Only Nixon could go to China; now only Biden can go to liberal la-la land.

“Only Nixon could go to China.”

This political proverb contextualizes our 37th president’s visit to the land of Chairman Mao. Only a president with Nixon’s anti-communist credentials could have opened relations with China without sparking a firestorm among conservatives.

A similar trust shielded Bill Clinton when he signed off on welfare reform in 1996 and Barack Obama when he entertained Social Security cuts in 2011. Both men took heat from their voters but retained more than enough goodwill to win reelection.

Did Joe Biden know where the halos were kept when he arrived at the White House? Whatever he found gave him enough confidence to flip the usual presidential script. Instead of venturing rightward from his party’s activist base, he’s kept moving left with no apparent fear of alienating moderates and independents.

Progressives are thrilled. Many feared that Biden would whisper sweet nothings in their ears until the votes were counted and then abandon them. Having long since assigned that narrative to Obama, they saw no reason to expect better from his former running mate, who was himself chosen to add a moderate veneer to a left-leaning candidacy.

But Biden’s love was true. He rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, whereby the planet’s biggest polluter, China, promises on scout’s honor to stop increasing its emissions sometime around 2030. Presumably the 184 coal-fired power plants they’re building will be completed by then. Stateside, Biden banned oil and gas drilling on federal lands and killed the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our new president also cleared the way for heavier economic regulation – because Democrats agree that’s what a pandemic-afflicted economy needs most. He reversed a ban on transgender people in the military – a move that, coupled with maternity flight suits and two-tiered physical fitness standards, surely strikes fear in the hearts of America’s enemies.

Most conspicuously, Biden quickly dismantled Donald Trump’s immigration policies, fulfilling his own prediction that doing so would trigger a border crisis. He didn’t explain why he made the mess when reporters asked about it at his March news conference. Instead he claimed that no mess existed, or if it did it wasn’t his doing.

After a flurry of executive orders, Biden and his congressional allies turned to legislation. Most of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan they touted as Covid relief has nothing to do with Covid: Child tax credits, Obamacare and Medicare expansions, bailouts for union pension plans, billions to households and governments that suffered little or no financial loss during the pandemic.

Of course the Covid® trademark insulated the ARP from questions about its price. And while some taxpayers felt their intelligence insulted by its brazen mislabeling, both of them calmed down after their stimulus checks arrived. The whole thing happened as Republicans fought valiantly but futilely to preserve Dr. Seuss’s racism and Mr. Potato Head’s toxic masculinity.

Next comes the big infrastructure plan. It’s expected to fund universal prekindergarten and free community college, beef up climate research, and extend the newly expanded child tax credit. It will also force pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices or pay fines, since they haven’t done anything for us lately.

The Democrats may even repair a road or a bridge somewhere. But don’t expect them to repeat the mistake Obama made in 2009, when he promised “shovel-ready projects” before learning there’s no such thing. Keeping kids in classrooms from age 3 to age 30 involves money, not dirt, and Congress shovels that like nobody’s business.

Like progressives, conservatives didn’t trust Joe Biden during the campaign. Many believed the left would use him as a Trojan horse for the Green New Deal, single payer healthcare, universal basic income and other socialist schemes. Does he want to go as far as they do? Will his mild, grandfatherly demeanor lull Americans to sleep until the destination is in sight?

If so, history will gain a new proverb: Only Biden could go to liberal la-la land.

Michael Smith is a freelance opinion writer in Georgetown.