These days, there is a burning question the American people, writ large, are anxious to ask the most left-wing, tone-deaf, self-defeating Democratic Party in memory. It could be put to music by replacing just a couple of words in that famous lamentation from the flower-child days of the 1960s by Peter, Paul and Mary:
Peter, Paul, and Mary
Where have all the moderates gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the moderates gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the moderates gone?
The left has kicked them every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Indeed, we are in an age marked by the forces of the center yielding to the extremes. And for an electorate already fed up with the fledgling Biden administration - his approval dropped into the 30s in two recent polls - the entire nine-plus months since this president’s inauguration must feel like a massive bait and switch. Let’s see if we can follow the playbook.
The 2020 Bait-and-Switch
The Dems run more than two dozen candidates for president, all of whom are either far-left, pretending to be far-left, or obscure - except the shopworn Joe Biden. After a primary full of socialist dreamscaping, only the increasingly decrepit Biden is deemed acceptable to be put forward as proof the party isn’t nearly as socialist as they had just claimed to be for the entire primary process. Since the pandemic gave Biden cover to stay in his basement – like so many non-working kids these days – as the many forces of the established order worked in concert to assure Trump’s defeat, the plan might just work.
The voters, in their alleged rush to remove Trump from office at all costs, don’t seem to care about Biden’s conspicuously declining cognitive state and believe his promises of moderation. He wins the election. His party controls both branches of Congress by the thinnest of margins. But as soon as he is inaugurated, the 46th president immediately surrenders to the most progressive forces in his party by supporting almost their entire wish-list and marginalizing the precious few moderates brave enough to still call themselves Democrats.
Joe Biden
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Biden goes all in by lending his full support to arguably the most reckless spending spree in modern American history. Why the most reckless ever? Because he and his party have been trying to ram through $3.5 trillion in taxing and spending on a 100% partisan basis, after a split election, in the midst of an exceedingly fragile economic recovery from a crushing, once-in-a-century pandemic, stalled economic growth and inflation rearing its head more with each passing week.
On top of that, the package of republic-altering reforms fantasized by the left has stalled an actual infrastructure bill (as opposed to the absurdly titled “human infrastructure” monstrosity currently in play). The latter is already approved by the 50-50 Senate which, while typically larded down with Washington-style pork and patronage, should produce better and safer roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and associated infrastructure. And the bill is actually supported by members of both parties and by everyday Americans.
But it may never become law because standing directly in its path is the extravagantly socialist “Build Back Better” plan, parroting Biden’s campaign slogan. Of course, during the campaign, BBB did not stand for transforming the entire relationship between the government and the people as it does now. But then, this president is Exhibit A in the most notable characteristic of career politicians: they will say anything, promise anything, deny anything, to get elected - and have no compunction about doing a 180 as soon as they gain power.
Left Behind by the Left Turn
Democratic moderation in the Senate - and opposition to the spending supernova now on the table - is limited to two increasingly famous - or infamous, depending on one’s perspective – centrists; Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Democratic moderates in the House are evidently in such short supply that few dare even speak up, and the reforms people actually want are held hostage by socialists in the party’s ongoing civil war.
This maelstrom all seems to derive from the Democrats’ fundamental decision on how to defeat then-President Trump. The plan, based on the ramblings of almost all of their candidates, was to tack to an extreme opposite of the MAGA agenda. The answer to what they claimed were Trump’s racist, sexist, misogynist right-wing policies was an all-you-can-eat buffet of far-left prescriptions, rather than a call to traditional Democratic liberalism or centrism. It was a badly flawed strategy, and only the insane luck of Joe Biden running for president as hundreds of thousands were dying from an uncontrollable plague was able to steer him into the Oval Office.
So where have all the moderates gone, the ones who won’t scare the bejesus out of the centrist and independent voters who pushed Biden across the finish line in 2020? Well, many of them simply renounced their center-left bona fides when they ran for president. Moderate liberals such as Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke spun radically leftward, but in the end, the party leaders needed to chase out multiple contenders to assure Bernie Sanders’ brand of undiluted socialism would not prevail and Biden would be handed the nomination by default. The fundamental problem facing Democrats is that the party hierarchy and representation in Congress is far to the left of the party’s voters. And the problem has gotten far worse since Biden took office with open leftist shaming of Manchin and Sinema.
The biggest mistake Democrats could make would be to continue believing, as they evidently do now, that the nation is crying out for radical social change. They won the last election on the promise of moderation, and thanks to historically unique circumstances which will not be replicated in 2022 or 2024. If they continue to carry on as if they won on ideology, and that their current crashing poll numbers represent merely a transitory setback, they are headed for titanic defeat in 2022.
~ Read more from Tim Donner.
