Unlike Donald Trump, President Joe Biden does not enrich authors and publishers. Books about the octogenarian leader whom Republicans call “Sleepy Joe” are not becoming bestsellers.
That changed this week when a book from the first half of the Biden presidency rose to the top of Amazon’s sales list. “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future” is the work of journalist Franklin Foer, who admitted during the trial that he had overcome deep skepticism about the presidentelect who even had support from Republican voters on a mission to end the nightmare that culminated in the invasion of the Capitol.
The book’s title refers not only to the fact that Biden won his first election in 1970 and never held another job, but also to the affectation of the new generation of elected officials on antipolitical identity platforms, such as selfproclaimed outsiders Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
The best and most pleasing written examination of Biden was published in 1992 and is therefore incomplete. Richard Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes, The Way to the White House” was a look at six presidential campaigns, painting a portrait of the thensenator who led Biden to admit at Cramer’s funeral in 2013 that he had made discoveries about himself in the unflattering pages of the book.
The new book is unlikely to trigger unprecedented introspection from the president. But it will not only bring revelations about the chaos, defeats and successes of the first half of this presidency, but also fill a void left by Biden’s cynical reporting.
Most Americans, even those who consume news from traditional media, would be unable to name the factors that make Dorminhoco Joe, a frequent gaffe and stumbling block, the most consequential Democratic occupant of the White House since Lyndon Johnson.
Franklin Foer lists arguments about how Biden, with technocratic advisers who turned away from Clintonism, changed the political course that shaped the party for more than two decades respect for markets, a safe distance from unions and tolerance for monopolies.
During this presidency, industrial policy ceased to be a dirty word, the fight against trusts became a capitalist virtue, and the promotion of clean energy sources took a significant step forward.
Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders dealt a blow to leftists seeking a third run in 2024 by forcefully defending Biden’s reelection and criticizing circus professor Cornel West for launching an independent primary bid. He condemned those who would rather risk the return of Donald Trump to complete the project of gangster fascism.
Biden and Sanders have a symbiotic relationship, Foer reports. Biden is counting on the Vermont politician and leader of the Democratic Party’s left wing to push for a progressive agenda and give the White House more leeway to implement policies that the far more popular Obama has not dared to defend.
If Biden and Trump remain tied in the polls despite the catastrophic gap between the two and the existential and global threat that the Republican poses, Foer’s work is an argument for the failure not of the president, but of the information ecosystem in the country.