By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS—President Joe Biden took a victory bow not long ago.

He was entitled to do so, even if the work he touted was—at best—half-done.

The bow came during his remarks the day after his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed the U.S. Senate and just hours after the same Senate had moved forward a preliminary version of a $3.5 trillion budget that would include sweeping reforms and investments in education, healthcare and tax policies.

Biden focused much of his attention on the infrastructure bill. He listed not just the things the measure would accomplish—better roads, sturdier bridges, more abundant broadband—but also the way the bill passed.

On a bipartisan 69-30 vote with 19 Republican senators supporting it.

Biden had a right to crow a bit.

He had accomplished something that no other president in recent decades has been able to do. He managed to get a sizable number of Republicans and Democrats to work together on a measure that was not trivial or ceremonial, but substantial.

What’s more, he had done it in the face of criticism from both the right and the left that the days of bipartisan governance were over. The only way to get things done, those fierce partisans and ideologues contended, was to ram a plan down the opposition’s gullet.

It’s true that both Democrats and Republicans have racked up some significant accomplishments in the last 20 years by pursuing such a scorched-earth approach to crafting public policy.

But they also have turned our government into a kind of teeter-totter that bounces wildly every time control of it falls into the opposition party’s hands.

Biden seems to understand the value of steadiness.

He said in his remarks that there were no such things as roads and bridges that were Democratic or Republican. There were only good roads and bad roads, safe bridges and unsafe ones.

Doing the basics of good governing, the president’s implied argument ran, shouldn’t be a partisan matter. We all should be able to agree that people should feel comfortable about the roads over which they and their families travel.

If Biden’s victory, put in that context, seems like a small one, that’s because—in a sane world—it should be.

But we haven’t been living in a sane world for quite some time now.

Americans received fresh evidence of that on the eve of the infrastructure bill vote. Former President Donald Trump threatened to withhold endorsements of any Republican senators to support the measure.

Trump’s threat was enough to persuade several GOP senators—including perhaps Indiana’s Todd Young—who might otherwise have supported the plan to instead vote against it. (Young had voted in favor of the measure earlier.)

The former president’s maneuver means Young and other Republicans on the ballot next year won’t be able to take credit for any of the benefits that accrue from the infrastructure investments.

Still, Young likely didn’t have much choice if he wants to stay in the Senate. History shows that Democrats win statewide in Indiana when—and only when—Republicans engage in a demolition derby during the primary and fatally damage the candidate who becomes the nominee.

Trump’s divisive and in many ways self-destructive threat demonstrates the power insanity still holds over our politics. A smarter politician than Trump would have mock-congratulated Biden for stealing his idea and thus robbed Democrats of much of the credit.

Maybe that’s why Biden didn’t linger over his bows.

There’s still a lot of work to be done.

The U.S. House of Representatives must approve the infrastructure bill before Biden can sign it into law. Progressives in the House say they won’t vote for it until the budget bill moves with it.

At the same time, moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, says he has concerns about the size of the budget bill and would welcome some trims.

Progressives say it’s too small as it is.

To get the budget approved will require patience and a willingness to bring people to the table—and keep them there.

Those seem to be virtues Joe Biden has in his possession.

That’s why he deserved his victory bow.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

The City-County Observer posted this article without bias or editing.