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After a bleak winter that saw the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpass half a million, President Biden has sought to foster – and benefit from – a nationwide surge of optimism about the pandemic, l economy and condition of the country in a White House speech. Thursday evening.
By May 1, restrictions on who can book an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine will be lifted across the country, Biden said. The current limitations will no longer be necessary as the supply of vaccines will be sufficient to meet demand. All American adults should be able to get at least one first injection by the end of May, he added.
The goal is to have a nation “closer to normal” by July 4th with at least “small gatherings” on Independence Day, “when we celebrate our independence as a nation and we let’s start celebrating our independence from this virus, ”he said.
Although the speech contained dark notes – honoring the 527,726 who died from the disease and denouncing violence against Asian Americans, who Biden said were a scapegoat – the general tone was optimistic for the nation’s future. .
“After a full year, there is hope and light for better days to come – if we all do our part,” Biden said.
“I know it’s been tough. I really know, ”he says. But, he noted, the nation rose to the challenge.
“Finding light in the dark is a very American thing to do,” he said. “In fact, it’s maybe the most American thing we do. And that’s exactly what we did.
Although states currently set the rules for who can get vaccinated, the federal government controls the supply of vaccines; if necessary, Biden can use that authority to order states to drop restrictions effective May 1, a senior White House official told reporters.
To speed up vaccinations, some 4,000 additional troops will be deployed to help with the vaccination campaign, and the federal government will launch a website and call center to help people find appointments, Biden said.
The more optimistic tone marked a notable pivot for Biden, who warned in December that “the darkest days of the COVID battle are ahead of us,” and since then has repeatedly downplayed expectations for a return to the normal of the country.
The speech, Biden’s first primetime White House speech, marked the first anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic.
It also came hours after Biden enacted legislation on a $ 1.9 trillion clawback program that his administration said will speed up the pace of vaccinations, help reopen schools safely and provide aid. significant financial benefit to low- and middle-income families.
At the brief Oval Office signing ceremony – a bigger celebration will take place on Friday – Biden said the relief package was aimed at “rebuilding the backbone of this country.”
The law will offer payments of $ 1,400 to most Americans in the coming weeks, with the first wave hitting bank accounts as early as this weekend, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.
The measure will also achieve a list of democratic goals, including creating a one-year near universal child benefit that experts say will cut the child poverty rate by almost half.
The law will reduce the overall poverty rate by more than a third over the coming year, according to new analysis from the Washington-based Urban Institute. It would be by far the largest annual decline in poverty in the past decade and one of the largest in modern U.S. history.
The enactment of the law marks a significant victory for Biden – the package rolled out of Congress roughly the same size it proposed in January, its major components intact except for a federal minimum wage increase, that the rules of the Senate dictated to be treated separately.
This happened on the 51st day of his presidency, as the White House could also celebrate the approval of most members of Biden – Atty’s cabinet. General Merrick Garland, the 16th official confirmed by the Senate, was sworn in Thursday afternoon – and a rapid increase in the number of Americans vaccinated. About 1 in 4 American adults have now received at least one vaccine.
The speech marked the start of at least a week of events in which Biden and other senior officials will seek to highlight elements of the new law – something he said last week that President Obama had not done enough in 2009, after the passage of its economic recovery. law.
Biden is expected to travel next week to suburban Philadelphia – a traditionally Republican region where he was strongly drawn to moderate voters, while Vice President Kamala Harris hits the swing states of Colorado and Nevada. The two have a joint appearance slated for late next week in Atlanta, another politically crucial location.
At every stop, administration officials must insist on how Americans can access the aid provided under the new law, and also distribute a commodity that has been in short supply for the past year – l ‘optimism.
The hopeful tone contrasts sharply with his presidential campaign, in which Biden took a sober approach designed to contrast starkly with President Trump’s downplay of illness, which many voters found cavalier. Biden also lowered expectations after taking office, allowing him to under-promise and over-deliver, a formula his predecessor rarely followed due to his tendency to oversold.
In recent weeks, however, Biden and his administration have increasingly taken on a sunnier note. The change began just over a week ago when Biden announced that the country would have enough vaccines to administer vaccines to all adults by the end of May.
“Every day the vaccine count comes out, and when you have that kind of visible progress, it’s hard to go against it,” said Donna Edwards, a former Democratic congressman from Maryland.
Before Biden’s speech on Thursday, Rochelle Walensky, his appointed Center for Disease Control and Prevention official, also sounded more optimistic in a statement on the anniversary of the pandemic.
“Vaccinating millions of people every day gives me hope,” Walensky said. “I hope we can beat this pandemic. And hope that we can get back to being with our family, our friends and our community. And so on.”
This change is something several Democratic strategists have urged.
“They’ve been a little too negative,” Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said. “Some optimism on his part would be good.”
The approach corresponds to an increasing mood of the public. Although Americans remain cautious about how quickly the country can return to normalcy, a new Gallup poll has shown that the proportion of Americans reporting satisfaction with their life’s recovery is almost to pre-pandemic levels.
Republican strategist Sarah Longwell saw the change in focus groups she led with voters who supported Donald Trump in 2016 and then switched to Biden last year.
In 2020, “when I asked the question,” How do you think things are going in the country? “The responses were brutal,” Longwell said. People were talking about friends or family members dying and not being able to visit them or people being fired, she recalls.
On the other hand, in his last group, six people in a row “all said, ‘I’m feeling pretty good. I think things are going in the right direction, ”she said.
“There is a feeling of being about to be,” Longwell added. And while voters remain skeptical of political promises, “checks that come in people’s mailboxes” are the kind of thing that might grab attention.
Biden’s promotional task is in many ways easier than the one Obama faced ten years ago. In Obama’s case, the Great Recession was still worsening for much of his first year in office – unemployment did not peak until October 2009. Voters at the time were extremely nervous. as to the risk, said Joel Benenson, who was Obama’s pollster.
This mistrust significantly limited the size of any program the country would support, he said. It also gave Republicans ground to attack Obama’s proposals.
In contrast, Biden’s path has been aided by the inability of Republicans so far to develop effective attacks on his legislative package.
Over time, that will change, Greenberg said. “You can see Republicans struggling,” but with such a large legislative package, “inevitably there will be something.”
So far, however, the bill “just hasn’t generated the kind of opposition that Obama’s revival has generated,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said.
All of this is reflected in polls which show the legislation supported by around 70% of the public. Biden’s own approval rating is not at such a high level and likely never will be, given the country’s intense political polarization.
“The days of 57%, 58%, and 59% approval ratings are probably over,” Benenson said. “Social networks have served to completely balkanize the country.”
But Biden maintained a consistent majority of the audience behind him. A poll released Thursday by non-partisan research center Pew found that 54% of the public approved of Biden’s professional performance so far, with 42% disapproving.
The poll also showed that 65% of the public believed Biden could effectively handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden’s approval rating is very similar to that of Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush at this point in their tenure. In contrast, Trump’s approval rating at this point was 44% and never exceeded 50%.
The president’s approval rating is important, which gives him more weight in Congress and shapes the political landscape for the midterm elections in 2022. It is unclear how far Biden’s approval can go. further, but the adoption of the back-up plan gives it a solid starting point.
“Biden is betting on gunshots in people’s arms and checks in people’s mailboxes,” Longwell said.
For the new president, this could be a winning combination.
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