Joe Biden, the oldest US president ever elected, seems keenly aware of the sentiment expressed in the Broadway musical Hamilton: “History has its eyes on you.”
Before taking office he reportedly read biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, who steered the nation through the Great Depression. Recently, at an eerily quiet White House, he hosted presidential historians to explore the virtues of thinking big – or more precisely, the perils of thinking small.
And on Wednesday, promoting a suitably audacious $2tn infrastructure package, Biden made clear that he has an eye on posterity. “I’m convinced that, if we act now, in 50 years people are going to look back and say this was the moment that America won the future,” he said.
But often what seems inevitable with hindsight was rarely that way in the moment. The 46th president now faces a tough political grind to turn his expensive vision into reality.
Indeed, his recent $1.9tn coronavirus relief package will probably look like a breeze by comparison. That plan saw Biden hailed as an unlikely progressive hero and prompted Maureen…
