The explanation for the media shift is very simple. It has everything to do with Biden’s tepid response to the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson, the case that saw the overturning of Roe v. Wade, one of the religious pillars of Democratic Party politics. Abortion is also part of the political culture that many in the media reflexively defend down to their very bones.
The response to the landmark decision has involved minor protests and skirmishes from activists but almost no legitimate executive orders or policy solutions. On the day the ruling came down, Biden gave brief remarks and then got on his airplane and flew out of the country. His words and actions have been largely performative and had even the Atlantic wondering if Biden was “a Man out of Time.”
The Democratic activist base and the media want bold, loud, concrete action. Whether that means abolishing the filibuster to codify Roe, adding additional Supreme Court justices, or even impeaching them, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has called for, they want action. Failing that, Joe has to go. The media were always going to hold Biden accountable from the Left flank on the issues they care about, such as climate change and abortion. They see a tired, part-time president and sinking poll numbers, not to mention the terrifying possibility of a Ron DeSantis presidency or the return of Donald Trump, and have hit the panic button.
But perhaps there’s a reason why the Biden/Klain White House hasn’t yet provided “bold, loud, concrete action:” Biden Surrenders to the Conservative Legal Movement.
The president’s far-left flank remains fixated on the policy outcomes that have and will follow Dobbs, which leaves them confused as to why the administration isn’t responding with policy-oriented solutions. By contrast, the White House remains focused on the new legal environment that the decision produced. In the process, it has confirmed that the right’s judicial philosophy has secured an even more sweeping victory than merely overturning Roe and Casey. Faced with the immovable object of an originalist judiciary, the president is deterred.
“As President Joe Biden faces calls for more drastic action on abortion, the legal team vetting his options has found itself preoccupied by a single pressing concern,” Politico reported earlier this week. “That any action they could take would simply be struck down by the very court that put them in this place.” The administration’s lawyers believe that a poorly calibrated response to the Court’s decision could “backfire,” opening the door to “even more severe limits” on executive authority.
This admission represents nothing less than a triumph of a multigenerational campaign of conservative judicial thought. Not only have the right’s arguments against the ephemera that created a constitutional right to abortion succeeded but so, too, have their efforts to incept in the judiciary a philosophy that rejects reflexive deference to the exercise of executive power. Rather than mount a slapdash assault on this new paradigm, Joe Biden’s White House is keeping its powder dry and placing the onus on the federal and state legislatures to do the work of legislating. In so doing, the Democratic president has reaffirmed the whole point of the conservative legal project.
Related: Why the Supreme Court’s EPA Ruling Has Politicians and Gun Control Advocates Worried.