President Joe Biden’s progressive base is trying to drown both him and the country with destructive election-year demands.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has issued its policy agenda for a Democratic majority after the 2024 elections. It includes forcing a one-size-fits-all federal minimum wage of $17 an hour on the entire country, a move that even several Senate Democrats recognized would destroy businesses in some communities just three years ago when the proposal was at $15. The CPC also wants to force workers to pay union dues by passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
Sprinkled in alongside the ridiculous platitudes about abortion and the normal climate change demands are calls for a full-on Senate power grab. The CPC wants Washington, D.C., to become a state so that Democrats can get a guaranteed two senators, and it also wants the elimination of the Senate’s legislative filibuster. Congressional Democrats hate actually having to win Senate elections and compromise with Republicans on legislation, so they want to make things easier on themselves (up until they throw a tantrum over Republicans following their lead on the filibuster).
The CPC did not issue any policy positions on Israel, but it is clear where its leaders and other progressives stand. Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that conversations about Hamas’s rapes of Israeli civilians need to be “balanced” with “outrages against the Palestinians.” Biden’s own State Department is leading a policy crusade against Israel, and Biden sent a delegation to speak with antisemitic activists in Michigan to court their votes.
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Combined with Biden’s refusal to enforce border laws while progressive activists push for amnesty and with Biden’s insistence on having taxpayers cover the student loan debt of predominantly wealthy postgraduates, it is clear that Biden is being pushed to embrace unpopular, destructive policies that are sinking his own approval and will undoubtedly make lives worse should they pass. He is beholden to his progressive activist base, which is why he keeps crashing and burning on both domestic and foreign policy.
It is people like Jayapal who have Biden’s ear, both in Congress and in his own administration. That is whom Biden will answer to if he wins reelection in November, and that is the lead other congressional Democrats will follow if they are granted majorities in the House and Senate. The damage Biden has done can always get worse, as it surely will if Biden and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are handed power again in the 2024 elections.
