Because Joe Biden is now under pressure from his own ranks

Analysis

Democrats are seething: Why Joe Biden is now being pressured by his own ranks

Sebastian Heinrich / watson.de

Celebrating in the streets of Philadelphia, honking in New York City, singing in front of the White House in Washington: You probably haven’t seen as many happy Democrats in the United States since Barack Obama won the US presidential election in November 2008 like last Saturday Has.

The election of incumbent President Donald Trump, the victory of Democrat Joe Biden and his vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris – this was the political goal the Democratic Party had been working on for four years. To accomplish this, the party had appeared united as rarely for months, from the more conservative Virginia lawmakers to the party’s left-wing stars like two-time presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But less than half a week later, apparently, the party atmosphere has already faded. Democrats are debating how to proceed – and especially how Biden and Harris’ reign should be left.

What the dispute is about

Many people on the streets were enthusiastic about the Democrats’ election result. But it was a disappointment for many Democratic candidates for Congress: In one chamber, the House of Representatives, they lost at least four seats compared to the last elections of 2018. In the other, the Senate, they can reach a maximum of as many seats as there are Republicans – and this only if they win the two ballots in the state, scheduled for January. The blue wave, the crushing democratic victory hoped for by many, did not occur in these elections.

And the question that is making the Democrats violently retort again is: Whose fault is it?

For several center-conservative Democratic politicians, the answer is clear: it was leftists like Ocasio-Cortez who made life difficult for the party., with their calls for “democratic socialism” and slogans like “defund the police” – that is, for cuts in police budgets. This, so the self-proclaimed moderates argument, scared many voters.

Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic congressman from the state of Virginia, firmly defended her seat against a Republican. In a conference call – the recording of which was published by the Washington Post – on Wednesday, the day after the US election, he vented his frustration at the tight race. Spanberger said, among other things, ahead of the next congressional elections in two years:

Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t want to let the prosecution sit on him – and in interviews with several US media, he accuses lawmakers who lost their election to Republicans of simply investing too little in the election campaign on social networks like Facebook – during Republican opponents were much stronger there. 31-year-old Ocasio-Cortez argues the opposite of what moderate Democrats say. “Every candidate in a controversial constituency who campaigned for universal health care has won,” he said in an interview with CNN.

Your thesis, shared by other left-wing democrats: those who defend left-wing issues win.

In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she was frustrated by her party’s resistance to leftist positions – and therefore had thought about it even before this year’s elections, after less than two years in Congress for get out of politics.

What left-wing democrats want now

The left wing of the Democratic Party has grown in recent years. It has become more influential: demands such as those for a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour or for an ecological and climate-friendly restructuring of the US economy are now mainstream in the party., Biden himself presented him in televised duels with Donald Trump.

And progressive left-wing politicians have mobilized many voters: The fact that Joe Biden won the electoral votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania has a lot to do with the mobilization of African American voters in the metropolises of Atlanta and Philadelphia.

Now the left also wants his demands to become part of Biden and Harris government policy. Left-wing senator and former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, shortly after Biden’s victory, demanded, in the aftermath of Biden’s victory, that the Democrats now be provided with “bold plans” to overcome the health and economic crisis in the US.

Biden has already announced that his government should be ethnically diverse, with room for many women and non-straight people. But that’s not enough for progressive Democrats: They want representatives from their wing like Warren or Sanders to get ministerial positions.

Sanders himself has already made it clear that he wants to shift US politics to the left in the coming months and years. In a video message on Twitter, after congratulating Biden, he spoke of the fact that he would introduce a legislative package in the Senate that would, among other things, abolish “starvation wages”, invest heavily in infrastructure and create millions of jobs. work. He also wants to make the energy sector in the United States climate-friendly.

What the more conservative Democrats want

Several states in the so-called rust belt of the United States, in northeastern states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, were instrumental in Joe Biden’s election victory. Donald Trump took over these states, which were previously heavily influenced by industrial jobs and trade unions, by Democrats in 2016, and Biden brought them back.

More conservative Democrats say the Democrats only managed to do so because they got the voters back from the Republicans. And they could only have done so because these voters weren’t very afraid of too leftist positions, such as that following the abolition of private health insurance or a particularly rapid exit from oil production.

Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff under Barack Obama and former mayor of Chicago, said:

Emanuel himself is a stimulus for many left-wing Democrats – among other things because, as mayor of Chicago, he appears to have delayed investigating a police crime so as not to jeopardize his re-election.

How Biden can mediate in the dispute

So the discussion within his own party could become a serious problem for Joe Biden – even before he is sworn in on January 20, 2021 and moves to the White House.

But there are at least two reasons that suggest Biden can defuse the controversy.

1. Many leftist issues are not so controversial. The Democratic Party has moved on many issues in recent years. Demands such as for a resolute fight against climate change or marriage for all – unlike ten years ago – are now also center-conservative democrats. The New York Times writes that several moderate Democratic leaders say in interviews that they share many leftist goals, but that they recommend communicating these goals carefully so as not to scare conservative voters. Otherwise, they argue, there is a risk that these voters will return to the Republicans.
2. Biden is an indulgent guy. President-elect Joe Biden is someone who can listen well to other people, even if he doesn’t share their opinion. In a podcast interview with editor-in-chief of the news portal vox.com, Ezra Klein, Biden biographer Evan Osnos recently said that even political opponents of Biden said: “He doesn’t treat you like an idiot.” Apparently, Sanders, the star of the left Democrats, also shares this assessment. He appreciates Biden personally, despite all the differences in content. The “New York Times” quoted Sanders as saying “Joe is my friend”. This, the US media writes, is also one of the reasons Sanders fully supported Biden in the election campaign, unlike Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in 2016.

How could a way out of the dispute between the left and conservatives appear? According to the New York Times, several moderate Democrats have called on Biden to implement political projects in support of both sides as quickly as possible. An example: a US minimum wage of $ 15 an hour.