In a press conference on Wednesday, President Joe Biden appeared to snub left-leaning lawmakers in his party, implying that it’s progressives — not conservative Democrats — who are obstructing the president’s agenda.
The implication came after Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked the president why he is trying to “pull the country so far to the left” — a question that itself is disingenuous, as fearmongering politicians and right-wing media have continually painted centrist Democrats as radical in order to mobilize their own followers.
In response, Biden rebuffed the idea that he has been pulling the country to the left. “You guys have been trying to convince me that I am Bernie Sanders,” he said. “I’m not Bernie Sanders. I’m not a socialist. I’m a mainstream Democrat and I have been. And mainstream Democrats have overwhelmingly — if you notice, 48 of the 50 Democrats supported me in the Senate on virtually everything I’ve asked.”
The president’s answer is contradictory; in the same breath that he casts Sanders as a non-mainstream Democrat, he implies that it is only mainstream Democrats who are supporting his policies.
It’s true that Sanders, who identifies as an independent but caucuses with the party, may not fit the mold of a so-called mainstream Democrat by current party standards, even though he has had an enormous hand in shaping the party’s agenda.
But Sanders has consistently rallied behind Biden since the president’s inauguration almost a year ago. In fact, Sanders has been Biden’s most stalwart advocate for priorities like the Build Back Better Act. Meanwhile, the two Senate Democrats who have obstructed nearly the entirety of Biden’s legislative agenda thus far are conservative “blue dog” Democrats.
Indeed, Biden’s comment came just before conservative Democrats Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona delivered a fatal blow to one of the most pressing proposals on the Democratic docket on Wednesday night.
After a year of fierce arguments over the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) set up a vote on Wednesday to amend Senate rules in order to pass the Democrats’ marquee voting bill, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.
The proposal would have allowed a talking filibuster on the bill to expand voting rights and increase campaign finance transparency, clearing the legislation — which has already been passed by the House — to pass in the Senate with a simple majority vote. Biden has endorsed the filibuster changes so that the party can protect voting rights as Republicans pass dozens of bills restricting voting rights across the country.
However, Sinema and Manchin blocked the filibuster changes and the voting rights legislation. Although political journalists continually claim, with little evidence, that the two actually represent a less-outspoken faction of the party, Manchin and Sinema were the only Democrats who voted against the proposal, joining 50 Republicans in blocking the bill.
After the vote, Sanders condemned the senators for obstructing Biden’s agenda in Congress. “It’s not just this vote” that Manchin and Sinema have blocked, he said, according to Talking Points Memo. “These are people who I think have undermined the president of the United States. They have forced us to go through five months of discussions which have gotten absolutely nowhere.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy