After several media outlets called the presidential race for Joe Biden on Saturday, the Democratic candidate vowed to work toward unity and compromise. It was a good sentiment, but one that many on the Right listened to skeptically. They were right to do so.
Shortly after Biden made his remarks, his campaign released a series of executive actions Biden hopes to take after entering the White House. Most have to do with rolling back executive actions taken by President Trump, such as rejoining the Paris climate accords, restoring funding to the World Health Organization, and repealing the ban on travel from some countries with particularly bad terrorism problems. But some of these planned actions are much more divisive.
One such action would repeal an Obamacare exemption passed by the Trump administration (and upheld by the Supreme Court) that allows employers with religious and conscientious objections to opt out of mandated contraceptive coverage. By repealing this exemption, a Biden administration would force religious groups, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, back into court to fight for their religious beliefs for yet another round. In what way is this unifying?
If Biden truly wanted to extend an olive branch to the other side, he’d leave this exemption intact and allow religious Americans to practice their beliefs without fear of retaliation. But he won’t because he’s more interested in appeasing the leftist factions of the Democratic Party than he is in unifying the country.
Comments made by his campaign over the past few days prove as much. Asked whether Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, would be “disappointed” by a President Biden’s agenda, his campaign’s communications director Kate Bedingfield assured progressives that they would be pleased with the “aggressive” plans Biden has. Never mind the fact that voters decidedly rejected the progressive agenda at the polls last week by adding perhaps a dozen additional Republicans to the House and helping Senate Republicans fend off Democratic challengers. And never mind that Biden promised not to be the progressive candidate.
These are the early signs that Biden’s talk of unity and compromise was just that: talk. There is no room for conservatives in an agenda that threatens religious liberty, and there is no hope for unity in a platform that exists to appease Ocasio-Cortez first and voters second.
