Dems’ progressive wing is on a kamikaze mission
The news for President Joe Biden keeps getting worse. His approval has fallen to 38% among registered voters, according to a new PostABC News poll — nearly matching President Donald Trump’s all-time low in the RealClearPolitics average.
Two findings in the Post poll stand out: Fifty-three percent of voters say Biden is not keeping his major campaign promises; and 62% are concerned Biden will do too much to increase the size and role of government in U.S. society.
Even The New York Times is warning Democrats they are veering too far to the left and must “return to the moderate policies and values that fueled the blue-wave victories in 2018 and won Joe Biden the presidency in 2020.” Failure to do so, the Times cautioned, could lead to wipeouts of historic proportions in 2022 and 2024.
But while the Times and moderate Democrats might care about winning elections, progressives in Congress don’t. They understand that government is a one-way ratchet — and that once a new entitlement program is created, it almost never gets dismantled. Just look at Obamacare. Early in his first term, President Barack Obama rammed Obamacare through Congress, even though it was deeply unpopular. Result?
Though Obama was reelected, on his watch Democrats suffered the largest loss in power of any party since Dwight D. Eisenhower — a net loss of 12 Senate seats, 64 House seats, 13 governorships and 816 state legislative seats. And those defeats paved the way for Trump’s presidency.
But a decade later, despite unified control of government and the appointment of three Supreme Court justices, Republicans have failed to repeal Obamacare or persuade the courts to strike it down. Now, Democrats are back in power — and Obamacare is still here.
The lesson for progressives is clear: When you have power, use it. Don’t compromise. Don’t moderate. Seize the moment to expand the size and scope of government as much as you possibly can. It might cost you power temporarily, but Republicans won’t be able to reverse the progress you make. And when you get power back — as you inevitably will — you can pick up where you left off and continue the long march toward socialism.
In other words, the Democratic Party’s progressive wing is on a kamikaze mission. Does Biden really want to go along for the ride? There is an alternative — the model that Sens. Kyrsten
Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., forged with their bipartisan infrastructure bill, which Biden signed into law on Monday.
At that signing ceremony, Biden basked in the bipartisan glow and said “the bill I’m about to sign into law is proof that despite the cynics, Democrats and Republicans can come together and deliver results.” But Biden could have held that ceremony months earlier when he still enjoyed majority support — if he had not given his blessing to progressives to take the infrastructure bill hostage as leverage to pass a separate, Democrats-only multitrillion-dollar social spending monstrosity. Indeed, he could have had multiple ceremonies by now — to sign bipartisan police reform legislation into law, and bipartisan China legislation the Senate passed in June, but which has languished in the Democratic-controlled House.
Instead, the president cast his lot with the radical wing of his party, which sees him not as their leader but only as a means to their socialist end.
That’s why his approval is nearly at a Trumpian low, most Americans think he is incompetent, and he is about to face a historic drubbing at the polls next year.