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Status Quo Joe

‘America is Back’ to business as usual. Biden made a promise that ‘nothing will fundamentally change’ and he’s keeping it

Justin Ward
4 min readFeb 20, 2021
(Gage Skidmore // CC-BY-SA 2.0)

On Friday, President Biden addressed an international security conference, announcing proudly that “America is back.” Though it was aimed at US allies, it was as much a message to Biden’s base, who desperately yearn for the United States to return to the supposed glory and prestige it enjoyed before Donald Trump so rudely profaned its highest office. It’s a continuation of Biden’s alliterative campaign messaging about “building back better.”

There’s a parallel between Biden and Trump’s rhetoric that reflects the reality that both conservatives and liberals are backward looking. The MAGA folks want to go all the way back to the Leave it to Beaver era of the late 1950s while the liberals merely want to turn back the clock four years to a time when there was at the very least a vague promise of hope and change — even if was not realized in fact.

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Justin Ward
Justin Ward

Written by Justin Ward

Journalist and activist. Founder and co-chair of DivestSPD. Bylines at SPLC, The Baffler, GEN, USA Today. Follow on Twitter: @justwardoctrine, @DivestSPD

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