Minerva @ Midnight: has Biden already been moved leftward
Anand Giridharadas wrote a piece for The Atlantic asserting that Biden has been moving leftward. This may only be a short term impression only because the GOP is trying to find its way after the previous guy is gone and before he may be indicted. The real problem lies with Joe Manchin.
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Welcome to the new progressive era.
In all its unlikely, complicated, age-of-Reagan-busting glory.
Biden, after all, was a conservative Democrat who has exuded personal decency more than he has pushed for structural decency. One conservative publication labeled him“the senator from MBNA”for his friendliness to credit-card companies. He conducted the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill hearings in a way that hurt Hill, for which he laterexpressed regret. Hevotedfor the Iraq War andeulogizedthe segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. He began his 2020 campaigntelling wealthy donorsthat, in his vision, “nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
One thing is certain: Biden will not do everything the left flank of his coalition wants him to. He is probably not going to come around to progressives’ views on Medicare for All, or tuition-free public college, or wiping away student debt. The moderates in his big tent, especially in the split Senate, tend to be more protective of business interests and deferential to big donors, more wary of regulation, more prone to patchwork repair of the health-care system than to overhaul, and more averse to procedural changes like eliminating the filibuster. It’s hard to know yet how much Biden will align with them on some of these questions. But even if he doesn’t, he can’t risk losing their votes.
But then Biden sold the country on a massive rescue package that his erstwhile rival Sanders hascalled“the single most significant piece of legislation for working-class people that has been passed since the 1960s.” He quickly followed that with an infrastructure proposal that includes everything from roads to a strengthened safety net for caregivers, and focuses on redressing the harms of climate change and the racist urban planning of the past. Biden plans to finance it partially through atax increaseon the corporations he was once better known for protecting. There have been a slew of executive orders, many of real import, as well as gestures likestanding up for Amazon workersseeking to unionize.
The conversations I’ve had in recent weeks have painted a portrait of an improbable coming-together of people and forces: a moderate president, with an ascendant progressive movement at his back and at his throat, facing a once-in-a-generation window of opportunity. It’s still early. It remains to be seen if this momentum will continue, if the infrastructure plan musters the votes, if the ungainly Sanders-to-Manchin coalition holds. But for now, a capital that has been defined in recent years by the absence of useful action bubbles with generative possibility. And many of us who thought we knew what a Biden presidency would look like, and didn’t expect much from it, are suddenly asking ourselves: How did we get him so wrong?
Currently, 59% approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 39% disapprove. Biden’s job approval rating has increased modestly from54% in March. Biden’s job approval is comparable to several of his predecessors – including Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush – and much higher than Donald Trump’sin April 2017.
Views of Biden and his administration highlight several stark contrasts with opinions of his predecessor. Far more Americans say they like the way Biden conducts himself as president (46%) than say they don’t (27%), while another 27% have mixed feelings about his conduct. Similarly, 44% say he has changed the tone of political debate for the better, while 29% say he has made the tone of debate worse (27% say he has not changed it much).
On both questions, there are sizable differences in views of Biden and Trump.Last year, just 15% said they liked the way Trump conducted himself as president, which was little changed from telephone surveys dating to 2017. In both 2020 and 2019, majorities (55% on each occasion) said Trump had changed political debate in the U.S. for the worse.
However, the share of the public saying they agree with Biden on important issues is little different from the share saying that about Trump last year. Fewer than half of Americans (44%) say they agree with Biden on all or nearly all (13%) or on many (31%) of the important issues facing the country; 25% say they agree with Biden on a few issues, while 29% say they agree with him on almost no issues. Last year, 42% of Americans said they agreed with Trump on nearly all (19%) or many issues (23%).
NEW: Joe Biden approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency with a relatively strong job approval rating and the public continuing to express positive views of the coronavirus aid package passed by Congress last month. https://t.co/Gms3Gbkm8k
Really smart piece from @ezraklein Biden ran on the left and did not move to the center, he moved even further left. Everything is about climate change. (Finally) https://t.co/IxgtxIMqqq
Sen. Ed Markey on legislation to expand the number of Supreme Court justices: “The court is broken. And make no mistake about it, the court is broken because Mitch McConnell, his Senate Republican colleagues, and Donald Trump broke it.”
“While Mr. McConnell and a few other Republicans have been directly critical of Mr. Trump’s conduct following the Capitol riot,” @maggieNYT writes. “Most are trying to avoid alienating the former president, knowing he will set his sights on them.” https://t.co/26M5BQCAfd
Basically every policy Biden has proposed was put forward during the campaign, and polls at 65%-70% to this day. I can’t even remember the last time Mitch McConnell proposed an idea that polled above 40%. https://t.co/zDi3JRptqe
With renewed focus on Kilimnik sharing polling data from Manafort and Gates with Russian intelligence – reminder of @imthemadridista scoop that in 2015 Kilimnik set up a company with Cambridge Analytica contractor Sam Patten https://t.co/bNAjZcangb
7/ “Former Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, accused Manafort's lobbying firm of having lengthened the civil war in Angola by supporting Jonas Savimbi”—who didn’t flee or feign ill health. After surviving 12 assassination attempts, he was shot 15 times.https://t.co/8Y7N5tozhA
As we're all reacting to Sean Hannity describing Adam Toledo as a “13 year old man”, flashback to how Pam Bondi described then-17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two people, on Hannity's show:
