What Does A Biden Presidency Mean For The World?
In recent years staying up for elections or indeed following them during daylight hours has felt like watching a truck carrying toxic waste drive off of a cliff. I’d watch, wincing, partially covering my eyes and waiting for the inevitable crash and burn and secondary cloud of toxic smoke that would inevitably wipe out any natural life in the nearby radius.
So when I saw Pennsylvania turned Blue my jaw dropped. I actually high fived my sister and I don’t think I’ve high fived anyone with as much enthusiasm since my team won the relay race at sports day when I was eleven. I was giddy with happiness and for a moment I was relieved at the prospect that things might ‘get back to normal’. Like it or not (and I don’t), the US sets the tone globally. Biden’s presidency sets a clear departure from the US under Trump, and with it we can expect some change, hopefully for the better. It’s early days but here are a couple of initial thoughts on what a Biden presidency may mean for various groups.
For America
The thing about Trump was that he was a self-sustaining bin fire. He fed off of the outrage from the vitriol he spewed out which only ever served to strengthen his caricature of himself and embolden his quite frankly dangerous supporters.
One (albeit minor) repercussion people may not have considered is that now Trump is out, Saturday Night Live is going to have to have to come up with some fresher material. As are most comedians, commentators and pundits, both in the US and here in the UK. The more backlash he got from these groups, the more his supporters came to his defence, and over four years he has managed to consolidate his voter base, even with his recent loss.
I am not sure the same can be said for the Democrats. There are many reports on how many black and young voters (the demographics most publicly credited for delivering Biden’s win), turned out of necessity as opposed to clear value alignment, especially given Biden’s previous interventionism and Harris’ prosecutorial background. It was always very easy to point and laugh at the bad man who did and said very stupid and bad things, but what might scrutiny look like in the age of Biden-Harris? As AOC says, were it any other country than the US, she wouldn’t be in the same party as Biden and his third way-ism.
Whilst we can take Biden’s win as a step in the right direction and a good sign for ‘the left’ broadly speaking, the gap between votes was not as large as Democrats would have wanted. The 2020 elections saw the highest voter turnout in a century, meaning a lot of people still wanted Trump to stick around - 72,308,420 votes to be exact (respectively to Biden’s 77,492,003 votes). Politically then, Biden seems to definitely be the man for the job in terms of his ability and ambition to represent consensus and to build bridges over the fiery lava filled chasm that Trump left behind.
However, if you take a closer look at Biden’s mandate, much of it is a case of dismantling Trump’s orange-stained shambles and basically just replacing it with Obama-Biden era policies, with a sprinkling of straightforward PR/ Foreign Policy wins, like re-joining the Paris Agreement. Whilst Trump’s presidency may not have literally taken society back to the dark ages, it certainly caused some significant damage to progressives, and Biden’s first term will have to be dedicated to just rebuilding the democratic policies that got burned to the ground in 2016. Problem is, they are the very same policies most people voted against four years ago. The time before Brexit, Trump and a Covid-19 seems like a hazy, distant, almost dream-like past but it’s not one we should be aiming for. Biden has been handed a shattered America and it will be very interesting to see what tactics he uses to bridge the divisions, especially in the wake of a mishandled pandemic.
For Britain
Boris has had a number of awkward run-ins with Biden: most recently Biden told him off for not playing nice with Europe when he proposed breaking international laws to pass Brexit, consequentially jeopardising the Northern Ireland Agreement. The same cannot be said for Johnson’s and Trump’s relationship, which was often mutually amicable, with Biden once having called Johnson a “a physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump”. Biden on the other hand was a vocal opponent to Brexit and given his raised head over NI and his own Irish heritage, he could be viewed as being a potential speed bump on road to Britain’s departure from the EU. That being said, thankfully, Biden does not engage with the same tit for tat politik endorsed by Trump.
Afterall ‘Biden the Bridge Builder’ will be looking to ameliorate multilateralism globally and that hopefully includes a successful Free Trade Agreement and delivering Brexit so that they can get back to selling each other chickens that smell suspiciously like your local swimming pool. So a good relationship is definitely on the cards, but it might not be as chummy as it was before. Especially since much of the premise of Britain’s prized ‘special relationship’ with the US entailed Britain acting as a gateway to European affairs. With us no longer a part of the club, Britain isn’t bringing anything particularly ‘special’ to the table politically speaking, in comparison to what France and Germany may be able to offer to Biden.
For the World
As I said, the US sets the tone for the world, so when you have a right-wing ego maniac in power inciting violence, right-wing militarism, and misinformation, others interpret that as a green light to follow suit. The last five or so years have seen a rise in far-right wing populist type leaders popping up from Europe, Asia to South America and with that a cross Atlantic far-right allyship akin to the Legion of Doom has evolved. Leaders such as Orban in Hungary or Bolsonaro in Brazil (and others) often pointed to America to justify their extreme actions, but with their poster-child now gone, many speculate that their domestic policies will have to halt, given their roots in Trump and his self-founded ideology. Trump’s dethroning is a significant blow to these regimes as he will no longer be able to command the same influence abroad as he did when he was in power.
Whilst Biden will need to address his immediate national priorities (Covid 19, race relations and the economy), it is well known that he intends to set the US back on track and reaffirm the US’ role in the global arena as a diplomatic heavy weight. He will have no scruples wagging his finger in front of administrations that support misinformation, human rights abuses and actual election fraud. The quiet optimist in me hopes that this will set precedent for other countries across the globe to ask for better from their leaders and it is a welcome change from the last four politically disruptive and dangerous years.
That was a brief recollection of all the thoughts that came through my head in the minutes and then days that I found out Biden won the election. Whilst Biden is not without his flaws, he will be a more accountable figure than Donald was, and he represents a more recognisable vision of what a good leader should be. His presidency should hopefully present an opportunity for real change in America, even if it takes some time, and its effects will be felt across the globe.
Written by Clara Martinelli
Hi, I’m Clara. I’m an International Relations and Politics graduate currently doing volunteer work in London and looking to make my corner of the world a better place one step at a time. When I’m taking a break from being existential you can find me on the sofa watching police dramas and eating stupid amounts of pasta.