8 things our next president needs to do right away
[NOTE: This article was published before the Associated Press projected Joe Biden won the presidential election.]
What a draining week that was.
And what an uncertain time we have going forward.
I am writing this as of early morning Saturday, November 7, important to note, because the course of the election and indeed our nation could shift at any moment.
Still, I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb and say Joe Biden will be our next president. Donald Trump is now behind in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania (which if he won, would add to his electoral vote total and give him 306) by a combined 88,000 votes. (Never mind his 4.1 million-plus deficit in the popular vote.) That’s simply too steep of a mountain for Trump to climb. I understand he is going to challenge and fight the results everywhere, but on what grounds? So far there’s no there, there. And remember he would have to beat or overturn current results in all four states.
“Besides the lawyers making money and the Trump base making noise or worse, it’s hard to see what the claim is,” says Mark Graber, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. “A lot of it is simply throwing mud and hoping something sticks.”
For those of you keeping score, (and who isn’t), one key deadline for challenging the election is December 14 when the state electors (to the Electoral College) meet in their respective state capitals to formally vote for the president and vice president. Back in the contested election of 2000 you may recall, the Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore on December 12, right before that deadline (more on that election later.) But this mess could end being resolved later in Congress, like it did in the hotly contested election of 1876, when Rutherford B. Hayes was finally named the winner by special commission after a bitter fight.
The president has been telling us for quite some time this was coming. That he would only lose if there was fraud and illegal voting, and therefore he would fight to the end. Of course some have suggested that fear of litigation post-presidency is making him that much more dogged.
It remains to be seen how long and how far the GOP will stick with the president in this battle, as scorching the earth could irreparably harm the nation and their party. At what point do a majority of Republicans think Trump is just a sore loser who needs to give up the ghost?
So I may be getting ahead of myself as we could be in for a long slog here, (or maybe not—who knows), but after all is said and done, I believe Biden will be inaugurated on Wednesday, January 20, 2021. If I’m wrong, you can file this under “Dewey defeats Truman” and troll me for the next four years.
And by the way, the stock market seems remarkably sanguine about the week’s events. Stocks rebounded sharply since Election Day, with the S&P climbing some 6.9%—the best week since April, after falling sharply the week before—the worst five days since March. That surge in stock prices was about perhaps finally this election coming to an end (not so fast there now), and also the notion that Biden would win but the GOP would hold the Senate (likely, but also unresolved), creating a mixed government with little mandate to interfere in the workings of business. I would not expect another leg up from here for stocks until this is all resolved, but who knows. Last week’s action was a textbook lesson in not trying to time the market.
So, accepting my not-so-little caveat about Biden ultimately winning, what should Biden do upon becoming president two months hence, given that he will be facing a nation that is deeply divided and still fighting a raging pandemic? Here are my thoughts.
(By the way, if Trump somehow does stay in office, he could take on these priorities too, but as you will see, in many instances he couldn’t or wouldn’t.)
COVID-19
The case count is soaring—up to 132,000 yesterday—the worst levels ever, and yet the pandemic was put on the back burner this past week. Tragically this may continue until the election is figured out. Day one for the new president—and I am sure he’ll have this planned out in advance—we need a national program with flexible regional policies and authority for fighting the pandemic. We need clear and consistent messaging. The federal government needs to fund and take charge of testing and make “rapid testing” a redundancy. We need a system for contact tracing. We should wear masks in public and limit the size of social gatherings. Next, and again, I’m sure he’s got this, Biden needs to ready a plan to distribute vaccines as well as therapeutics not just in the U.S., but for the world (yes we’re going to get some globalism back here, see below.) We need to re-engage with the WHO, re-empower the CDC, and ask Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, if he will officially become our COVID-19 Czar.
Reach across the aisle
First of all I understand this whole narrative of “Donald Trump got 70 million votes, Donald Trump isn’t going away, Donald Trump TV is coming and Donald Trump 2024.” To be sure, Donald Trump is a-once-in-a-generation Pied Piper. That was true of Republican Senator Joe McCarthy too back in the 1950s but eventually people just became tired of his song and dance. Biden needs to reach out to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—they’ve known each other for decades—and remind him that when Trump is gone, their next candidate—Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation Nikki Haley, Senator Ted Cruz etc, none of them—will be able to garner those tens of millions of votes by dint of personality. The ‘party of no’ won’t work anymore, not the way demographics are going against the GOP. The only course of action for the GOP is to work with Biden, (I know, only to a degree.) Obama wasn’t particularly effective in this department. Trump didn’t care. It’s time to change that. Biden can do it.
