What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Tamas]

Don't agree on foreign policy - I think arguably China policy is Trump's only real success that will endure.

Yeah it was time China was called out on all the BS.

[Sheilbh]

A big order for soybeans in exchange for years of tarriff disruptions?

Bipartisan consensus that China is a strategic competitor and can't just be integrated into the international system.

Edit: Which I don't think existed in 2016.

[Admiral Yi]

Bipartisan consensus that China is a strategic competitor and can't just be integrated into the international system.

Edit: Which I don't think existed in 2016.

I don't think Trump has created an enduring bipartisan consensus that the best way to deal with China is to force them to buy more soybeans and ban Tik Toc.

It will be interesting to see what Biden does about Israel.  Pretty hard to reverse the location of an embassy, and very hard to go past rhetoric when it comes to annexation and all that occupied territory stuff.  Obama tried rhetoric alone and that bluff got called.

[katmai]

Some equally reputable source though.

well it is Tucker Carlson so...

[The Larch]

I think that Biden will have a big, fat, neon sign that says "Transitional president" right from the start.  As such, I don't expect him to do anything groundbreaking, Green New Deal style, just steering the country back to a rational course will be already a difficult chore in some aspects, and a possibly obstructionist Senate won't allow him to do anything radical anyway (not that I think that Biden would do that even if he could). With that in mind, I think he'll try to be a "healer" kind of President, bringing the coutnry back together and rebuilding bridges. How successful he'll be will remain to be seen.

His objectives will be, in the short term, applying a logical strategy against Covid and building an appropriate stimulus package to kickstart the economy and support those struggling during the pandemic, as well as bringing the federal apparatus back to speed. I guess he'll have to nominate bucketloads of people to all kind of agencies, some of them to positions that Trump left purposedfully unoccupied, and there'll be a lot of stuff catch up to do. Internationally I see him rejoining all the international agreements that Trump rubished, beginning with the Paris Agreement, and maybe rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal. Just undoing all the Trumpian crap he can will be quite a tall order.

Long term, and if it's pretty clear that he'll be a one term president, he should focus on building up his successor, and logic says that it should be Kamala Harris, so I can see her taking up plenty of responsability during the presidency in order to increase her profile towards the 2024 elections.

The biggest dilemma he'll have to face is if he will really want to investigate and/or prosecute Trump. I'm pretty sure that if a serious investigation takes place enough shit will be found to warrant a proper trial against him. On the one hand it might set up the terrible precedent of a president investigating his predecessor, which might create plenty of bad blood for future elections, but on the other hand doing nothing basically condones doing all kinds of corrupt stuff during a presidency. If I had to bet I'd say he might investigate but won't really prosecute him.

[The Brain]

Does Congress need to approve agreements with foreign powers? If it does, will it approve undoing Trump's stuff?

[The Brain]

Which artists will play at Biden's inauguration? All of them?

[Admiral Yi]

Does Congress need to approve agreements with foreign powers? If it does, will it approve undoing Trump's stuff?

The Senate needs to approve *treaties* but not things like the Paris Accord or Bubba's memorandum of understanding with North Korea.  IIRC the Iran deal was one of those memo type deals.

So as a side note maybe the formal treaty is dead like the official declaration of war.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - Paris was deliberately drafted the way it is to avoid having to get Senate approval.

[Valmy]

Don't agree on foreign policy - I think arguably China policy is Trump's only real success that will endure.

Well Obama was already building an anti-Chinese coalition that Trump split from.

I hope Biden works something out with TPP, though we probably can never join. Not even a Democratic Senate would let him do that now.

But China has worked for a long time to make themselves our enemy. No use pretending otherwise.

[grumbler]

Bipartisan consensus that China is a strategic competitor and can't just be integrated into the international system.

Edit: Which I don't think existed in 2016.

Xi didn't consolidate his power before about 2016.  He's the game-changer, not Trump.

Trump really wasn't that hard on China.  The tariff war hurt the US far more than China, and pretty much ended when China made some vague (and unfulfilled) promises to buy some US stuff. 

Biden isn't beholden to any Chinese banks, so has more room to maneuver with regard to China.

[The Brain]

Also, Biden's IQ is over 50.

[Sheilbh]

Fine - Trump has no enduring achievements

But personally I think it's fair to say that his campaign changed the politics of dealing with China in a way that will last and changed the attitude of Dems as well as the GOP.

I agree he didn't create a new policy consensus but he changed the mood/politics of dealing with China and that matters significantly more than any individual policies. Unrelated to Trump it is a sentiment that has become common in Europe over the last year too so Biden will be able to build an actual policy consensus and actually make it more effective by leveraging US alliances.

[grumbler]

The biggest dilemma he'll have to face is if he will really want to investigate and/or prosecute Trump. I'm pretty sure that if a serious investigation takes place enough shit will be found to warrant a proper trial against him. On the one hand it might set up the terrible precedent of a president investigating his predecessor, which might create plenty of bad blood for future elections, but on the other hand doing nothing basically condones doing all kinds of corrupt stuff during a presidency. If I had to bet I'd say he might investigate but won't really prosecute him.

I think that a "truth and reconciliation" approach is more Biden's style and better for the country.   The excesses need to go on the record, but a trial would be counter-productive.

New York state charges, though, are likely.  As is DJT's bankruptcy.

[The Larch]

The biggest dilemma he'll have to face is if he will really want to investigate and/or prosecute Trump. I'm pretty sure that if a serious investigation takes place enough shit will be found to warrant a proper trial against him. On the one hand it might set up the terrible precedent of a president investigating his predecessor, which might create plenty of bad blood for future elections, but on the other hand doing nothing basically condones doing all kinds of corrupt stuff during a presidency. If I had to bet I'd say he might investigate but won't really prosecute him.

I think that a "truth and reconciliation" approach is more Biden's style and better for the country.   The excesses need to go on the record, but a trial would be counter-productive.

New York state charges, though, are likely.  As is DJT's bankruptcy.

Do you think that something from the Mueller Report will be able to be used against him?