If Democrats sweep the elections next week, their party better brace for an inner civil war over both strategies and policies.
It’s unclear which faction will prevail, but some large part of the Biden constituency will be disappointed because pleasing both suburban Lincoln Project voters and the Bernie Bros is nearly impossible. Instead of hashing their differences out now and establishing some sort of mandate, Joe Biden and his supporters have blurred the lines that might alienate either faction. That’s great for campaigning, but not so much for governing.
So, Biden is winning by virtue of not being Donald Trump, a huge “accomplishment” that, as a friend of mine recently pointed out, will be achieved on Day One. What happens for the next four years? Here’s where things get a bit fuzzy.
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Will Biden be a moderate institutionalist (as his reputation and experience suggest) or a man of the left (to match the zeitgeist and the loudest voices in his party)? Depending on where you sit between the center and the left, you probably expect or at least hope that Biden is in your camp. At some point, though, he will have to choose. And my guess is the pressure to move leftward (on both strategy and substance) will simply be too much.
Indeed, you can already see the groundwork being laid. Sen. Tom Carper, Biden’s “climate point man,” recently said that getting rid of the filibuster, “…shouldn’t be the first thing we lead with.” But if an economic recovery bill is first thing out of the gate, and a rump group of cooperative Republicans fails to materialize, the left-wing faction would quickly be out in full force demanding the nuclear option.
Here’s where things get interesting. Democrats are also subtler these days when it comes to their infighting, so when the civil war happens, it may initially sound civil. “It will be a privilege to lobby him,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of Biden on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. Indeed, the subtleness and civility is such that if Biden is pushed to the left and the moderates get rolled, the moderates may go down not with a bang, but with a whimper. And Joe Six-Pack might not even notice. This is partly because Biden and Democrats have adopted a style that has allowed them to situationally change their positions (in either direction) without copping to the fact that they changed.
Consider this: Over the past year or so (and without muss, fuss or fanfare), “Medicare for All” became “Medicare for All (Who Want It);” the “public option” became “automatic enrollment in Medicaid for those in states that haven’t adopted Medicaid expansion under ACA;” and “court-packing”—a term that goes back to the 1930s—suddenly changed to simply meaning confirming conservative judges. And speaking of courts, after Amy Coney Barrett used the term “sexual preference” instead of “orientation” it became a clear pejorative (as Merriam-Webster's dictionary was updated to reflect). Not surprisingly, Biden used the term as recently as May.
To be fair, these are very different examples. The first two (Medicare for All and the public option) are examples of the more moderate Democrats redefining labels to nudge the underlying policy position more to the middle, in order to sideline the hard left. Calling court-packing "rebalancing" or "unpacking" is an Orwellian way to make a radical policy sound reasonable to moderate ears. And the Barrett example has to do with enforcing a paradigm shift via the policing of constantly evolving politically correct shibboleths. Again, these are very, very different examples, with one big thing in common: the willingness of Democrats to redefine what words and terms mean—often while hiding the ball.
To be sure, politicians have long engaged in word choices that are, shall we say, convenient to their goals. Call something a “clean air bill” or a “civil rights bill,” and it becomes almost impossible to oppose, regardless of the content. The defining moment of the Monica Lewinsky scandal might have come when Bill Clinton uttered the words, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” There’s a long tradition of mobilizing the English language, and sending it into battle… against the American public. Trump has rightly been criticized for gaslighting us, but Democrats are rapidly catching up.
It’s also true that words and terms change (Biden probably deserves some of the blame for making the word “literally” mean the exact opposite of what it originally meant). But this usually evolves organically over time. It is impossible to have an honest debate when the meaning of words and terms change under your nose (and sometimes overnight). You know the old line about how “You’re entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.” Imagine being entitled to your own definitions of words.
Changing the very meaning of a word has a “war is peace/ignorance is strength” quality to it that could quickly spiral out of control. Should this continue, it would be yet another advance for relativism and a disservice to average Americans who are just trying to keep up with the already chaotic world of American politics.
There is a civil war brewing in the Democratic Party. My guess is that Joe Biden will be forced to embrace some progressive policies and strategies that he previously opposed. The question is, what will he call them? And will his suburban moderate voters even notice the difference?