Stimulus
Americans need help. This could get done before Biden is elected, but the president for one may be otherwise occupied and even if he concedes (big if there), he may be in no mood to do anything to make things easier for Biden. (Contrast that with the effort George Bush and his team made before handing off to Obama during the financial crisis of 2008.) McConnell for one said this week, stimulus in the form of a $1,200 per family check is needed, and soon. Democrats started off proposing $3 trillion, but have cut it down to $2 trillion. Biden and McConnell could pull this off together.
National Day of Reconciliation
I know, this is kumbaya, but hear me out. We need to set a day for parades, marches, picnics, whatever—let every town and city decide—where people from both sides come and celebrate America together. Call it a National Day of Freedom or some such, everyone likes that. Proud Boys and Antifa are invited, in fact we really want them to come, as long as they don’t bring guns (I can’t believe I have to say that in America today.)
Liberals and Democrats, since they won the presidency, in particular need to listen to what conservatives are saying and try to understand their grievances. I’m not asking anyone to compromise their values, just hear the other person out. By the way, the left wing of the Democratic Party needs to understand this was not a victory for them. They’re at the table, but not at the head of it. Ours is not a radical country. (This reminds me of an American explaining our two parties to a Brit: “We have the Republican Party in the U.S. which is like your Tory party. And we have the Democratic Party, which is like your Tory Party.”)
Conservatives in the U.S. too need to move off their dime. Want to understand racism in America? Talk to people like New York Knick legend Walt Frazier. I remember being told that he was the best basketball (and football) player in the city of Atlanta his senior year of high school. I met Frazier a few years ago and we had a very nice chat. “Why did you go to Southern Illinois University,” I asked him. “Why not North Carolina or Duke?” Frazier, who’s just 14 years older than I am, looked down at me. “Because they didn’t allow Black athletes to play in the ACC then,” he said. That was a powerful moment for me. Understand that someone like Walt Frazier couldn’t go to the college of his choice. And then extend that to millions of Americans and to every other institution in our country. In your lifetime.
The Federal Reserve
Biden may or may not keep Jay Powell. While Trump nominated him to chair, it’s notable that Powell was originally an Obama appointee.) If he does his message will be simple. “I will never, ever criticize you in public.” Powell’s response will be simple too: “Thank you Mr. President.”
New taxes
No. Not now. Not until we’ve recovered what the economy lost during the pandemic.
Infrastructure
This is not an if, it’s a when. And anytime you make that statement, the best time to act is now. So speaking of the Fed, we have been leaning on this institution far too long and far too much, and yes it is running out of ammunition when it comes to stimulating the economy, which we will still need to do. Also there’s employment. Yes, the jobless rate fell to 6.9% last week, but that’s still high and is likely to stay so. Technology will continue to cause lower skilled workers to lose jobs. (Thousands of cashiers for instance, are going, going gone within 24 months.) Plus, we need new and better bridges, roads, airports, ports, and especially broadband, WiFi, and internet. The U.S. Council of Economic Advisers has calculated that $1 billion of transportation-infrastructure investment supports 13,000 jobs for a year, according to a McKinsey report loaded with great factoids. One hurdle here has been red states versus blue states, who gets the money. Fine, parcel it out. Texas and Florida need capital investment as much as New York and California.
Re-engage allies
There’s much healing that needs to be done, with Europe for instance. And we need to be humble about it. “Most traditional allies, even if they made nice to Trump, thought he was a lunatic,” says Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group. “When our own president is saying our election has been rigged and we should stop the count, we need to calm the hell down with American exceptionalism. People around the world want to come to the U.S. And they want to invest in the U.S. Of course, they do. They're not stupid. But they don't want their political system to look like the United States. Are you kidding me?”
China is the tough one here, as Trump was correct in assessing that the economic relationship between our two countries is out of kilter and not in our favor. We’re never going back to where we were before with China, but we can tone down the military rhetoric for starters, and use multilateral APAC relationships (i.e., include Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia, etc.) as leverage when dealing with the Chinese. As for Russia, Biden sees them for who they are: Not our friends.
I know what you are thinking right now. Oh, Biden has no mandate. He barely won the election and no one will listen to him. Well, when all is said and done, he will have won probably 24 states and some 75 million votes, more than any other president. So there’s that. But even more, you would be making a mistake to think the arc of history moves in a smooth line.
Less than eight months after George W. Bush was inaugurated, two planes slammed into the World Trade Center killing thousands of Americans. Three days later, on September 14, President Bush visited Ground Zero in lower Manhattan and with the smoldering wreckage of the fallen towers behind him, grabbed a bullhorn and began to speak (you should really watch this.) “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people – and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." The crowd responded by chanting "USA! USA!"
No one spoke about how Bush had only won 270 electoral votes and how divided our country had been.
That was in the past.
This article was featured in a Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on November 7, 2020. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe
Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @serwer.
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