In defence of Sleepy Joe: the US needs Biden to be Baldwin

When the Democrats were choosing their Presidential candidate, I wrote that what America needed  just now was “a do-nothing President” and that Sleepy Joe Biden was the man for the job. Calling him “Sleepy Joe” was a bit unkind and “do-nothing” not quite right.  Nevertheless, what I was implying seems to me to hold good; indeed, it does so more than ever. The mood in the United States is febrile. The nation needs to calm down.

In considering Biden I have been thinking of Stanley Baldwin. When he is remembered now it is usually for his role in the Abdication of Edward VIII and perhaps for his apparent failure to recognise the menace of Nazi Germany and the need for rearmament.

Yet there is a better reason to remember Baldwin and, moreover, reason to applaud him. He said his ambition in politics was to prevent the Class War from becoming a reality in Britain. He succeeded in this, with help from the usually underrated and often despised Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald. Baldwin’s attitude to Labour helped to make it a moderate and respectable parliamentary party.

When the 1931 financial and economic crisis threatened stability and a National Government was formed at the King’s request, Baldwin was content to take second place to MacDonald, even though the Conservatives won the vast majority of seats in that year’s General Election. If, when war came in 1939, Britain faced this grim reality as, unlike France, a united nation, then this happy outcome was made possible by Baldwin’s emollient management.

The USA today is a bitterly divided country. This election has been compared in importance to that of 1860, when the election of Abraham Lincoln provoked the attempt of the Southern States to secede from the Union , and consequently the Civil War. There is no threat of the Union breaking up in like fashion today. Nevertheless, the division between Red and Blue in the USA is of a bitterness scarcely seen or experienced in more than a hundred and fifty years. The USA needs a healing President, one who, like Baldwin, sees the imperative of calming things down and restoring fellow-feeling.

A recent book by Lee Drutman, a political scientist, makes the argument for the recovery of the bi-partisan tradition in American politics. It’s entitled “Beating the Two-Party Doom-Loop”. In its pages, Drutman writes: “A fully divided two-party system without any overlap is probably unworkable in any democracy, given what it does to our minds. It leads us to see our fellow-citizens not as political opponents to politely disagree with, but as enemies to delegitimise and destroy.”

Cross-party respect, understanding and indeed friendship are essential in a democracy. Baldwin understood that. I was recently reading Rab Butler’s last book, “The Art of Memory: Friends in Perspective”. Butler was Baldwin’s heir in the Conservative Party and two of the friends recalled by him with affection and admiration were Labour politicians, Ernest Bevin and Aneurin Bevan.

The chapter on Nye Bevan reminded me that Butler’s own Conservative heir, Iain Macleod, made his name with a swingeing attack on Bevan in the House of Commons; yet I also recall a photograph in Nigel Fisher’s biography of Macleod. It shows him with Bevan, his guest at a rugby match between Saracens and Ebbw Vale. Macleod, a keen rugby fan, was a member of Saracens; Ebbw Vale was Nye’s constituency. So Macleod found it natural to invite Nye to the game.

The great political philosopher Michael Oakeshott said Conservatism is rooted in conversation. Conversation is a matter of civility, and civility is badly needed in the USA today.

Biden’s own politics are founded in this civility, in the recognition that opponents are people to be understood and conciliated, not enemies to be destroyed. His long experience in Congress, first in the House and then the Senate, has taught him to reach out to opponents, to seek agreement, and to recognise that, in the imperfect world of politics, doing a deal is better than seeking victory.

Whether, if he were to be elected, he could bring the healing touch to America’s present discontents may be doubtful; but there is at least a chance of success. Think how much worse the prospect would be if the Democrats had elected Bernie Sanders as their candidate. Whatever his merits he would have widened and deepened divisions. If Biden wins, repairing the torn fabric of American political society may just be possible. The process could at least be allowed to begin.

It will be very difficult. Drutman remarks that when Biden first went to Congress as a young man, the cleavage between the two parties was less clear than it is now. There was indeed an unspoken, unofficial four-party system, because there were liberal Democrats and conservative Democrats (from what used to be the “Solid South”) and likewise there were conservative Republicans and liberal ones. So forming temporary or provisional cross-party alliances was easier than it is now.

In its present mood, the USA needs a conversation with itself. Conversation doesn’t exclude disagreement or reasoned dissent; it does exclude invective, character assassination, the promotion of lurid conspiracy fantasies. Conversation promotes comity. Of course, America has deep and damaging social, legal, economic and racial problems which will not be solved  by a change of president. Some may even be unsolvable. All may, however, be ameliorated and a first step towards amelioration is to engage the nation in conversation and not to indulge in angry rhetoric.

At his age, Joe Biden cannot even aspire to be America’s great Redeemer, but, if elected, he can at least take a first step towards the restoration of civility by lowering and softening the tone of public discourse. That would be a great achievement even if he achieved little else.