Once upon a time in America and continuing through the 2022 midterm elections, the American idea of patriotic democracy was one nation with an American dream for all.
Because this dream is the core of President Biden’s politics and the heart of values of Democrats across America, the party won historic victories in the elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Because the party of Lincoln became the party of Nixon and Trump, seething with enemies lists, targeting members of their own party, and a plan to bitterly divide the nation for victories that would exclude gigantic numbers of Americans, the fantasy of red waves dissolved into a nightmare of electoral defeats, which an astounding number of Republicans have denied for more than two years.
While Biden was preparing to visit Kentucky alongside Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and prominent Republicans and Democrats to celebrate the enactment of a historic bipartisan infrastructure bill that bettered the lives of tens of millions of Americans, prominent House Republicans were working to humiliate their leading candidate for Speaker, who spent day after day surrendering to their power-mad demands.
President Biden has seized the high ground. He stands for politics where the American dream is available to all, bipartisanship is the preferred way of doing business, and democratic allies stand united in support of democracy in Ukraine and elsewhere. Every American wants, needs, and deserves leaders who make their lives better and dreams come true.
Senate Democratic and Republican leaders have many differences, but are willing to discuss genuine bipartisan ideas and to make reasonable compromises on some important matters to achieve results. Senate Republican leaders understand the political realities of today and realize that what is right for the country — achieving results that help Americans — is also good politics for the GOP.
The problem for achieving anything significant is in the House, where Republicans, who hold a small majority, are blockaded by a fanatic faction that opposes working with Biden and House Democrats on any issue, at any time, as a matter of non-negotiable principle.
Biden seeks opportunities to work with Republicans in the House as well as the Senate. The incoming House minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), is a skilled advocate and negotiator who shows great promise as Democratic leader.
While most commentators, myself included, believe there is an upper limit to what Biden and congressional Democrats can accomplish legislatively, it is wrong to suggest that nothing important can be accomplished, for two reasons.
First, there are somewhere between 10 and 30 House Republicans who could be part of negotiating success on some important issues that they believe in and which are important to their districts.
Second, it is already increasingly apparent that the growing image of hard-core House Republican obstructionism, including the super-hostile attempts to humiliate Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), are beginning to brand House Republicans in the eyes of voters as the kind of anti-voter obstructionists that led the GOP to electoral disaster in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
One can envision significant bipartisan agreements in the Senate that 10 or more GOP House members would accept, such as on a broad immigration bill that would strengthen border protection, improve border security, provide relief for the “Dreamers” and more. Remember when everyone believed bipartisan infrastructure was impossible to pass?
It could be similarly possible to reach agreement on lowering prescription drug costs for a far wider group of patients than could be achieved last year, or to pass some version of the widely popular child tax credit and other measures to support working women.
With these actions and others, the American dream can become a reality once more.
Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives.