What Democrats Need: More Short-Term Thinking
As the party battles over its plans to remake American society, it is ignoring the more immediate concerns of many voters.
Trying to get the job done.
Photographer: MANDEL NGAN/AFPThe conventional wisdom is that politicians focus on the short term at the expense of the long term — that they’re obsessed with the latest polling and the next election instead of the future of the country and the next generation. That may be true, but still: President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats could use a healthy dose of short-term thinking right about now.
Their time and attention are currently consumed by fraught negotiations over the exact size and scope of the bundle of initiatives they call the Build Back Better agenda, which the White House describes as an ambitious plan to make “a more sustainable, resilient, equitable, and prosperous future.” Progressive politicians and activists are correct that this package addresses many legitimately important issues — climate change, child poverty, long-term health care, education and so on.