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President Joe Biden will celebrate America’s defeat of Covid-19 with a July 4th barbecue this Sunday, but the fireworks smoke will barely clear before the Democrat has to confront maybe even tougher challenges.<\/p>\nPresident Joe Biden will celebrate America’s defeat of Covid-19 with a July 4th barbecue this Sunday, but the fireworks smoke will barely clear before the Democrat has to confront maybe even tougher challenges.<\/p>\n
About 1,000 guests — emergency service and essential workers, military members and their families — are set to pour into the White House grounds for the kind of party unimaginable a year ago, when the country was under lockdown.<\/p>\n
The Independence Day bash on the South Lawn, followed by a thunderous fireworks display on the National Mall, will allow Biden to mark what he’s calling “independence from this virus.”<\/p>\n
Biden’s To Do list features a staggering number of crises and headaches, ranging from climate change to handling a desperately divided Congress and a vengeful Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
At least for one humid Washington evening, though, the 78-year-old Biden will be able to kick back and celebrate.<\/p>\n
After leading the world in Covid deaths — more than 600,000 — the United States has emerged as a model for getting the novel coronavirus under control and the economy back on track.<\/p>\n
Much of that is down to Biden reversing Trump’s chaotic response with a focused campaign to encourage mask wearing and vaccinations.<\/p>\n
He also got Congress to approve a historic $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, super-charging economic recovery and protecting the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
There are however some hefty wrinkles.<\/p>\n
Biden’s much-promoted goal of having 70 percent of US adults receive at least one dose of vaccine by July 4 will narrowly miss.<\/p>\n
And celebratory White House statements tend to dodge emerging threats from the highly contagious Delta variant.<\/p>\n
“If you’ve been vaccinated, the message we’re conveying is you’re safe,” was press secretary Jen Psaki’s response, when asked about the wisdom of staging a South Lawn party.<\/p>\n
– Now the hard part? –<\/p>\n
But the global pandemic wasn’t the only unprecedented test for Biden on January 20, when he became the oldest president to take office in US history.<\/p>\n
“He faced really the most daunting challenge of an incoming first term president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1933” during the Great Depression, said American University history professor Allan Lichtman.<\/p>\n
Biden “had an economic crisis, he had a still raging pandemic on his hands — you’ve never quite had that kind of combination.”<\/p>\n
That was before throwing in an ex-president disputing the election result, a razor-thin congressional majority, an explosive racial divide, the perilous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and international tensions stretching from China to Russia.<\/p>\n
Covid and economic rescue were “probably the least daunting of the tasks,” Lichtman said.<\/p>\n
– Sunny figure –<\/p>\n
Despite all that, Biden’s genteel manners and pleas for unity stand out in a town inundated during the Trump years by partisan fighting, impeachments, and startling breaches of presidential decorum.<\/p>\n
The veteran politician in aviator sunglasses epitomizes the Washington archetype of the “happy warrior.”<\/p>\n
From now on, though, he’ll have his work cut out to keep smiling.<\/p>\n
With Republicans looking to take over Congress in November 2022 midterm elections, and opponents like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — not to mention Trump — exploring 2024 presidential challenges, storm clouds are thickening.<\/p>\n
Biden’s immediate battle is with both Republicans and the left of his Democratic party on a giant infrastructure spending package.<\/p>\n
Win there this summer and Biden may get political capital for even more, like voting rights protection, police reforms and other key planks of his platform.<\/p>\n
Fail on infrastructure, however, and the Biden balloon could deflate.<\/p>\n
And while the strengthening economy is a huge plus, inflation is an increasing politically damaging worry.<\/p>\n
A cute White House press release Thursday about the “Hot Dog” economy — graphics showed price drops for July 4th lemonade, hamburger meat and ice cream — is unlikely to persuade many.<\/p>\n
The government’s “core personal consumption” price index rose 3.4 percent in May, compared to last year, the steepest increase since 1992.<\/p>\n
The White House — at least outwardly — continues to brim with confidence.<\/p>\n
June polls showed a dip in support for Biden, yet he retains approval ratings solidly over 50 percent, something Trump never achieved.<\/p>\n
He’s also making new ground. A Yahoo News\/YouGov poll in June showed six in 10 Republicans support a $1.2 trillion version of the infrastructure spending proposals.<\/p>\n
Numbers like these appear to be fueling Biden’s ultimate bet: that Americans are hungry for big solutions — as big as the mountainous problems facing their country.<\/p>\n
Writing about that infrastructure plan on Yahoo! this week, Biden said the real issue was about so much more than roads and bridges.<\/p>\n
“It is a signal to ourselves, and to the world,” he said. “That American democracy can work and deliver for the people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Joe Biden will celebrate America’s defeat of Covid-19 with a July 4th barbecue this Sunday, but the fireworks smoke will barely clear before the Democrat has to confront maybe even tougher challenges. About 1,000 guests — emergency service and essential workers, military members and their families — are set to pour into the White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12315,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions\/12315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}