administration.

     President Trump’s critics often point favorably to Joe Biden’s approval among European leaders as evidence that Trump Administration policies have damaged our relationships with our allies. It’s easy to understand why European leaders were not happy when the Trump Administration forced them to pay their fair share of NATO dues, or when the U.S. left them to deal with the costly and ineffectual WHO (The White House, The New York Post). It is not unreasonable to suspect that their motivations for supporting a Biden Presidency are little more than narrowly financial in nature. If so, the United States’ relationship with its European allies has not been truly endangered by the Trump administration and will not change dramatically under a Biden Administration.

Sources: 

Joe Biden’s Flip-Flops Prove He’s Not Running His Own Campaign – The Federalist

Important issues in the 2020 election – Pew Research Center

Biden-Harris Transition Announces COVID-19 Advisory Board – Build Back Better

Trump hits Germany and other ‘delinquent’ NATO countries for lack of defense spending – Fox News 

The Wall Street Journal:

1. End the School Shutdown – WSJ
2. U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed – WSJ

The New York Post:

1. Biden claims at Pennsylvania rally that he ‘never’ opposed fracking

National Review:

1. Trump Foreign Policy Accomplishments: Middle East Accords, Calling Out China Threat
2. Sanders Urges ‘Squad’ to ‘Make Sure Biden Becomes the Most Progressive President Since FDR’

The White House:

1. President Donald J. Trump Is Supporting America’s Students and Families By Encouraging the Safe Reopening of America’s Schools
2. Update on US Withdrawal from the World Health Organization