'Moderate' Biden's Rush to the Middle
And why
it won't work.
March 24, 2020
Don
Feder
Now that he’s all but won his party’s
nomination, Joe Biden can follow the time-honored strategy of Democratic
presidential candidates by scurrying to the political center.
He’ll pretend he didn’t say what he said
(in Joe’s case, the age-associated-memory-loss thing will help), or he’ll offer
an explanation so incoherent that everyone will fall asleep trying to figure
out what he means, or he’ll tell skeptics, “Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”
It won’t work.
The Sanders-AOC-Tlaib-Omar gang won’t shut
up. They’ll keep barging into the conversation and embarrassing him with
middle-class voters. But if he disowns them, he risks losing half the party.
Throughout the primary season, the media
did its best to sell Biden as a moderate, a regular guy -- good ol' Lunch
Bucket Joe, a throwback to the days when Democrats stole your money, but didn’t
give it to illegal aliens.
Biden the moderate is pure media hype.
Lately, Joe has been telling the Resistance: I’m Sanders too, but a Sanders who
doesn’t scare the hell out of normal people – a Sanders who can win.
Here are a few of his channeling-my-inner-Bernie moments:
1. Immigration – "Lunch bucket Joe” wants wide-open
borders: free health care for illegals and no deportation except for felonies
committed in the United States (felonies in Mexico don’t count, neither does
drunk driving, says Joe). Biden demonstrated his clear-thinking and firm grasp
of the issue when he proclaimed during a speech in January that DACA recipients
become Americans before many Americans do. (He neglected to explain
the process whereby Americans become Americans.) A November report showed that 1
in 10 “Dreamers” have a criminal record – but they may have been tagged for
something inconsequential, like drunk driving.
2. Taxes – In the words of the 5th
Dimension song, “Up, up and away.” Repeal the Trump tax cuts and double the
capital gains tax. In all, Biden envisions $3.2 trillion in tax increases. With
the country trying to make up for the economic losses of COVID-19, punishing
investment will work wonders.
3. College Tuition – Biden
recently adopted Sanders’ College-for-All Act -- free tuition for students at
public colleges and universities whose family income is below $125,000, and
regardless of the student’s major. Why should those majoring in transgender
studies be denied public support for training that will allow them to make a
crucial contribution to society.
4. Government health care – While
criticizing Sanders’ Medicare for all, Biden’s plan has been called Medicare
for Most: Bringing back the individual mandate and spending $750 billion to
expand Obama Care.
5. Climate and energy – Joe’s positions
here might be called the Lime Green New Deal. He started with the grandiose
pronouncement, “We are going to get rid of fossil fuels.” This includes no new
fracking, off-shore drilling or spending for pipeline infrastructure. The
candidate who’s said to have blue-collar appeal told miners to learn computer
programing – Hillary-style elitism at its worst. There goes Pennsylvania,
Wyoming and West Virginia. There’s also $1.7 billion to establish the framework
for his plan to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2050.
6. Gun control – Biden says
Beto O’Rourke (“Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15!”) will be in
charge of firearms policy in his administration, because no one needs “a clip
that holds 100-rounds.” There goes every state with a large contingent of
sportsmen.
7. Abortion – Biden wants publicly
funded abortion. He’ll also use abortion as a litmus test for court
appointments. This will be a big hit with traditional Catholics. The South
Carolina priest who refused to give communion to Joe in November may have
started a trend.
8. Bringing civility back to government – Joe told the Human Rights Campaign that with Trump as
president, “virulent people” and “the dregs of society” have a friend in the
White House. Basket of intolerables here we come.
All of this puts the Vice President far
outside the mainstream of American politics. If that weren’t enough, while he’s
trying to rationalize, modify and explain away what he said, like the ghosts of
dialectical Christmas past, Sanders, Warren and the squad will relentlessly try
to pull him to the left.
The Trump campaign can reasonably ask what
Biden will give Bernie and company if elected. Will he make Sanders Secretary
of HHS, Warren Secretary of Treasury, Ilhan Omar Ambassador to Israel?
While the Vice President
scurries to the middle, the radical rodents will block his way and gnaw away at
his credibility
No comments:
Post a Comment