Left says theyre not to blame for Bidens problems

Left says they're not to blame for Biden's problems
(Republished from TheHill.com)

https://gorightnews.com/left-says-theyre-not-to-blame-for-bidens-problems/

https://www.spreaker.com/user/9922149/left-says-theyre-not-to-blame-for-bidens

Progressives are pushing back at the idea that they are to blame at all for President Biden’s dismal poll numbers, arguing the White House’s problems have more to do with it moving away from a progressive agenda.

They argue the anemic polls largely reflect an unimpressed base disillusioned that Biden has been unwilling to deliver on issues such as voting rights, health care, gun control and climate change.

“Biden’s popularity was high when he ran on a progressive agenda — and it dropped when he let corporate Democrats take the reins,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement. “It shouldn’t be a surprise that voters are becoming impatient.”

A Pew Research Center survey released found Biden with just a 41 percent approval rating, down from 59 percent in April.

Among Black adults, a key constituency for Biden, just 60 percent approved of Biden’s job performance, down from 67 percent in September.

The bad poll numbers come after voting rights legislation failed to move forward in the Senate despite Biden’s urgings. It faltered because of opposition from Republicans, and because two centrist Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — opposed a carveout from the filibuster to move the voting rights legislation on Democratic senator votes alone.

Those two centrists have also been major impediments to Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which includes a host of progressive priorities including an extension of a child tax credit and what would be the most ambitious effort to tackle climate change to pass Congress.

Moderate Democrats for much of the last year argued that progressives risked pulling Biden too far to the left to the detriment of their party. Sinema pushed back at proposals for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy households in the Build Back Better bill, arguing it was bad policy considering the economic climate, while Manchin opposed further spending given rising inflation.

Republicans have played up the divisions and cast Biden as a puppet of the left. They see that argument as helping them win swing districts in the suburbs next fall that will lead to GOP congressional majorities for the rest of Biden’s term.

But progressives argue Biden is playing into GOP hands by not fully embracing progressive priorities. They see the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by Biden last fall as a lost opportunity that cut into their leverage for pressuring Manchin and Sinema on the Build Back Better legislation — which is also their top priority.

And they think a closer look at the polls shows that Biden’s real problems lie in a demoralized base — which they fear could also cost the party this fall.

“They’re standing in the way of the president’s promises, and it will be mostly their fault if Democrats lose Congress in November,” Prakash said of moderate Democrats.

Moderates have taken aim at White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a longtime aide to the president who has taken heat from some moderates who say he is aligned too closely with liberals.

The Washington Post reported that some think Klain is too deferential toward Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Progressives held up a House vote on the infrastructure bill for months to try to move the...