Wonder why Joe Biden is signing a slew of executive orders? Because it’s a sop to the hard left and because he’s scared of Congress.
It’s a sop because he knows most of those orders will be halted by the federal courts at some point as they wind their way up the judicial ladder. Thus he can say to the hard left, “Hey, I’m trying. It’s only the courts that stand in the way.” But if the courts shoot him down then he doesn’t have to take a lot of heat for these left wing projects. So Biden is basically using the court system as a fall guy to hold off the hard left. Kinda smart.
And Trump’s plethora of federal judicial appointments will be felt here. If you were frustrated when the former president was halted in his course by the courts, you are in for a schadenfreude festival as Biden gets it even worse.
Biden is going the executive order route because the open secret in Washington is that most executive orders are a sign of presidential weakness. Not the specific orders, the process. Some edicts are normal under accepted powers as Commander in Chief, etc. However, most are just ways to bypass Congress when you’re scared of the outcome there.
But why should he be scared, you say? He controls both chambers of Congress. But does he?
The House has a single digit margin and all GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy has to do is ply away several of the publicly anti-Pelosi Democrats and the Democrats could lose vote after vote. So McCarthy has the whip hand there, as the hunter, not the hunted.
In the Senate it’s tied. They have control because the veep breaks ties in favor of the Democrats. But with power sharing and no numbers to spare, mavericks hold sway. So Democrat Joe Manchin and his moderate ilk can stop fellow Democrats in their tracks. Chuck Schumer knows this and will proceed accordingly. Add to this that Mitch McConnell is the best legislative tactician in the Senate since Lyndon Johnson and it is not a scenario conducive to Democrat happiness.
Thus, watch McCarthy and McConnell. They give lie to a certain Republican Chicken Little hysteria one can see all over social media. “Oh no! Joe Biden is in office! The Republic is doomed!” If you run into one of these people, reach into your pocket and take out the chloroform soaked handkerchief you have stashed there. Everybody else does that, right?
Then proceed to apply the “medicine” to the histrionic annoying individual who is claiming America is doomed and done because we lost one election. Like Ahnauld, we’ll be back. When we are, McCarthy and McConnell should get the credit.