Can Joe Biden be a successful president?

The outcome of the 2020 election will follow a trend developed in recent decades, in which political parties are numerically divided but politically divided—the worst combination for governing in a federal republic with divided powers.

The majority party will rule efficiently if the parties are profoundly divided but not numerically divided, as they were during the New Deal period. If they are divided numerically but not politically, as they were from the start of Eisenhower's presidency to the end of Jimmy Carter's, congressional leaders can form bipartisan majorities with presidential support, and presidents can pursue foreign policies with bipartisan support. However, in the recent decades, neither side has been able to force its will on the other because they are numerically and politically separated.

The option is between compromise and gridlock in these circumstances. Since the parties are politically so polarized, compromise is unpopular in the parties' base, and gridlock has become the norm.

It's easy to forget how unusual our current condition is when presented in the sense of American history because an entire generation has grown up with a divided, dysfunctional government. Consider the following:

From 1920 to 1984, the winner of the presidential election received an absolute majority of the popular vote 15 times, while the other two came up only short (Harry Truman with 49.6 percent in 1948 and John F. Kennedy with 49.7 percent in 1960). Furthermore, nine candidates won landslides—victory margins of 10 percentage points or more—during this time span, and two others came close (FDR with 9.9 percent in 1940 and Ronald Reagan with 9.7 percent in 1980). As they campaigned for reelection, most presidents relished the chance to push their agendas and be judged by the results.

In the nine elections from 1988 to 2020, the winner only received a majority of the popular vote five times, and two Electoral College winners were elected after losing the national popular vote to their rival. Furthermore, no candidate from either party came close to winning a majority during this period. Republicans could only equal George H. W. Bush's 7.8% margin in 1988, while Democrats could only match Barack Obama's 7.2 percent margin in 2008.

At the federal level, we see the same trend. Between 1919 and 1933, Republicans controlled the Senate for 14 years. Democrats repaid the favor with a 14-year majority from 1933 to 1947, followed by an unprecedented 26-year reign from 1956 to 1981. Since then, no party has kept the majority for more than 8 years, and control of the legislature has changed six times.

In the House of Representatives, this historical reality—long stretches of one-party supremacy giving way to chaos in recent decades—is even more apparent. Republicans controlled the House for 14 years, from 1919 to 1933, after a time of turmoil and near-parity between the parties during most of Woodrow Wilson's presidency, followed by Democrats for the next 14 years and again for four decades, from 1955 to 1995. Since then, the House has changed hands four times, and the plurality margins have been smaller than they have been for much of the previous 75 years.

This context helps to understand the United States' trend of intensely partisan government over the last three decades. Presidents who are elected with slim majorities are well aware that their maneuvering room is small. They are also reluctant to rule with long-term objectives in mind if they think these measures would be controversial in the short term. And they pay a high price for pursuing their party's policies in the face of popular opposition.

President Clinton got off to a bad start by failing to pass an unpopular health-care bill. President Obama started by signing an unpopular health-care bill into law. After Mr. Obama's health-care legislation became successful, President Trump attempted to repeal it. All three started with House majorities that they lost after just two years in office, thwarting their attempts to force through their agendas for the remainder of their terms.

Joe Biden will assume office without both houses of Congress under his power unless Democrats win both Senate runoff elections in Georgia, which will be the first time in more than three decades. Even if he tried, he would be unable to pass the Political agenda's most ambitious and left-leaning elements into law. Given this harsh fact, his administration's search for legislative consensus is likely to predominate from the start. Mr. Biden would have to hope that he can rekindle the working relationship he had with Mitch McConnell in the Senate and during Barack Obama's presidency.

However, the presidency of George H. W. Bush demonstrates the dangers of this conciliation policy in times of intense division. Mr. Bush's tax and spending agreement with congressional Democrats splintered his party and harmed his 1992 reelection campaign. Will progressives in President Biden's party do to him what conservatives did to George H. W. Bush if he opts for ambitious but achievable bipartisan goals rather than challenging Senate Republicans with Democratic platform proposals? If this is the case, Republicans do not have to wait long for their presidential hopes to be revived.

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