Divisions Galore in Congress

     Divisions between and within parties have increased this week in Washington, as the Biden administration wraps up its first 10 days in office. This all happens at an inopportune time for the new president as he attempts to deliver on his campaign promise of 1.9 trillion dollars of comprehensive COVID relief, hopefully prior to the beginning of the impeachment trial looming in the Senate on February 8th. 

    Democrats are expressing concern for the safety of Congress members, and are focusing in on those from the other party they view as dangerous, for example, Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA). The two former names for their role in the January 6th Capitol Riot, and the later newly elected Congresswoman who has 'liked' posts on social media suggesting violence against Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). 

    On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are engaging in fights amongst themselves. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) traveled to Wyoming to host a rally in favor of ousting the third highest-ranking Republican in the House, Liz Cheney (R-WO), with messaging that was surprisingly similar to that put out by the Trump administration leading up to Jan 6th. The back and forth between embracing the former president and distancing from him seems to be the theme of the Republican party right now. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met with the former president this week, presumably to patch up the strained relations and plan for future coordination in the House. 

    All of this comes at a time which could not be more difficult for President Biden. After running a campaign centered around unity, and swift action on numerous issues, this congressional fighting appears to be, at least currently, hindering the ability to work together on issues that Americans care about most. This has left Biden few options, he simply has to go through the Executive Orders that he ran on, or wait around for the Senate to agree on an Organizing resolution, which took an entire week after the inauguration to do. 

    At this point, the coverage from different media outlets has been fairly typical. Fox News currently has an article, with a thumbnail referring to "King Biden", published concerning the Executive Orders signed by the president. Early on, the article quotes a White House "preview" of what is to come in President Biden's congressional efforts, suggesting that there is nothing king-like about what the President is doing. However, from here, the article moves towards a fairly critical tone of these actions, ignoring the fact that, as mentioned earlier, the plan continues to be to go through congress and build consensus. The article makes no mention of the gridlock in Congress, such as the Senate having just passed an organizing resolution, as having any impact on the president's ability to do that in his first 10 days. Nor does it allow any space from the White House's numerous defenses of the many Executive Orders. 

    Meanwhile, The Washington Post has covered many of the hostilities mentioned above, and seems to be focused on the dangers presented by certain republicans, namely the three mentioned above. They also choose to present many of the same facts concerning Executive Orders from Biden, by giving space for the administrations defenses of the actions.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-has-signed-40-executive-orders-and-actions-since-taking-office

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hostility-between-congressional-republicans-and-democrats-reaches-new-lows-amid-growing-fears-of-violence/2021/01/28/28c8cde8-61a5-11eb-afbe-9a11a127d146_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/29/power-up-biden-biggest-controversy-so-far-is-how-fast-he-issuing-executive-orders/