WASHINGTON — During the presidential campaign, Democrats expressed persistent anxiety that Joe Biden’s coalition would collapse as soon as it ousted President Donald Trump from the White House — it felt too ideologically conflicted, too polarized, too tenuous to hold.
But Biden’s initial Cabinet selections and other senior appointments have won a broad embrace that suggests his aptitude for navigating such a fragile political landscape was underrated. The president-elect has displayed unforeseen skills at appeasing disparate factions in a fractious party and a divided nation.
The progressive left is feeling heard. The Democrats’ center-left is feeling reassured. And anti-Trump Republicans don’t seem to be suffering buyer’s remorse.
While Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said Tuesday he was glad Biden was “resisting the far left,” those same left-leaning activists were breathing sighs of relief.
They were pleased that Biden is poised to nominate one of their favorites, Janet Yellen, to run the U.S. Treasury. The stock market also signaled approval, soaring to a record high.
“The Biden team is doing a good job of not alienating anyone,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive strategist. “It is no small task. While there are no real lefties in this Cabinet, there are people who have shown a willingness to listen. That is not nothing.”
The plaudits are followed with the usual caveats: Biden still has a lot of vacancies to fill, and a misstep on any one of them could quickly unravel the goodwill.
But as he publicly introduced his proposed foreign policy and national security leadership team Tuesday on a stage in Wilmington, Delaware, there was something for most — within his own party, at least — to like.
“While this team has unmatched experience and accomplishments, they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet these challenges with old thinking or unchanged habits,” Biden said. “We are going to have the first woman lead the intelligence community, the first Latino and immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security, and a groundbreaking diplomat at the United Nations.”
That diplomat, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told of growing up as a Black girl in segregated Louisiana, the eldest of eight children. She was the first in her family to graduate high school. Her father couldn’t read or write.
What she called her “gumbo diplomacy” while working in U.S. embassies abroad echoes Biden’s approach to leadership and policy.
“Wherever I was posted around the world, I’d invite people of different backgrounds and beliefs to make a roux, chop onions for the ‘holy trinity,’ and make homemade gumbo,” Thomas-Greenfield said, referring to key ingredients that also include bell pepper and celery. “My way to break down barriers, connect with people, and start to see each other on a human level: a bit of lagniappe, as we say in Louisiana.”
The nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, a native of Cuba who will be the first Latino to run the third-largest arm of the federal government, talked of his parents fleeing communism and their pride in American citizenship, but also of Homeland Security’s mission to “advance our proud history as a country of welcome.”
Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, talked of how his late stepfather was the only one of 900 children from his school in Poland to survive the Holocaust.
“It is a breath of fresh air to see what (Biden) has done with this Cabinet in terms of ethnicity and gender and ideology,” said Barbara Boxer, the former California senator. “It is all really important. People feel enfranchised if the people making decisions in the government look like them. Otherwise, they feel this is not a real representative democracy.”
It is a marked contrast to the approach Trump took to choosing his Cabinet. The president placed little emphasis on diversity, and he deliberately picked partisan warriors eager to alienate those not in lockstep with him.
