https://www.semafor.com/article/11/06/2024/democrats-ask-why-didnt-anything-work
Biden, who the party’s left opposed in the 2020 primary, had pleasantly surprised them; he had walked a UAW picket line, appointed antitrust activists to key government roles, and approved trillions of dollars of climate, infrastructure, and welfare spending. He did this in consultation with activists who saw Biden burying the neo-liberal politics that defined his career. And Democrats saw working class voters move toward Trump, running on nostalgia for pre-COVID prices and a suite of new tax cuts.
“Democrats delivered on an economic agenda,” said Analilia Mejia, the director of the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive nonprofit built from the remnants of the old anti-poverty group ACORN. “The Biden administration was one of the most progressive administrations in my lifetime.”
But there wasn’t just one “progressive movement” in the Biden years. Democrats embraced the Black Lives Matter movement; on his first day, Biden signed an executive order centering “racial equity” in the post-COVID recovery. They embraced immigrant rights movements, and delivered on a promise – initially – to slow down deportations of illegal border-crossers. They embraced criminal justice reform movements that had elected the sorts of progressive prosecutors that Californians just threw out. In 2020, Harris endorsed LA County DA George Gascon, saying he would “decrease the state prison population and get people convicted of nonviolent offenses greater opportunities to get their lives back on track.” This year, as he tumbled toward defeat, she took no position on his race.
Biden decided that climate would be a major policy initiative, and he made sure it would be a multi-stakeholder process. The progressives did not set the agenda, nor did the Biden administration market it as a major "progressive" initiative. It was sold as a clean energy transition, economic development and job creation package to build widespread stakeholder support.
Environmental and energy non-profits were offered the opportunity to provide input on potential new clean energy and EV/battery initiatives. But the agency directors who oversaw the development of these programs also solicited advice from other stakeholders, including business assistance, local and state officials, academia, clean energy developers, utilities/power suppliers, unions and business sectors. Sorry Analilia Mejia, but the progressives did not have a seat at the table when key decisions were made on how these programs would be implemented.
And that was also the case for other big Biden policy stuff like infrastructure funding, trade with China, semiconductor manufacturing, Ukraine invasion, reproductive rights, health care expansion and the Israel/Gaza conflict.
If you are Trump and the GOP, of course you would label Biden/Democrats as a “stooge” for the far left progressives and tie him to things like Antifa and BLM. That’s a smart campaign strategy. But if you look at Biden’s major accomplishments, I would call him center-left at most.
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