Racket News

Share this post

The Two Faces of Joe Biden

www.racket.news

The Two Faces of Joe Biden

The press is building an image of a "radical" progressive hero, while reality looks like the same corporate Democrat

Matt Taibbi
Apr 9, 2021
509
745
Share this post

The Two Faces of Joe Biden

www.racket.news
“I once caught a fish this big.” Biden after signing the American Rescue Plan

On April Fool’s Day, CNN ran an “analysis” of Joe Biden’s presidency:

Will JRB take his place alongside FDR and LBJ?

CNN explained that “JRB” had just unveiled a $2 trillion infrastructure plan “to boost ordinary working Americans rather than the wealthy,” a program that together with his $1.9 trillion Covid rescue doubles “as a bid to lift millions of Americans out of poverty.”

The news is like high school. One day, one kid comes in wearing Dior sneakers and Nike X Ambush pants, and two days later, that’s all you see in the halls. The “Biden-as-FDR” stories raced around News High in recent weeks, via headlines like “With nods to FDR, JFK and LBJ, Biden goes big on infrastructure plan” (Yahoo!) and “Can Biden achieve an FDR-style presidency? A historian sees surprising parallels” (Washington Post). Even the New Yorker’s naysaying take, “Is Biden Really the Second Coming of F.D.R. and L.B.J.?” read at first glan…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Racket News to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2023 Matt Taibbi
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing