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It started as a sprawling, once-in-a-generation expansion of the social safety net: an ambitious $3.5 trillion plan expand access to healthcare, public education and paid parental leave; almost every American’s life. But as you heard this week in The Daily, the social spending bill was later scaled down to a smaller version. Senators Kyrsten Cinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III The State of West Virginia has repeatedly expressed objections to certain provisions.

We explained in the program dramatic internal effects Some of the legislative compromises negotiated by the Democrats. But when the president goes abroad diplomatic marathon Together with world leaders this weekend, we want to use this newsletter to find out where we finish today’s chapter and ask how the effects of these bills will extend beyond our borders.

The Big Idea: What does the social spending bill mean for American power abroad?

The Daily tries to come up with a new idea in each episode. Below, we dig deeper into one of our show this week.

The Biden administration faces a week that may determine the president’s legacy.

Biden made that clear at home. his presidency, the Democrats election expectations In the midterms and the social welfare of millions of Americans hangs in the balance as Democrats reach an agreement on the social spending bill. But before heading to two major international summits, the G20 Summit and COP26, he also framed this moment in terms of America’s international standing: “It’s about leading the world or letting the world overtake us.” said.

That’s why we wanted to ask a few experts: Is this moment really a referendum on America’s global power, as Biden said? Here are three ways they say the president’s bill is important to American diplomacy.

A test to be delivered

Biden rises to two great summits facing a test: Can it maintain global leadership and reassure its allies that the United States can be trusted as a consistent partner?

“There is a general concern among allies and friends about what is happening to our democracy,” said Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye Jr., who coined the term “soft power.” While many allies are “satisfied to see America returning to multilateral institutions”, many now wonder whether entrenched polarization could make American leadership unreliable – and it is subject to increasingly dramatic fluctuations depending on which party is in power.

“They wonder: Will we see flip-flop back and forth?” said. He added that the Allies are particularly concerned about disinformation and the lack of public and congressional consensus on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.

According to Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the USA and Americas program at Chatham House, the social spending bill is a chance to prove that “American leadership not only sounds good and looks good, but can actually deliver it.” He noted that building consensus and overcoming entrenched partisanship was “Joe Biden’s great promise.”

Now, the social spending bill has said that both “a referendum for President Biden and whether any president can make a system that the rest of the world probably perceives as a bit corrupt” actually works.

A chance for climate leadership

As a result of political polarization, Dr. Nye believes allies will be less willing to “act like the North Star to guide their policies” in the long run. However, he sees bold climate action, as outlined in his social spending bill, as a way to re-emphasize some of the global leadership lost during the Trump era.

The United States has officially withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement under Donald Trump. Biden rejoined the deal soon after he took office, and climate emerged as the single largest category on the social spending bill. The climate crisis is now central to his party’s domestic agenda ahead of the global climate summit in Glasgow. (It was unclear this week whether all Democrats would support the package.)

Dr. “There are very few people on this planet who think that America is on the right side of climate change in terms of cars and energy use,” said Vinjamuri. But getting Democrats to vote for the proposed $555 billion for climate programs would be a prelude to helping “the United States achieve its goals,” he added, giving the country “legitimacy to pressure others to achieve their goals.”

Paid leave and soft power

While the bill of expenditure has yet to be finalized, Dr. Vinjamuri notes that outsiders can also have an impact on America’s position abroad and send a clear signal to foreign citizens about what the United States values.

“Our soft power is greatly affected,” he said, following the news that paid family leave is in the public interest. provided by other developed countries. – NS likely to be removed from the social spending bill. People who experience these benefits “do not understand and can’t imagine that this could be anything but disability for the United States in the long run,” he added.

Dr. “America has always been inadequate in the eyes of Europe,” Nye said of the social safety net. While he supports the proposals and believes that the lack of paid family leave “is hurting us”, he believes that “other sources of influence”, such as expanding US vaccine diplomacy, will do more to improve America’s position abroad.

Yet both agree that world leaders are ultimately focusing more on threats to the American political system. Dr. “The fact that we may lose the quality of our democracy, which is the cornerstone of the American standing in the world, that is the real threat to our soft power,” Nye said.

Meet our two composers

This week, you may remember hearing string music from the past. Monday’s episode of Evergrandeor the deep drone and the vibrating dulcitone behind yesterday’s recap Murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Our sound team has three dedicated composers: Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano and Dan Powell. Below, we asked Elisheba and Marion a few questions about how they make their music.

Where does the composition process begin?

The Daily team gets together every morning to discuss upcoming episodes and share new presentations. Our three composers take turns attend these meetings, and then we hear about the stories we think would benefit from the original scoring.

Usually, one of us is keen to compose music for an episode, so we tend to team up. We appoint a lead composer responsible for communicating with the producers of the episode and understanding their vision and then clearly translating that vision to other composers.

There is a saying that “talking about music is like dancing about architecture”. If a producer tells us, “This moment should sound like blue,” we would probably all find strikingly different musical cues. While Elisheba may go her way with sunlight and butterflies, Marion may return with a death-and-destruction motif. (This actually happened!) That’s why it’s vital for us to assign a lead composer to each episode. If one of us goes astray, the lead composer will bring us back.

Can you tell us about the composition process of a new episode?

Earlier this month, The Daily published an episode called “Which Towns Are Worth Saving?About the effects of climate change on two towns in North Carolina, Avon and Fair Bluff. Elisheba is from North Carolina, so she took a personal interest in the story.

A few weeks before the episode aired, Elisheba spoke with executive producer Michael Simon Johnson about the mood he wanted the score to achieve. Elisheba wanted to make sure she and Michael were on the same page, so a playlist of songs this made him feel very “North Carolina”: warm but somewhat melancholy, with straight-cut guitar and sparse instrumentation. Michael said the mood of the playlist was just right.

Elisheba, Marion, Dan, and voice friend Chelsea Daniel eventually composed the soundtrack for the episode, using the playlist as a jumping off point.

here is a song Marion wrote that it should sound like you’re walking the streets of Fair Bluff. He has both electric and acoustic guitars because he wants the sand of electricity and the roundness of acoustics. If you listen carefully, there are also subtle flaws (like pitch fluctuations and timing issues) that point to the town’s troubled flood history:

here is a song by Elisheba, who makes you feel beautiful and warm but also sad. While the town may save itself in the short term, it conveys the idea that the threats of climate change are immediate and inevitable:

Do you have original music that never made it to the episode?

This actually happens quite often! For every clue a composer creates, there are three more that don’t make it to the final episode. It depends on variables like texture, tone and whether it’s a good scene for it.

Whenever we give a tip, we add it to our Daily music library, which contains over seven gigabytes of original music. Here are some examples:

You remember listening to Elisheba’s song “A Fine Needle”. in our section on youth Afghan woman named N. Producer Lynsea Garrison said she was impressed by the song’s “eerie quality” — like a “ballerina spinning in a jewelry box.” “There was an innocence and tension in it that I loved, and of course there was just sadness.” Listen:

And Marion’s song “Cash Money” Found a home on Monday’s episode Evergrande, a property developer that collapsed in China. It is in a minor key and features dark tones for strings and piano. Its inspiration was the theme music of the TV show “Succession”. Listen here: