In the New York Times, today Martin Luther King III is quoted making the case for President Biden’s visit to Georgia:
“We’ve seen what’s possible when President Biden uses the full weight of his office to deliver for bridges,” Mr. King said in a statement. “And now we need to see him do the same for voting rights.”
This is backwards. In fact, it makes the opposite case to the one King intends. “Bridges,” by which King means the bipartisan infrastructure bill, did not happen because President Biden lobbied Congress. “Bridges” happened because there was sufficient appetite in the Senate for 69 senators to sign on to the deal. Biden, frankly, was incidental.
A better analogy for this “voting rights” push would be the Build Back Better project — which, like the bills Biden is trying to sell in Georgia, is opposed by every single Republican. With BBB, we did, indeed, see “what’s possible when President Biden uses the full weight of his office.” And what was possible was nothing. Hell, Biden couldn’t even convince all 50 Democratic senators to acquiesce.
Absent a remarkable change, this endeavor is going to end in the same way: failure.
