How Biden Could Be The Most Liberal President In Modern U.S. History

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Six weeks ago, when Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, it seemed like the Democratic Party’s left wing suffered a major and potentially long-lasting defeat. Not only had Sanders lost, but former Vice President Joe Biden had won while casting many left-wing ideas as both unrealistic and detrimental to Democrats’ chances of winning elections.

But if Biden is elected in November, the left may get a presidency it likes after all — or at least one it hates less than anticipated. The coronavirus outbreak and the resulting massive surge in unemployment has moved American political discourse to the left: Ideas that would have been considered too liberal for most Democrats a few months ago are now being proposed by Republicans. And if American politics is moving left, expect Biden to do the same. Biden was often cast as a centrist or a moderate during the Democratic primaries, but those labels don’t really describe his politics that well — he doesn’t really seem to have any kind of set ideology at all.

Instead, Biden’s long record in public office suggests that he is fairly flexible on policy — shifting his positions to whatever is in the mainstream of the Democratic Party at a given moment. So if Biden wins the presidency and his fellow Democrats are still clamoring for more government spending to help the pandemic recovery, Biden is likely to be a fairly liberal president, no matter how moderate he sounded in the primaries.

Biden positions himself in the center of the Democratic Party

Biden is a centrist in a certain way — he has historically positioned himself in the center of the Democratic Party, between the party’s most liberal and most conservative members. (And he does that positioning generally on foreign policy, economics and social issues.) The center of the party is a moving target of course.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-pandemic-has-pushed-biden-to-the-left-how-far-will-he-go/

[LiberalFighter]

1. This is how govtrack charted him when he was in the Senate.

Link to tweet

[Hortensis]

8. Right. The "center" of the Democratic Party now and in 2008

is and was solidly liberal. "Center" of the liberal range. Not some phony lying "center" place somewhere between liberal and conservative.

Notably, this graph is for back in 2008; most of those Republican senators who were relatively moderate then have since moved hard right. And most of the Democrats trying to work with them before that in hopes of forming a majority that could enact financial reform and stave off collapse had to give up in the face of implacable enmity and runaway corruption.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. Biden will have a once in a century opportunity, and momentum and the people will be with him

He will have a narrow window before the midterms to pass major legislation for substantive change on healthcare, income inequality, the environment, etc.

[Celerity]

6. that assumes we take back the Senate, which I am projecting a 52-48 Dem majority atm, but it is

of course, not for sure.


I project

We lose AL

We flip NC, IA, CO, AZ, ME, and MT


Harder flips :

GA and GA special (Abrams and Yates refusing to run, grrrr, but we have a shot at the regular Seat versus the weak POS Perdue, less so in the special, so that fuckstick Doug Collins will probably be a new fascist RW Rethug Senator, a true Trump mushroom licker thug),

KS (Open Seat...Sibelius refusing, grr, Bollier has a chance, but nothing like Sibelius would have, I would have put it as a flip if Sebelius would have run)

TN (Open Seat...Tim McGraw refusing to run, grrr, I would have put it as a flip if he had run, James Mackler is probably our nominee, he has a shot, but nothing like Mcgraw would have had, McGraw also refused to run in 2018, when he probably would have beaten RWNJ Marsha Blackburn, Bredeson was a dreadful candidate)


True reaches :

KY (my dog do I want that traitorous fuck Moscow Mitch gone) and especially TX


Almost no chance :

AK (as we have no Dem candidate due to the previous Senator Begich refusing to run, Al Gross is a weak indie, so unfortunately Sullivan probably wins in a cakewalk)

[lunatica]

3. It's a sign of the times

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action.

[ms liberty]

4. This is what the times will demand. I think he will do fine! n/t

[Greybnk48]

5. In other words, he represents ALL of his constituents, as he should.

What I've always loved about Joe Biden over the decades, and he's one of those that pretty much everyone knew, he also never let his personal beliefs hobble his reason, despite being a well known devout Catholic. I've always thought of him as a genuinely decent human.

I was a Bernie backer, but given what I know of Joe, I'm perfectly at ease with supporting Biden 100%. My son's still a little "butthurt," a term he taught me, but he's on board to vote Joe without hesitation in November (and he does not shy from confrontation and would never lie about it).

[GeorgeGist]

7. This is the time for Dems to unflinchingly distinguish themselves from the GOP.

IMHO

[empedocles]

9. JB will push what he can best get through the Congress.