Now look where America finds itself. The presidency hardly presides anymore; instead, it consumes us. The office, particularly with its present occupant, is a black hole that pulls inexorably on the public’s attention. We got here step by step: with Andrew Jackson’s media-savvy populism, with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” through people’s living-room radios, with the nuclear football’s putting the option of world annihilation in the hands of a single person—the “leader of the free world,” he was called. Barack Obama modeled the use of executive orders for doing the work that Congress once did, and the embrace of executive power is on the rise in the judiciary. Once, it was appalling for a president to travel to a disaster zone, for fear of distracting from the relief work; now it is appalling if the president is anywhere else. The public’s attention is fixated on him, so if he failed to visit the scene, would we be allowed to notice it?

Kim Wehle: For Trump, power is for self-preservation only

Joe Biden offers a different sort of presidency. He is not a small-government conservative, by any means—although his version of big-government liberalism might seem modest in comparison with Donald Trump’s rampant deficit spending. Biden offers, rather, the possibility of a presidency one can finally turn away from, a presider who will leave enough room for others to set the agenda. If Biden wins, and if his presidency is anything like his candidacy, Americans can expect a future of mild, friendly, adviser-powered competence, with just enough gaffes to remind us that the man at the top is still around.

I did not vote for Biden in my state’s primary, nor would I have bet on him to emerge as the Democratic nominee. But I find myself admiring the electorate’s instincts. The usual suspicion is that Democratic-primary voters tabled their own progressive hopes to choose the centrist white guy because they judged him more likely to win over some allegedly racist, sexist Trump voters. I have an alternative interpretation: What if the absence of hope-stirring progressivism from Biden and his virtual nonexistence on social media are actually his appeal? What if the American public is once again ready, finally, for a president who keeps himself to presiding? I am willing to have been wrong about Biden if that interpretation is right.

Biden’s candidacy of nothing may be especially helpful for confronting a global crisis such as COVID-19. The most effective responses to this crisis have been in places with less theatrical leaders—places including South Korea, Taiwan, and Germany. In contexts like that, genuine experts can be more easily heard. Expertise is important in addressing a problem as complex as a pandemic. The same is true with respect to reversing climate change and assembling a decent health-care system. These are all systemic challenges that require, above all, an appetite for collaboration and patience. An attention vacuum at the top also leaves space for less powerful people to organize, make themselves heard, and build strength.