During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden famously predicted that a loss by President Trump in the November 2020 election would force Republicans to have an “epiphany” and turn away from Trump. This prediction was not dissimilar from President Obama’s comments during the 2012 presidential election, in which Obama predicted “I believe that if we’re successful in this election, when we’re successful in this election, that the fever may break…because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that.”
But has the Democrat-projected epiphany occurred? Can Biden’s track record for bipartisanship change the course of polarisation? Can one of the most experienced presidents in US history buck historical trends and bring about an era of bipartisanship? What are the implications for Australia if US political divide worsens?
To discuss these issues, the United States Studies Centre hosted a webinar featuring Sarah Binder and Thomas Mann, Senior Fellows in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution in conversation with USSC Non-Resident Senior Fellow Bruce Wolpe.
