Democratic nominee Joe Biden responded forcefully this week to the notion that his candidacy is a Trojan horse for a socialist agenda, claiming that his defeat of an actual socialist in the 2020 Democratic primary should be proof of where he stands politically.
The problem here for Biden is that by fighting off one line of attack, he may have opened himself to another. The way in which the former vice president disavowed the socialist line could create friction between his campaign and the wing of the Democratic Party that is still loyal to independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
On Monday, a reporter for a Fox affiliate in Wisconsin asked Biden, “If you could address our camera directly, talk to the voters that are worried about socialism and you raising taxes.”
The Democratic nominee responded, saying, “First of all, I guarantee, a promise, I’ve never broken my word, anyone making less than $400,000 will not see one single penny in their tax raised.”
“No. 2,” the Democratic nominee added, “I beat the socialist. That’s how I got elected. That’s how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I’m not a socialist.”
Biden tells @fox11news: “I beat the socialist, that’s how I got elected, that’s how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I am not a socialist.”https://t.co/uE9VjrfrJB pic.twitter.com/AeYLpNB0Fy
— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) September 22, 2020
On Monday, during his interview in Wisconsin, Biden expanded on the tax question.
“I’m not trying to punish to anybody, but the idea that 19 corporations making billions of dollars pay zero in taxes?” the Democratic nominee asked. “The idea you can be making a billion dollars or millions of dollars like Donald Trump did and acknowledge when he opened up a casino in New Jersey, they had to show us tax returns — he paid zero taxes.”
Biden added, “And what did he say? When they asked him how did you feel about it, he said it just proves I’m smarter than everybody else. He knows these guys know how to game the system. The gaming is going to be over when I’m elected.”
On the one hand, Biden is smart to reject outright the notion that his supposed centrist appeal is really a sham to give cover for a socialist power grab. It seems especially smart for Biden to do this publicly in a place such as Wisconsin, where voters overwhelmingly support capitalism over socialism. But on the other hand, it seems risky for Biden to give the appearance that he is spiking the football. It seems risky to sort of dismiss Sanders offhandedly, who came pretty close to becoming the Democratic nominee in back-to-back presidential election cycles. Biden boasting that he beat “the socialist” could reopen some old wounds or even inspire new grievances, especially from the leftist Democratic wing haunted by the likes of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Then again, anti-Trumpism runs so deep on the Left that it seems more likely that even an intraparty conflict between the establishment and socialist wings of the Democratic Party will be put on hold until after the 2020 election.
At any rate, though, it seems the “Biden is giving cover to the socialists” line is an especially tricky one for the Democratic nominee. He can disavow, reassuring the electorate that he has not gone completely off the rails. But that means Biden may then have to deal with blowback from the part of the Democratic base where Sanders’s message of democratic socialism found enough support as to make the Vermont senator a legitimate contender for the party’s nomination not once, but twice.
