Racket News

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 09, 2021
∙ Paid
“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…

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Matt Taibbi.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2025 Matt Taibbi · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture