Let me start with two points:
First, that I am not criticizing what the Biden side has done up to this point. It is probably right to let the Republicans expose themselves fully before bringing in the indictment. And it is almost certainly right for the first performance of the President-Elect’s team to be doing the people’s business (like the Covid task-force). But as the Republicans are once again lining up with a lawless President — trying to undo a legitimate election, sabotaging the incoming administration, both in ways unprecedented in American history — they must be made to pay a political price.
Second, it really needs to be recognized by the Democratic world how often it has been, over the past generation, that far from paying a political price for behaving disgracefully, the Republicans have repeatedly benefitted, gaining political advantage for conduct that the good of the nation requires be punished. This has been the most important failure of the Democrats for years, and — with the battle for “the soul of America” still ongoing — this nation cannot afford for the Democrats to repeat that failure.
The first step is merely to recognize that making the Republicans pay for disgraceful behavior is key (not only for the immediate problems of facilitating the peaceful transfer of power, but also for the whole Biden Presidency if the Republicans have the power to obstruct him as they did Obama).
As for just how to orchestrate the efforts of the Democratic/Biden team for this purpose, that is one of those creative tasks that — like composing a symphony — gives wide scope for different approaches. A few thoughts:
1) I would suggest ignoring Donald Trump and going only after his enablers. Trump has been defeated and will soon be without the powers of the Presidency. He may still create problems, but since he is incorrigible anyway, his efforts to get revenge and otherwise destroy should be taken as a given— blocked where possible, but not punished. The willingness of the Republican Party to continue acting as his accomplices, however, should be attacked as powerfully and effectively as possible.
2) The Democratic counter-attack against what the Republicans are doing — denying all the tools customary for the outgoing administration to make available to the incoming — does not have to begin at full strength. Part of the orchestration requires judgment about how quickly to go from zero to sixty, if the Republicans don’t back off. (And if history is any guide they won’t, until they are compelled to.) But as the Biden team makes these judgments, one thing they should bear in mind: for almost 30 years, the Democrats have repeatedly erred in the direction of fighting back with insufficient intensity, until recently virtually never matching the intensity of the Republicans who have shown hardly any restraint in their quest for power. I can think of no instance in which the Democrats went overboard in their aggressiveness.
Knowing what their characteristic error has been, they should make sure that’s not what they do now, as they are coming to power against an unreconstructed, unrepentant, morally bankrupt Republican opposition that will surely put their own advantage ahead of the good of the nation unless they are compelled to do otherwise.
3) The job of punishing the Republicans for their disgraceful behavior should be delegated to others beside the President-Elect. Biden is striving for the role of unifier, of cooperative action, of an end to “the grim era of demonization.” And he should continue in that role — at least predominantly — confronting the Republicans only as the orchestration requires it, and then in a “more in sorrow than in anger mode.” But Kamala Harris, and the Democrats in Congress, should be unleashed to whatever degree the circumstances call for, to denounce the assault on America and the Constitution and the law that the Trumpite Republicans are engaged in.
During the Obama Presidency — when I wrote repeatedly about the need for the Obama side to make the Republicans pay for their totally indefensible policy of across-the-board obstructionism — Democrats/liberals often rose up to inform me that as a Black Man, Obama could not afford to show anger. Because it would frighten away White People. I have my doubts about that. But in any event, President Obama could have delegated the angry roles to any number of people, if delegation was needed. The possibility of a Good cop/Bad cop dichotomy is not confined to police work.
So also with Biden as President-Elect, and soon to be President. His greatest political asset is his humanity, which in his case focuses on being exceptionally decent and caring. His strength will depend on winning over the American people, and those aspects of himself are surely what should remain front and center in what the American public sees about their post-Trump President Biden.
But his success also depends upon the Republican Party being shown in no uncertain terms that behaving disgracefully will put them on the road to oblivion. And that even if the Democrats have put Mr. Nice Guy into the White House, when it comes to disgraceful Republican behavior the Democrats as a team have entered a “No More Mr. Nice Guy” era.