The Atlantic: “Joe Biden has a reputation as a softie – grandfatherly if you’re inclined toward him, somewhat windy and elderly if you aren’t. But when he reached for a phrase to define his approach to office during his first press conference, held today, he didn’t pick an Irish poet or an American statesman. Instead, he quoted the hardheaded Teutonic conservative known as the ‘Iron Chancellor’: ‘Politics is the art of the possible,’ Biden said. The president invoked Otto von Bismarck in response to a question on filibuster reform. Biden went further than he has in the past, coming close to an out-and-out condemnation of the 60-vote requirement, even as he said he’d be open to tweaks such as a ‘talking filibuster’ or a civil-rights exemption, rather than an outright abolition of the process. Bismarck’s axiom is a cliché, and it might have gone unnoticed in another context. But the pursuit of the possible, in particular with regard to the filibuster, is a useful frame for thinking about how Biden’s presidency has thus far confounded two leading concerns about him.”

“On the left, critics worried that Biden was a bipartisanship fetishist, more interested in paying homage to the old ways of doing things (or not doing them, as the case might be) than actually achieving progressive goals. On the right, critics painted him as a puppet of the ‘woke’ wing of the Democratic Party, putting a friendly face on a radical agenda. Obviously, both of these views couldn’t be right. But so far, neither one has proved correct. As I wrote earlier this week, Biden has been more comfortable forging ahead with only Democratic votes than he usually suggested he would be during the presidential campaign. The White House muscled through the $1.9 trillion COVID-relief package with just Democratic support, though doing so required relying on a procedural maneuver called reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass budget-related bills with a bare majority. Many of his remaining goals can’t pass that way, though. ‘I’m a fairly practical guy,’ he said. ‘I want to get things done. I want to get them done consistent with what we promised the American people. And in order to do that, in a 50–50 Senate, we’ve got to get to the place where I get 50 votes.’ But Biden’s slow turn against the filibuster is about results, not signaling.”