Joe Biden, once the champion of Democratic moderates seeking to oust Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from the forefront of the party during primary season, has decided that his winning strategy in November will be to kowtow to his former rival. In a misguided decision, Biden’s strategists seem intent on uniting the Democratic Party by integrating progressive policies into a campaign platform that appeared to be doing fine on its own until now. Perhaps the voices of angry youths on Twitter were too much for the adults in the room on the Biden team, especially when taking into consideration the literal copying and rehashing of Senator Sanders’ campaign promises into Biden’s campaign going forward.
Notorious for his repeated falsehoods and plagiarism on many a campaign trail, Biden has done it again, lifting line after line of Bernie Sanders’ political playbook and adding it to his own. At the recommendation of his “unity task force,” the candidate’s new pitch includes pledges to disavow federal contractors paying workers less than $15 an hour, to expand an already bloated and endangered Social Security program, and to severely restrict the responsibilities of police officers following calls to defund and reform the police.
Just a few weeks ago, the Biden campaign stood up for law enforcement by refusing to call for the defunding of the police when politically popular. Yet, suddenly the presidential hopeful has flip-flopped in a desperate attempt to reign in his progressive critics on social media.
Democrats are still somewhat concerned that progressives may foil Biden’s bid for the presidency, considering that roughly 12% of Sanders’ primary supporters voted for Trump in the general election in 2016. Young progressives saw Hillary Clinton as a corporate-friendly insider incapable of inspiring the youth to go out and vote, and they assume the same about Biden going into November.
Having Beaten the Progressives, Biden Joins Them
Amid rants about Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations in the context of #BelieveAllWomen combined with Sanders’ unfettering support for Biden, progressives were going to be forced to bite the bullet and go with Joe despite their gripes with the old, oft-uninspiring establishment Democrat. With all the cards in their hand, Biden’s campaign instead decided that the best play would be to adopt the policies that made Sanders unpalatable to the Democratic base in the first place.
There will surely be a reckoning for Biden’s decision to outright copy and paste his newfound progressive passions. The mainstream media fell in love with the prospect of moderate RINOs and Never-Trumpers refusing to support the president in 2020. We can be confident, then, that The New York Times editorial board will once again be hard at work explaining how Biden’s turn away from the center will attract more Republicans and centrists to his cause. President Trump’s campaign strategy thus far has heavily relied on his ability to point out the considerable influence radical leftists have on the Democratic Party. If anything, the Biden campaign’s latest move only serves to support President Trump’s central argument – that the mainstream Democratic Party is no longer the party of good old Uncle Joe, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. It is now the party of Antifa, CHAZ/CHOP, and radical leftists that hate and want to wipe out everything America stands for and represents. How can moderate Democrats trust Biden to hold steadfast against the progressive left-wing of the party if he’s already starting to copy policies from America’s favorite socialist?
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