The editors of Bloomberg have found President Biden’s first year in office “disappointing”, something they largely attribute to his deferring to “the progressive left of his party”:
From the outset, Biden has deferred to the progressive left of his party — its most energetic wing, but one that is badly out of touch with much of the country and sees any kind of compromise as capitulation.
The most egregious? His speech in Atlanta last week:
The president’s most recent nod to the left is the most alarming. His speech last week in Atlanta made the case for voting-law reforms in a way that might’ve been calculated to kill any possibility of future cooperation across the aisle. Reasonable people can disagree about how best to ease voting access while protecting ballot security. But to slam opponents of the proposals as enemies of democracy and champions of “Jim Crow 2.0†— as the president did— is both inapt and self-defeating: How can Biden imagine that such rhetoric makes agreement more likely?
As I’ve said whenever the subject has come up, President Biden has no choice but to “defer” as they put it to the progressive wing of his party. His Congressional margins are so narrow he needs every vote and they are the loudest and most insistent.
By the way there is an unstated assumption within the punditry and, presumably, within the White House itself which is almost certainly not true. What makes them think that Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema are their only barriers within their own party in the Senate? That Joe Manchin’s position is secure enough for him to take stands unpopular with his own leadership grants to other Democratic senators who are not in complete agreement with the leadership but aren’t in as secure a position as Manchin, either, the leeway to vote against their own interest. There are probably two or three other senators in just that position. Members of the House, too.
Voting for a lousy bill you know won’t pass is one thing; voting for it when it will only pass with your vote is something else again.
Maybe. But how about a more modest agenda not reliant on the razor thin margin but that replaces progressive zealots with some Republicans. Why not try it? He’s going down in flames as it stands now.
Of course it requires leadership and not a weathervane.
Which Republican would risk losing their primary due to working with Biden?
Steve
steve: Which Republican would risk losing their primary due to working with Biden?
In the olden days (in a place where the rain may never fall till after sundown, and by eight, the morning fog must disappear), Democrats would say they have concerns about ballot access, and Republicans would say they have concerns about ballot security, and they would sit down around a round table and find a way to address both concerns.