Has Merrick Garland Failed America?

It’s More Than Halfway Through Biden’s Presidency. What Is Merrick Garland Waiting For?

Image Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo

I believe, a little too late in life, in giving people chances. Generously. I didn’t always used to be this way. I inherited this trait from my grandpa, who was a stentorian kind of proper old world

fellow. In his eyes, you gave away your character in the first five seconds, in the curl of a lip, in the way you held yourself. Me? Now? I’m not so sure the world is that simple anymore, or maybe if it ever was.

All of which brings me — almost — to the subject of this little post, which is Merrick Garland. First, though, let me talk for a second about his boss, Joe Biden. There were those who said, immediately, that Biden wouldn’t be…able to do the job. Some pointed to his age, some pointed to his history, and some, to his politics. Fixing America? Recovering from the Trump years? Biden?

Come on, said this contingent. We know. He was Obama’s Vice President, and while Obama was a great orator, who’d put Caesar to shame, well, he was also, problematically, a neoliberal, at the end of the day. He didn’t believe much in solutions to problems that weren’t markets or corporations, hence, that’s what he ended institutionalizing, the prime example being Obamacare, which, yes, is, an improvement, but it’s still not anywhere near what the rest of the modern world has. Biden was, it was said, cut from this cloth, formed from this cloth.

I thought, though, that maybe, just maybe, I saw the glimmer of something a little different. That the Trump years — and maybe even the Obama years — had lit a fire under Joe Biden’s…posterior, if I can be impolite. He seemed to me — maybe, just maybe — to be a man ready to let old paradigms go, and forge his own path, outside the boundaries of all the staid and tired conventions and norms that have kept America trapped in mediocrity for far too long.

I didn’t think it was a sure thing. I just thought there was a tiny — tiny — chance. That Biden might surprise all of us.

And you know what? He has. Not just me or you. Biden’s out there shocking Emanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau and the EU and China. He really has matured into a…good President. Certainly, one of the most visionary ones America’s had for a very long time. Now, that’s not to say he’s gotten everything “right” — at all. We can count his failures, from border policy to debt forgiveness and so forth. But the Big Picture? Biden has a vision for reanimating America, bringing it back to life — a fairly radical one, one that’s stunned leaders around the world, and left them scrambling to catch up. To an America they long ago wrote off as a has-been.

That vision, as I’ve discussed, is about making America a net exporter again, of stuff the world needs again, from microchips to the entire post-industrial economy — a position like it used to have, during its Golden Age, which, no, wasn’t Golden for everyone — and yet, America stopped being a net exporter around 1971, which is eerily, exactly, when incomes flatlined. Not a coincidence, a relationship. And the eventual decline and implosion of the working and middle class is what sowed the seeds of Trumpism. Biden’s vision really is bold, radical, and intelligent, which is precisely why the entire rest of the rich world is startled and spluttering and trying to figure out how to catch up to an America that’s decided to flex its economic muscle again, which, even if atrophied, is a mighty, mighty thing. Where is, for example, France going to fit in a world economy where America shifts from being a consumer — for the last fifty years — to being a producer again? Canada? You can see why Macron and Trudeau are racing to develop such a vision for their own nations.

So Biden turned out to be a surprise. Of the good kind. He doesn’t get enough credit for it, because, well, there’s not a lot of attention to be had, read, money to be made, by talking about the truth. Instead, Big Lies and scandals and celebrity news rule the day. How many times (groan) do I really have to hear about the prince I’m supposed to feel sorry for? He’s…a prince. Guys! LOL. My sympathies, while not exactly nonexistent, are limited. I digress. The point.

People can surprise you. Biden did. I believe in giving them chances, because sometimes, people mature. Grow, develop, into their fuller selves, and honestly, between you and me? It’s been kind of a joy watching that happen to Biden. You can genuinely watch how becoming this man has put steel in his spine and fire in his belly — by giving that, first, to, his country, and, well, you have to discover a thing within yourself to give it to anyone else, don’t you? That journey, with all those timeless truths, is there for us all to take in.

All of which brings me right back to…Merrick Garland. Just as with Biden, opinions were divided. Was Garland a stern, no-nonsense, even kind of creepily persistent figure like, say, J Edgar Hoover, the first Director of the FBI, who, yes, went way, way too far, but for the sake of argument, did Merrick Garland have that kind of…dogged, unrelenting, immovable stuff in him? Was he going to go out there and give the Trumpists hell?