Going into the presidential election, one of the big debates was over whether President-elect Joe Biden would govern as a more or less traditional liberal or end up being pushed to the far left by the base of his party.
While his early Cabinet picks have no doubt been liberal, they also have not come from the socialist wing of the party. Despite talk of Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming treasury secretary, Biden went with Janet Yellen. He has not yet tapped Sen. Bernie Sanders or one of his followers for a prominent position. Indeed, his selection of Neera Tanden to head the Office of Management and Budget enraged Sanders supporters as much as it did conservatives.
These developments have made those arguing that Biden would govern as a relative centrist claim a certain degree of vindication.
While the jury is still out on how Biden will actually govern, it is important to recognize the context of Biden’s picks. And that is, Biden has had to operate while facing a political reality in which Democrats did much worse than expected in the 2020 elections.
Predictions of Biden being bullied by the Left were based on a scenario in which Democrats gained a comfortable majority in the Senate and padded their majority in the House. Such a result would allow Democrats a cushion to get more ambitious in the House of Representatives and an opening to nuke the filibuster to get legislation through the Senate with a simple majority.
Despite his centrist rhetoric about working together with Republicans, Biden’s actual campaign proposals were to the left of any Democratic nominee ever, more sweeping than what Barack Obama proposed in 2008. The Left boasted during the election about how it was going to influence Biden in the White House, as evidenced by its successful efforts to get him to adopt a more ambitious climate change agenda that moved him much closer to the Green New Deal than the policies he laid out during the primaries.
There was plenty of reason to believe that, unchecked and emboldened by a wave election, his administration would be in a position to advance that agenda.
However, what happened is that Democrats actually suffered significant losses in the House, with centrists spooked that the leftist “defund the police” and the court-packing type of rhetoric put many winnable races in the loss column. The resulting narrow majority means that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will now only be able to spare a handful of votes, giving these centrists tremendous power on what Democrats can send to the Senate.
And the Senate is even more perilous. Even if Democrats win both Senate races in Georgia, Biden will come into office facing a 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any tie. This means there will be no ability to nuke the filibuster to make room for transformational legislation. It also means that even for nominations that can pass with a simple majority, centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin will get veto power over any Biden pick. If Republicans are able to keep just one of the two Georgia seats, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will remain in charge of the upper chamber, and Biden will need to win over at least one Republican to even get a nominee through.
The 2020 election ultimately boiled down to two competing arguments to persuadable voters. On the one side, Democrats were arguing that Trump was unsuitable for the presidency and should not be granted another term. On the other side, Republicans were arguing that left unchecked, Biden would become a tool of the Left and move the nation in a radical direction. Ultimately, both arguments succeeded.
Biden was able to convince voters that Trump needed to go. But voters also heeded the warnings of Republicans that giving Biden a blank check would empower the far Left. So, they rendered a verdict that effectively means that Trump is out of the way but Biden is on a short leash.
So, as much as those who predicted Biden would govern from the center-left are eager to claim vindication, the reality is that if they had their way, if voters sought retribution against Republicans at all levels to punish them for enabling Trump and Democrats gained massive majorities, Biden’s post-election moves would have likely been a lot different.
