Here's Why Joe Biden Sided With the Left
Here's Why Joe Biden Sided With the Left
Joe Biden has thrown the moderates of the Democratic Party under the bus and sided with the far left. It is a big enough story to make the New York Times. Moderate Democrats are openly criticizing him.
The spin is simple: progressives want all of what Joe Biden said he wanted and moderates want to reduce it. It was natural Biden would side with the left because he wants his whole agenda.
That sounds good and true and superficially it is. But it caves under the weight of who Biden is. He is a liberal politician, but one prone to compromise. He is the guy who wanted to unite and bring back normalcy. Emboldening the progressive left that nearly cost the Democrats 2020 seems foolish. There really is no dispute that the defund the police movement, etc. nearly cost the Democrats the House and Biden came within about 40,000 votes of losing the Electoral College.
To understand why Biden sided with progressives, you need to pay attention to this quote:
The liberals’ tactics were reminiscent of those employed by the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members routinely threatened to withhold their bloc of votes unless Republican leaders met their demands. More moderate Republicans, particularly those from competitive districts, became incensed with the group, blaming them for standing in the way of popular bills that were political imperatives.
(Emphasis added)
Several moderate Democrats in the House also compared the progressives to the Freedom Caucus. The tea party giving way to the Freedom Caucus is one path by which most of the political elite in the country believe gave rise to Trump.
Biden knows he is the only Democrat who can hold the Democratic Party together at a time it is beginning to lose its grip on Hispanic voters and young black men. Biden also knows the progressives have a well oiled machine and deep pocketed progressive donors willing to fund a Democrat Civil War.
The progressives, not the moderates, are willing to burn down the Democratic Party. The progressives, not the moderates, are the ones willing to engage in costly primaries to purge the party of moderates in favor of true believers.
Joe Biden ran as the only man who could beat Trump. He ran as the only man who could hold the Democratic Party together. Now the Democrats are on the verge of a crack up with The Squad members ready for purges. The only way to keep the party from splitting is for Biden to side with the progressives.
The moderate Democrats are not going to suddenly become Republicans. They are socially liberal. But the progressives will move further left and begin purging their party if they don’t feel like they have a say.
Biden told Democrats behind closed doors the other day that the GOP is on the verge of an authoritarian takeover and it will undermine democratic norms. He sees his own party starting to splinter in ways that make the second coming of Trump likely.
You and I can disagree, but the Biden team understands if they don’t present a united front with progressives right now, the progressives are going to start ruthlessly wiping out moderate House members hoping to get their way. The Biden team may be chaotic and incomptent. But they are politically savvy Democratic Party operators. They know if progressives start taking out moderates, Republicans will get elected in swing districts, not progressives. That will emboldened Republicans and possibly Trump Republicans.
Biden’s team knows Biden is a one term president and he knows the GOP is taking back the House. He is far, far more worried about who takes over the Democratic Party. Give the progressives all the rope they need and then let them fail to govern with Biden on their side. Sure, the Biden Administration will get a lot of bad press. But it’ll open the progressives to media attacks that they pushed too much and too hard and will perhaps serve as a moderating influence and a heat sink to progressive ambitions against moderate Democrats in the suburbs.
The Biden Administration understands what progressives don’t — suburban voters don’t like them. The Biden Administration also understands raw politics. He needs to be with the progressives to prevent them from burning down Democrat advances in those suburbans.
Excellent analysis. As always.
The electorate increasingly wants principled representation who will stick to their guns, yet those principled politicians - or zealots, as Erick often calls them - rarely get things done. They're mostly associated with blockading political progress and are portrayed as radicals for standing firm on their principles. Meanwhile, McConnell, Pelosi, and Schumer, while mostly reviled, get things done, albeit in a fashion we despise. The political process requires compromise, and therein lies the rub; most of us don't want to give in order to get. The Constitution took four months to hammer out and NOBODY got everything they wanted. But those that participated had a sincere interest in establishing a framework that served the greater good of this new country, and that's perhaps the single biggest missing link today. The greater good now falls a very distant second to personal enrichment and self-aggrandizement which, in turn, has redefined "compromise" as a dirty word.