Biden and the Left

That is not to say Biden himself has a coherent worldview. As party leader, Biden hopes to be all things to all leftists: a self-identified progressive when talking to a group of Gen-Z gay activists about his history on social issues who can also reasonably assure natural-gas rig workers in Pennsylvania that he’s no socialist.

All of which means that an argument over whether Biden is the perfect Democratic leader for this moment or completely mismatched misses the point: What if Biden’s the passenger, not the driver?

Take, for example, the 110-page Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations, crafted in consultation with advisers to the socialist Vermont senator (and vanquished primary rival) and far-left lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, released in July. There, Biden signed off on a call to “overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom,” appoint “civil rights lawyers” as federal judges, and create a new government agency to help provide clemency for criminals, “especially to address systemic racism and other priorities.”

Following the violent riots in Minneapolis that inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, members of Biden’s campaign donated money to a bail fund in the city. Biden himself supports the elimination of cash bail, at least according to his campaign website, but was careful to distance the actions of his staffers as nothing more than them exercising “their First Amendment right.”

As far as criminal justice is concerned, the Left can declare a not-so-hard-fought victory. Almost the same day as the general public first heard the name George Floyd, the Minnesota man killed by police, Democratic voters and lawmakers decided that the country’s treatment of criminals, suspected or otherwise, was one of the most pressing concerns facing the country. The aforementioned tensions within the Democratic coalition were for a moment set aside for the message: “Defund the Police.” As I wrote back in June, defunding the police became a slogan boosted by the professional-managerial class, and some uber-progressive cities flirted with trying to put such a plan into practice, believing police can be replaced seamlessly with social workers. Biden didn’t support it, but it didn’t matter and took off anyway.

What stopped “Defund the Police” in its tracks was not a party leader — Biden was ignored, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent the summer protecting radical leftist freshmen in her caucus from centrist challengers, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is a mere spectator — but the reemergence of those coalitional fault lines. In August, Gallup reported the results of its polling on the subject: “Most Black Americans want the police to spend at least as much time in their area as they currently do, indicating that they value the need for the service that police provide,” even though “that exposure comes with more trepidation for Black than White or Hispanic Americans about what they might experience in a police encounter.” While family members of black victims of police violence urged calm, young, white radicals made headlines with violence and street harassment.

After a particularly violent blowup in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Biden gave a speech that, while it criticized violence, was framed as a conventional campaign address comparing his own qualifications to those of President Trump. Yet the unrest isn’t a hypothetical future crisis but one happening now, once again leaving Biden on the sidelines. And he blamed Trump for the general disorder plaguing America’s cities, a cue to allies in the media and Congress that all future urban crime can be blamed squarely on conservatives or merely those who don’t tolerate law-breaking.

In the grand scheme of things, then, it wasn’t much of a win at all for the hard Left. The have-nots will remain economically disempowered even if the nation’s law enforcement is radically restructured. That will only fuel cries for more wealth redistribution from activists, which provides campaign fodder and messaging but ultimately no real relief.

Similarly, Biden will strive for a middle way on economic policy. But there’s not as much distance between the two as Biden wants moderates to assume.

Even before the nominee’s attempts to unite the party and court Sanders voters, he ran on an economic platform significantly to the left of Hillary Clinton. He can probably be trusted to keep his promise of reversing the Trump tax cuts in the middle of an economic recession that he also believes warrants a $2 trillion stimulus package, standard regulatory tinkering, and new welfare expansions that disincentivize work — thus providing post-facto evidence of their necessity. (“Imagine how bad it would have been without it!”)

But a socialist revolution Biden will not bring, no matter how hard the Republican National Committee’s messaging team and progressives alike pray for it. Some members of the Left are already howling about the private assurances Biden’s team made to Wall Street donors, claiming those assurances as proof he has no intention of bringing to fruition leftward proposals such as postal banking or pressuring banks to lend to those with poor credit.

The activist Left also holds Biden’s promises in suspicion because he can endorse plans that have no chance of passing until he’s in office and Democrats hold a majority in both chambers, at which point progressives fear a U-turn. For example, Biden supported the House CARES ACT, which included mandated labor representation on corporate boards and a nearly trillion-dollar slush fund for states to fill their budget holes and play with the remainder. The legislation passed the House, a win for Ocasio-Cortez and others on the Left. But with Republicans still in control of the Senate, that’s as far as it went.

The advantage of supporting doomed legislation is that you can do so without unnerving the part of the coalition that will pay for it. A President Biden would have to govern, and his party’s base knows it. That’ll mean choosing between the state and local tax deduction, which benefits well-off elements of the coalition, and a wealth tax that would do the opposite in the name of economic justice.

In truth, those fights hide the extent to which Biden has already been pulled to the left both by his party and by events. The coronavirus pandemic and the economic damage associated with lockdown policies and general demand shock from those nervous about leaving their homes have given Democrats an opportunity of the century. Biden has promised an “FDR-sized” presidency, something he never thought was possible until historically high unemployment made him realize “the institutional changes we can make.” The last several months have made it abundantly clear that Democrats see the coronavirus as an opportunity for their policy agenda rather than a crisis that demands pragmatism and an effort to return to normalcy.

Biden’s eagerness to say he’d have no problem locking down the country again should “experts” demand so conjures up images of a country living through cycles of self-inflicted damage with a governing party declaring that the latest economic crisis demands more welfare programs and expanded methods of state surveillance. Democratic stimulus legislation in the House has shown that in times of economic crisis, the lines between centrist and leftist blur significantly.

Indeed, it’s possible to see how such a cycle could unite the various factions within the Democratic Party. Should the nation go through another, or even two, series of lockdowns, layoffs would begin seriously hurting many of those who currently enjoy the ability to work from home. The ensuing economic misery would thus increase the share of Democrats calling for structural reforms focused on redistribution.

“My lord, look at what’s possible,” Biden said at a fundraiser in May. Whether or not Biden can rein in the Left is irrelevant if he doesn’t plan on even trying.

Joseph Simonson is a Washington Examiner political reporter.