Joe Biden has a new campaign strategy, and it looks a lot like the one President Trump employed in 2016.
Without directly naming any of his Democratic opponents, the former vice president condemned the “elitist” and “unyielding” attitude found in many of their liberal policies. This kind of “my way or the highway” approach to politics is “condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view,” Biden wrote in an op-ed.
It’s difficult to interpret Biden’s comments as anything but a jab at Elizabeth Warren and her plan-for-everything agenda.
Biden’s campaign has been losing steam, and Warren’s recent surge in the poll has proven she’s serious competition. So Biden is trying to win back his lead by doing what dozens of Republicans and Democrats have tried to do since Trump’s election in 2016 — use Trumpian methods to his advantage.
Much of Biden’s campaign has been spent trying to reclaim the populist sentiment that swept middle America in 2016. He’s labeled himself “Middle-Class Joe,” urging blue-collar workers to ignore his Virginia mansion and $200,000 speaking gigs. And now he’s further separating himself from the elitist ruling class, once again asking voters to ignore the fact that he has spent the majority of his adult life in cahoots with the Beltway.
This strategy might hurt Warren, but it won’t help Biden. Labeling Warren an elitist could solidify the opinion many middle-class Americans already have of the Massachusetts Democrat: she’s out-of-touch, a bit radical, and definitely unlikeable. By reminding voters why they didn’t like Warren in the first place, Biden is channeling Trump and creating his own kind of Hillary Clinton.
The question is: Will it work? Probably not. The Trump phenomenon was just that — a phenomenon. It can’t be recreated on the Democratic front, in part because many of the Trump converts in 2016 see Biden and Warren the same way they saw Hillary Clinton in 2016 — as part of the problem. Trump’s election was just as much a reaction to the Democratic Party as it was a reaction to the establishment’s stagnant economic and immigration policies.
Pointing the finger at Warren might put a target on her back, but it won’t distance Biden from similar criticisms — criticisms he’ll inevitably face if he becomes the Democratic nominee.
