A man with a reputation as an early riser can sleep until noon. That was one of Mark Twain’s observations pertaining to expectation bias.

Let that sink in for a moment.

To paraphrase Shakespeare with a current event twist, the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Trump. The noble Biden hath told you Trump was authoritarian; if it were so, it was a grievous fault and grievously hath Trump answered for it. 

Mr. Trump was fond of saying, “Sleepy Joe,” in reference to the man who now has succeeded him as our president. Mr. Biden is not sleeping, at least with respect to extending power. He signed scores of executive orders and actions in a few days and continues at a rapid pace. It took (Mr. Authoritarian) Trump, several months to sign as many. Mr. Biden ran as one who reaches across the aisle, one who achieves compromise, and a man who will reduce partisan fighting. This was the reputation he, and the media, cultivated. But, now in the light of scores of actions, will the real authoritarian please stand up?

Perhaps half the country cannot see President Biden as authoritarian. The power of expectation bias is that even compelling facts can be rendered invisible. At least, for a while.

***

Sea turtles and insects lay many eggs. This is a trick of nature to ensure that enough of them survive to propagate the species. We have witnessed a flurry of orders that overwhelm the balance-of-powers mechanisms of our constitution, smothering the legislative and judicial branches. President Biden is counting on the legislative branch to support him and likely surmises that the judicial branch is loath to challenge him. Not only has Chief Justice Roberts been remarkably reticent, each order must be challenged and a lower court must review and support the challenger’s position in order for each order to reach the Supreme court. This avalanche of executive power is a clever trick and is likely to succeed on its own. The fourth rail of political balance (and the fifth column?), the media, will do its job of promoting, not challenging, this power play as well as the bipartisan, cooperative stereotype they stamped on the current president. Newlyweds and freshly minted politicians get away with excesses during the honeymoon.

One more thing. When President Biden had an opportunity to act with bipartisanship, he continued his autocratic style by rejecting a generous $600 billion bipartisan Covid relief bill and pushing his partisan $1.9 trillion bill.