The Case of the Missing Second Term Agenda
Biden doesn’t have one yet, but Trump sure does.
The official website of the Biden for President campaign is a complete mystery. It’s basically a half-hearted request for money with a promise to “Finish the Job.”
Finish what job?
“Joe and Kamala are running to ensure four more years of progress for the American people,” the campaign promises.
Progress on what?
Click on the accompanying video, the only other item on the site, and you hear Biden lay into Trump and mutter something about small donors—but literally nothing about his own plans for a second term. Likewise, there’s nothing on the economy, inflation, or immigration—the most important issues to voters according to every single poll.
For an incumbent campaign, you’d perhaps expect to see some bragging points on Biden’s economic record or his “promises kept” or any other policy successes from national infrastructure and domestic manufacturing to clean energy investments and health care cost reductions.
They have some—buried deep on the site and not listed on the welcome page so absolutely no one sees it.
Heck, there’s not even a hint on the official campaign site about what “saving democracy” and “protecting people’s rights” would mean in practice—the supposed animating principles of the entire Biden 2024 effort.
What exactly have the Biden people been doing for months on end? It's just an empty shell of a campaign—a campaign that the incumbent is currently losing. Biden is at best tied with Trump nationally and slightly down in most of the critical battleground states. His job approval rating just hit an all-time low.
It’s one thing if you’re planning a major political land invasion designed to alter the trajectory of the campaign war with a brilliantly outlined and potent agenda presented later this summer. It’s another if you’re just sitting on your hands waiting for the other guy to stumble because he’s, well, Donald Trump.
What are all the new “volunteers” and “organizers” supposed to say to a prospective voter if they ask what Biden plans to do in a second term? It’s a total puzzle.
In contrast, if you go to Trump’s web site there’s a smorgasbord of ideas under his “Agenda47” banner—all outlined directly from the candidate himself to camera. Some agenda items include:
Trump declares war on the cartels.
Ending veteran homelessness.
No welfare for illegal aliens.
Trump’s pledge to homeschooling parents.
America must have the #1 lowest cost energy and electricity on earth.
Returning production of essential medicines back to America and ending Biden’s pharmaceutical shortages.
The death penalty for drug traffickers.
Rescuing America’s auto industry from Joe Biden’s disastrous job-killing policies.
Rebuilding America’s depleted military.
Protecting students from the radical left and Marxist maniacs infecting educational institutions.
Ending global freeloading.
Addressing the rise of chronic childhood illnesses.
Outlawing birth tourism.
A new trade plan to protect American workers.
Now, maybe this agenda doesn’t speak to all voters. But it surely speaks to some, especially when the incumbent isn’t offering anything to compete with it.
Back in March, Biden gave a hint of a second term agenda in his State of the Union address but precisely zero of those items currently appear in his campaign materials. An intrepid voter can find some information about a possible second term by reading The Wall Street Journal, not exactly the house organ for the president’s message:
President Biden is planning to pursue an expansive agenda if voters give him a second term, including resurrecting proposals for cheaper child care and prescription drugs, tuition-free community college, an assault-weapons ban and higher taxes on rich Americans….
Lowering costs for Americans would be a theme of a second term, according to Biden’s aides, who said they believe that will resonate with 2024 voters who consistently cite inflation as one of their top concerns.
The president wants to pass legislation expanding to all Americans the $35 cap on out-of-pocket costs for insulin. The cap, which was included in a healthcare, climate and energy law that Congress passed in 2022, currently applies to Medicare recipients. The president’s advisers are discussing a range of additional healthcare-related proposals aimed at expanding on the administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices and limit other medical expenses.
Also expected in a second term: a push to revive elements of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda that were rejected by Republicans and some moderate Democrats, including free prekindergarten; subsidized child care; paid family and medical leave; and expanded care for elderly and disabled Americans.
Biden would continue his longstanding campaign to change the country’s gun laws, including an assault-weapons ban and universal background checks. He would push Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law. And he would lobby for the passage of legislation to preserve and expand voter access as many GOP-led states impose laws tightening voting rules.
Those are pretty good ideas. In fact, several of these ideas test very well with voters across party lines according to recent polling from TLP and Blueprint.
Maybe the Biden team should figure out a 6-point pledge card like his center-left counterparts Keir Starmer and the UK Labour Party who are currently up by 21 points over their Conservative rivals ahead of the July 4th general election.
If people had enough faith in Biden to be a better president than Trump, he’d be up by several points in the race. But right now, enough voters don’t think that way about Biden—and he’s down, not up.
Biden needs to make it clear to voters what he is hoping to accomplish with another four years in office. So, the president’s political sleuths need to find his second term agenda and get it out to voters—quickly, clearly, and consistently. Otherwise, what’s the point of running?
As Obama’s treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, famously (or infamously depending on your views) stated during the financial crisis: “Plan beats no plan.”
And so far in the 2024 campaign, Trump has a plan and Biden does not.
Maybe vastly expanding the reach of the federal government into daycare and other 'free' stuff isn't all that popular? Voters know we are running an enormous deficit so how can we spend billions that we don't have? Higher taxes on the rich? I think the middle class taxpayers are wise to that bait and switch.
All true, as John Halpin eloquently lays it out. But for Joe Biden to have a second-term agenda, a political platform if you will, he would have to hold and be capable of articulating real convictions; genuine, steadfast and heartfelt beliefs. Sadly, with Biden, what little of "there, there" that there might once have been is entirely gone, and his handlers understand from experience the risks of his continued fumbling over others words prepared and delivered for him on a teleprompter.