Washington Post columnist declares: ‘This is the month Biden finally came into his own’
President Biden is expected to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law this week
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. declared Saturday that even with former President Trump hogging some of the spotlight, President Biden "finally came into his own" this month.
Dionne juxtaposed Trump and Biden in dynamic terms in a Washington Post op-ed headlined "Trump’s angry wailing is loud. Biden’s governing is louder."
Dionne illustrated that Trump has once again usurped the spotlight from a successful presidency, thanks to his Mar-a-Lago estate being raided by the FBI. "You can only imagine the frustration in Bidenworld over the past week. As the president — the actual one — set about celebrating his extraordinary legislative successes of recent weeks, Trump was everywhere," he wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The FBI's controversial raid was featured heavily in the piece, but Dionne suggested if anything it was proof that the FBI and presidency were not working in concert to undermine Trump.
President Biden's presidency has struggled with inflation and political turmoil at home. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
"The last thing the White House wanted was an event that would relegate Biden’s victories — on climate, health care, tech policy, prescription drug prices, taxes and major new assistance for veterans — to second or third place in the news cycle," he wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Dionne hopes "the stark contrast" between the 45th and 46 presidents the last week that "we have just witnessed — in who they are, in their priorities, in the way they behave — will be a reset moment."
"[T]his is the month Biden finally came into his own," Dionne declared, pointing to "the legislative achievements that just surged through Congress."
He further claimed, "Biden may go down as achieving something like Ronald Reagan did, but in reverse. His time in office is altering the nation’s assumptions about government and its role in our economic life."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}United States Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI have faced massive scrutiny after the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
The columnist theorized that Biden’s quiet focus on policy is why some Americans voted for him. He said, "[T]he voters who put Biden into the presidency in 2020 were seeking something closer to a functional, normal democracy. This was the opposite of what we had when Trump rampaged around the White House, obsessed only with himself, his image and the attention-grabbing havoc he could wreak."
Dionne suggested that this "normality" means "Biden does not grab the headlines, particularly on cable news and social media, the way Trump still can."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He painted the sitting president as a "fundamentally decent man who has spent his life thinking about what legislation he could pass, which problems he might start solving, and how he could tilt the economic playing field a bit more toward the kinds of people he grew up with in Scranton, Pa., and Delaware."
U.S. President Joe Biden departs from Holy Spirit Catholic Church after attending Mass on St. Johns Island, South Carolina, USA. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)
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By contrast, he suggested that Trump instead "brought his destructive psychosis to the center of our politics."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He concluded, "Joe Biden will never seize the public stage the way Trump does. He will never galvanize mobs, inspire frenzied loyalty — or encourage his supporters to embrace and defend lies. That happens to be why Biden was elected," he suggested, claiming "those who voted for him can feel pretty good about themselves" this week.