Build Back Never
It’s not what you spend, it’s how you use it.
A man works at a large electric phosphate smelting furnace in the Muscle Shoals chemical plant in Alabama, 1942. The TVA did more than electrify homes in the rural South: it allowed new industries to flourish — including the production of rich phosphate fertilizers. (Getty Images)
For a month or so after Joe Biden’s inauguration, there was an air of optimism in the press. Somehow, his presidency promised both a return to normalcy and a shattering of the neoliberal consensus.
We were told that the White House would address the economic crisis in a radical new way: it would pump the people full of cash. At the same time, on the cultural front, Biden was meant to represent a return to the pre–Donald Trump normal. America could get “back to brunch,” and the media could focus on the “real issues” instead of the latest Trump outrage.
One president, with a divided country and Congress, was meant to represent both a revolutionary break and a glorious return — a tall task.
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