‘His excitement is extremely low and that should always be alarming for candidates. It’s the Hillary Clinton strategy all over again…’
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised voters that he’ll hold the “center” if elected—meaning, he’ll work with Republicans if and when it’s necessary.
Leftists, however, are warning Biden that they’ll abandon him should he choose to compromise, reported The Hill.
“Biden is transparently taking a bet to win over a group of anti-Trump Republicans but at the expense of what?” wondered activist Nomiki Konst, who endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “Potentially losing some of the largest movements in history?”
What Biden needs, according to Konst, is an enthusiastic voter base.
He won’t get that from the moderate voters, but he could get that from the progressive Left, she said.
“His excitement is extremely low and that should always be alarming for candidates,” Konst said. “It’s the Hillary Clinton strategy all over again.”
Leftists are also arguing that they don’t want another four years of an Obama-like administration.
Former President Barack Obama tried to work with Republicans, claimed Neil Sroka, the communications director at Democracy for America.
Conservatives would beg to differ—as would the two midterm elections in which Obama posted historic losses both in Congress and at the state level.
But Sroka said that despite Obama’s “autopen” approach of circumventing the legislature with executive orders, the Left lost more than it gained.
“It’s very hard to understand why after going through eight years of the Obama administration that Joe Biden thinks we’ll be able to carve out grand deals with Republicans,” Sroka said.
“It’s mind-boggling, really, given how intransigent they’ve been,” he continued. “The only explanation is that he can’t imagine another way to pass policy, and that’s unfortunate.”
The only “compromise” Sroka and other leftists are interested in would be that which removes Republicans from the picture entirely.
“The way we’ll get Republicans to the table is by having a progressive movement in the Democratic Party that is strong enough to force them there,” Sroka added. “That’s the key.”
In an effort to appease these leftists, Biden has moved to the Left on several policies.
He backed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy proposal earlier this year and signaled support for Sanders’s policies on student loan debt forgiveness.
Still, leftists said they are prepared to fight Biden if necessary.
“We should be investing time in building a much more powerful movement that will have to, without a doubt, fight a President Biden and a tidal wave of corporate interests who never go away and will have the usual access to the White House,” Jonathan Tasini, a progressive strategist, told The Hill.
