In today’s newsletter, how Joe Biden came to guide the largest economic overhaul since the New Deal, and why it seems to have been completely overlooked. Plus:
The Administration has passed legislation spending trillions of dollars on manufacturing and infrastructure across the country. “The biggest mistake we made, we didn’t put up signs saying ‘Joe Did It,’ ” Biden said.Photograph by Carolyn Drake for The New Yorker
Bidenomics Is Starting to Transform America. Why Has No One Noticed?
The full effects of the President’s economic policies won’t be felt for years. That might be too late to benefit Kamala Harris.
By Nicholas Lemann
Among Joe Biden’s afflictions and miseries, his wormwood and gall, there are the insults (about his diminished capacities), and then there are the compliments unpaid (about his achievements). We are exposed to more of the first, but it seems that to him the second are more painful. In his first interview after he withdrew as the Democratic Presidential nominee, Biden—wounded, proud, self-pitying, defiant—said, by way of defending his record, “No one thought we could get done, including some of my own people, what we got done. One of the problems is, we knew all the things we did were going to take a little time to work their way through. So now people are realizing, ‘Oh, that highway. Oh, that . . .’ ” He trailed off for a moment and then recovered. “The biggest mistake we made, we didn’t put up signs saying ‘Joe Did It.’ ” He ended this with a bitter chuckle. Biden isn’t wrong. Objectively, and improbably, he has passed more new domestic programs than any Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson—maybe even since Franklin Roosevelt. Keep reading or listen to the story »
The Lede
Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.
Will Laken Riley’s Murder Tip Georgia?
The killing of a twenty-two-year-old nursing student in Georgia has become the centerpiece of the Republican attack on immigrants. Donald Trump is hoping that her story, in a state where the margins appear thin, will help win him the White House. David D. Kirkpatrick reports »
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Daily Cartoon
“This dissociative state is self-care.”
Cartoon by Emily Flake
More Fun & Games
P.S. The pumpkins that are grown to make pumpkin-spice lattés suffer cruel lives—they’re packed together in cages, force-fed cinnamon, and worse. If you drink the dreaded concoction, Farley Katz writes in Shouts & Murmurs, “you are an actual monster.” ☕️
