Biden and the Party's Left.
The attempt to push Joe Biden out as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee is reaching a fevered pitch this weekend.
President Biden faced intensifying pressure Thursday to end his reelection bid from an array of Democratic leaders, from former president Barack Obama to top leaders on Capitol Hill to powerful donors to party strategists, as he confronted the most concerted effort yet to force him out of the presidential race amid concerns over his advanced age and sluggish poll numbers.
The future of the Democratic Party and the Biden candidacy is a topic we will explore on this week’s Hitting Left when former Chicago member of Congress Marie Newman joins me and my brother Mike.
Our show is streaming live on Lumpenradio.com this morning at noon EDT and later on podcast at hittingleft.libsyn.com.
At first glance, the division among the Democrats seems an odd one.
Those pushing for Biden to step down are the very politicians that engineered his re-nomination this time and four years ago.
The centrists and the DNC cleared out any serious opposition to Biden earlier this year in spite of the fact that all of Biden’s current problems were evident then.
I believe that chief among those problems (which are not being talked about much now) are Biden’s support of Israel’s genocidal war, the billions going to the war in Ukraine and his renewed Cold War with China.
What also interests me is that according to some analysis, Biden’s chances of beating Trump have not worsened much since a few months ago when all those that are now trying to push him out were his most vocal cheerleaders.
This weeks 538 actually shows his chances improving.
So the current panic seems strange and late in the game.
It is the Democratic Party’s Left wing (Bernie and AOC being the most prominent) that continues to support Biden’s candidacy.
I am not surprised by this considering the options available.
Would a Harris presidency represent a substantive shift in policy?
I don’t think so.
In the meanwhile, facing abandonment from the Party’s right flank, Biden has turned Left to save his butt.
Reports The Nation:
Over the last two weeks, he’s (Biden) announced support for a wide swath of policies tailored to please left-wing Democrats: new rules banning medical debt from being used in credit ratings and a push for total medical debt relief, term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court, and new legislation limiting rent increases from corporate landlords to 5 percent per year, among other newly elevated proposals.
It was not that long ago that Biden and the Party’s leadership were going after Sanders, AOC and The Squad with even greater energy than Biden seems to be using to court them now.
The progressives continued support for Biden will make it more difficult (but they will try) for the centrists to “Naderize” them in the wake of a Biden defeat.
With just a few weeks before the Democrat’s convention in Chicago and a little more than three months before the election this all may be too late.
As for Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries replacing Biden? That was something they should have thought about a year ago.