As Americans voted decisively for a candidate who explicitly rejects nearly everything that Bernie Sanders advocates, Vermont’s senior senator insists that the Democratic Party just wasn’t liberal enough. The mindset of the far left seems to be that the working class just needs more of what they just voted against. For Bernie, the answer is always, “more cowbell.”
Four years ago, the United States elected “Scranton Joe,” a pragmatic with a long record of achievement in the Senate and the Obama administration attained through compromise and common sense. On economic issues, Joe Biden presented himself as a pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-worker – old-school Democrat. He made a point of eschewing the left’s “defund the police” fever and ended his speeches by saying, “May God bless our troops.” Americans were yearning for what he offered and elected him as a serious and pragmatic alternative to a chaotic Trump.
Then came the Elizabeth Warren camp. From day one, the Biden administration was flooded with operatives from the Bernie/Liz left wing of the Democratic Party. What ensued was an overt shift from Scranton Joe’s campaign promises to policies for and by the liberal elite. Like those annoying clothing labels that are itchy and unnecessary, the Sanders/Warren brand was sewn into nearly every policy that came out of the White House.
On energy issues, Biden delivered on his campaign promise for an all-of-the-above energy strategy. He passed the boldest and most comprehensive green energy investment in U.S. history while governing over record domestic energy production that literally saved Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Instead of championing Biden’s successes, the far left hatched a plan to end future build-outs of liquified natural gas facilities. This policy sent the wrong message to our allies around the world, and was a betrayal of the tens of thousands of energy workers in Pennsylvania. Additionally, this policy likely increased global carbon emissions by prolonging coal burning and increasing demand for LNG from dirtier sources. This pandering to the left crippled the Harris campaign in the must-win state of Pennsylvania.
The massive drive for student debt relief is another example of how the left wing of the party is out of touch with working-class Americans. By sending out over $400 billion dollars to college graduates, the non-college, working-class Americans received a clear message: “Democrats believe that contributions to society by the college educated are more important than mine.”
As inflation eroded their spending power, these workers didn’t get tens of thousands of dollars, but they watched other, many fewer, and more privileged Americans cash those checks. The worst part of this policy is that most recipients of this relief still have debts, and there was no reform of the American higher education system to lower future tuition rates. Instead, it provided incentives for universities to raise tuition even higher – even though the cost of higher education has far outpaced overall inflation for a generation.
The broad anti-business rhetoric from the Bernie/Warren camp is out of step with the everyday needs and struggles of Americans. There are a host of long-standing “paychecks and pocketbooks” issues that the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice could have addressed during the Biden administration. These include serious competition problems in some food and agriculture and healthcare markets that drive up prices for consumers – often forcing them to make decisions about what bills to pay, or not. Biden’s FTC and DOJ instead focused enormous, limited public resources on the tech companies where any competition problems are far more remotely connected to consumers. Perversely, working-class Americans don’t have a litany of complaints about tech companies, and the problems that the FTC and DOJ pursued have very little effect on household budgets.
Finally, Biden’s paralysis on the border and immigration policy was a critical part of Kamala Harris’ defeat this year. At the eleventh hour, as the campaign for president was already underway, they finally got serious about an immigration reform bill. It was too late. The far left’s unbending refusal to even acknowledge the crisis at the border crippled any chances of meaningful legislation when it could have made a difference. The end result of the left’s steadfast denialism of the problem is likely to be a Trump administration policy that is draconian and un-American.
Bernie Sanders is right about one thing: The Democratic Party has abandoned the working class. But not in the ways that he thinks. The party has bent to the pressure from the most ideological activists while simultaneously failing to take credit for the huge successes achieved in the center of the political spectrum. The moralistic preaching from the far left on what the working class needs, even while those voters overtly reject it, is akin to the incessant ringing of the cowbell when we’ve already had enough.
We must re-center the Democratic Party. We must listen to Americans and fashion policies that reflect an understanding of what they need and want. We cannot bend further to the left’s delusional insistence that the working class “just don’t know what’s best for them.”
Neel Brown is managing director at the Progressive Policy Institute.
