, Columnist
Biden’s Bipartisanship Will Work Only If It’s Quiet
Sometimes presidential engagement with an issue can make it harder to resolve.
So long as he’s staying away from the halls of Congress.
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The danger of campaigning on a pledge to “unite the country” is that if you win, your opponents get to decide whether you will succeed. That’s the dilemma now facing President Joe Biden — and the best way for him to achieve his goal is not to make too big a deal of it.
In political terms, unity will have to take the form of bipartisanship, given the math in Congress. And the extent to which Biden is already getting trolled by Republicans for not being unifying underscores one of the great paradoxes of presidential leadership: A president’s engagement on an issue can make it harder to resolve.