Joe Biden is all about “firsts.” As noted in this space previously, he has made good on his dubious goal of filling his cabinet with more “diversity” picks than any president before him, and he has done it with total disregard for candidates’ qualifications or experience beyond the color of their skin or chromosomal alignment.
During his first week in office, he set another record by signing 37 executive actions and 19 executive orders, which is more than Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combined.
While this flurry of executive activity gives Biden bragging rights of a sort, before he has a bronze plaque made noting his achievement, he might want to heed the wisdom of a younger man. That younger man was himself last October. In an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, then-candidate Biden disparaged reliance on executive privilege as the brand of governance favored by dictators, emphasizing, “We’re a democracy. We need consensus.”
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The U.S. of course is not a democracy but a constitutional federal republic. Not knowing that, however, is the least of Biden’s problems.
George Stephanopoulos: So, there’s not going to be any delay on the tax increases?’
Joe Biden: Well, I got to get the votes. I got to get the votes. That’s why, you know, the one thing that I — I have this strange notion, we are a democracy. Some of my Republican friends and some of my Democratic friends even occasionally say, Well, if you can’t get the votes, by executive order you’re going to do something. Things you can’t do by executive order unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy. We need consensus.
