Not just Trump – Congress also gives Biden a golden State of the Union opportunity

A senator-turned-vice president-turned-president down in the polls against a prominent New Yorker as he is hamstrung by right-wing Congress captive to extremists. Israel on the brink and an emboldened Russia.

While the circumstances parallel President Joe Biden’s situation as he gets ready to return to Capitol Hill for his State of the Union, it also describes Harry Truman as he ran for president in 1948. Similar to Biden’s support of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s aggression, Truman had to deal with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union after the Second World War. In 1948, Truman became the first head of state to recognise the state of Israel upon its declaration of independence — but it soon went to war with its Arab neighbors.

At the time, most people thought that Truman would lose to New York governor Thomas Dewey, hence the famous image of the Missourian holding a newspaper that says “Dewey Defeats Truman”. A big part of Truman’s ability to win that year was his bashing of the “do-nothing Congress,” which at the time Republicans controlled.

Biden has mostly focused, understandably, on former president Donald Trump, especially given that he will now certainly be the Republican nominee. But if anything, the “do-nothing Congress” of Truman’s day seems productive when compared to the chaos that is the current US House of Representatives. Last year, Congress passed fewer laws than it has in decades.

Most notably, the House spent its first few days voting fifteen times to make Kevin McCarthy speaker. It again ground to a halt in October when Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz led a revolt of eight Republicans and most Democrats to eject McCarthy from the speakership. That led to 22 days without a speaker, where Republicans