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Roadblocked: Joe Biden's Rocky Transition to the Presidency
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris began their transition to the White House in the most unusual of a global pandemic, a sitting president violently refusing to accept the results of the election, and a historic racial reckoning all posed profound questions about how they would staff large parts of the government and articulate policy remedies to pressing problems in just eleven weeks.
Heath Brown's Roadblocked is a revelatory look at the seventy days between the election and the inauguration with a focus on the ways the Biden-Harris transition team sought help and advice to overcome these obstacles. More than that, Roadblocked is also a gripping history of US presidential transitions over the past half-century that compares the transition teams of the last four administrations.
Biden-Harris transition leaders had a massive team with a stated aim to promote coordination, encourage teamwork, and avoid siloing staff. In the end, however, these aims were foiled by the conditions of the pandemic and steep hierarchies, which both reduced collaboration and information sharing. In the end, despite substantial changes in the Democratic coalition, newly influential groups armed with novel tactics, and great shifts in their political agenda, the Biden-Harris transition did not lead to transformation. Roadblocked explains why.
Heath Brown's Roadblocked is a revelatory look at the seventy days between the election and the inauguration with a focus on the ways the Biden-Harris transition team sought help and advice to overcome these obstacles. More than that, Roadblocked is also a gripping history of US presidential transitions over the past half-century that compares the transition teams of the last four administrations.
Biden-Harris transition leaders had a massive team with a stated aim to promote coordination, encourage teamwork, and avoid siloing staff. In the end, however, these aims were foiled by the conditions of the pandemic and steep hierarchies, which both reduced collaboration and information sharing. In the end, despite substantial changes in the Democratic coalition, newly influential groups armed with novel tactics, and great shifts in their political agenda, the Biden-Harris transition did not lead to transformation. Roadblocked explains why.
200 pages, Paperback
Published June 24, 2024
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December 24, 2025
This wasn’t what I thought it was, but it could have been really interesting. Roadblocked, isn’t so much about Joe Biden’s rocky path to the presidency, but about presidential transitions in general—at least the most recent ones.
It’s really a fascinating subject, one that I had never seen get significant attention in all the books I’ve read on presidential history. Transition teams work fast and out of sight, so we don’t often give them much thought. This book shines a light on their work.
It also highlights the influence different interest groups have or don’t have. It unmasks the Heritage Foundation, which launched in the 1980s and only recently became the beast it is today. The cohesive Conservative group is contrasted with the varying, mostly disconnected interests that pull and tug on the left’s politicians.
Unfortunately, the book gets bogged down in statistics that fail to hold interest; it repeats themes with different examples. It may have been a great master’s thesis, but it was too dry for me.
It didn’t live up to its subtitle, barely mentioning Donald Trump’s influence during the months before inauguration, and failing to carry COVID’s impacts after getting a good start early in the book.
Unhelpful were all of the anonymous interviews cited. In the age of AI, names are pretty important to trust and reliability. What’s so top secret?
I began reading this with high hopes, but finished just to get it over with.
It’s really a fascinating subject, one that I had never seen get significant attention in all the books I’ve read on presidential history. Transition teams work fast and out of sight, so we don’t often give them much thought. This book shines a light on their work.
It also highlights the influence different interest groups have or don’t have. It unmasks the Heritage Foundation, which launched in the 1980s and only recently became the beast it is today. The cohesive Conservative group is contrasted with the varying, mostly disconnected interests that pull and tug on the left’s politicians.
Unfortunately, the book gets bogged down in statistics that fail to hold interest; it repeats themes with different examples. It may have been a great master’s thesis, but it was too dry for me.
It didn’t live up to its subtitle, barely mentioning Donald Trump’s influence during the months before inauguration, and failing to carry COVID’s impacts after getting a good start early in the book.
Unhelpful were all of the anonymous interviews cited. In the age of AI, names are pretty important to trust and reliability. What’s so top secret?
I began reading this with high hopes, but finished just to get it over with.
Displaying 1 of 1 review