Correcting the Record: Joe Biden is Nowhere Near Progressive
By: Anthony Pannullo
Photo by Marc Nozell
As former Vice President Joe Biden is on the edge of announcing his 2020 campaign, he has already expressed a major falsehood that needs to be addressed. At a Delaware Democratic Party fundraiser, Biden hid from his moderate past by claiming that he has “the most progressive record out of anyone running”.
Before we get into it, let’s consider all the ways in which this is not true. It is acceptable for us to disagree on whether or not a progressive is what we need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. There is nothing wrong with that. There is, however, something very wrong with starting your campaign on an identity that is simply not true. It should not be acceptable to real progressives, and it should not be acceptable to Biden supporters.
To be clear, a strong characteristic of a progressive person is someone who thinks ahead. When we analyze Biden’s history, we find that it is in line with the status quo. It is great to see politicians change their positions, but the “progressive” label implies that you were there from the start. It is not acceptable for a candidate to masquerade as something that they are not simply because they know where the direction of the Democratic Party is heading. Unfortunately for Joe, his record is now fair game to criticize as a potential 2020 candidate.
The War in Iraq
Biden was a supporter of the Iraq war, going as far as praising George W. Bush for how he handled the war. In Joe’s defense, he did eventually regret his vote very quickly. His problem is that a progressive would have known by now that America cannot jump into another senseless and ill-conceived war with no exit strategy, over one million civilians killed, and many thousands of homeless veterans over nearly 20 years. If in 2005, Biden could say that we had no plan or exit strategy, how could he have not known this just three years prior?
Healthcare
The issue of healthcare is one of Biden’s more prominent examples of why he does not meet progressive criteria. Once again, a progressive focuses on what we can do. They do not settle for 28 million uninsured Americans and call it progress. While Biden does refer to healthcare as a right for all, he will shy away from universal Medicare-for-All, single-payer healthcare legislation. The unfortunate fact is that the Affordable Care Act, while expanding coverage to many more Americans than before, still leaves many millions uninsured and unable to pay high co-payments and premiums.
Big Money in Politics
Joe has voiced his love for Bernie Sanders but does not believe that 500 billionaires are the problem in this country. It can be easy to argue the contrary, as they essentially dominate our public policy influence and contribute little to our tax revenue compared to what they should be paying. When just a few families hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans, that is a significant level of political influence that does get used.
Anyone who spends time on OpenSecrets can see the hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars that entities like Big Pharma and the fossil fuel industry “donate” to politicians. These contributions are not made out of the goodness of one’s heart. If a company spends $200,000 on a candidate, they are going to expect something valuable in return.
Biden says that the very rich are just as patriotic as poor Americans, but that ignores the point. The poor and the very rich are living in two vastly different Americas. When the rich choose to ignore their taxes, the poor have to cover the bill as they do not have the privilege to seek out or use tax loopholes.
LGBTQ Rights
LGBTQ rights is an issue where Joe Biden is on the right side of now. He even married two White House staffers. However, in 1996, Joe Biden voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This is essentially the law that defined marriage as one man, one woman. Only 14 Democrats voted against it while 32 Democrats, Biden included, voted in the affirmative. Biden’s change in stance is well-appreciated, but it does not give him a progressive profile. His vote was not there when it truly counted, and he sided with the popular opinion that was on the wrong side of history. This is not progressive.
Tuition-Free College and the Youth
While Joe Biden has supported tuition-free 4-year college as early as 2015, his comments on millennials and the succeeding generation are questionable. To summarize, it is essentially a Baby Boomer complaining about millennials complaining about how hard they have it. It ignores the fact that with the same education, we are making 20% less than our preceding generations.
The full context of Joe’s quote is actually encouraging young people to get involved and change the world. The problem is, we are trying and facing much opposition from the people who are actually in power. We are facing resistance, even from Democrats, who tell us that we are not being realistic.
Civil Rights
While the Joe Biden we know today is a typical pro civil rights Democrat, there is a segregationist past that further questions his progressive credentials. By the way, we are not talking about the 1950s or 1960s; we are talking about 1975 when the issue of school bus integration was still contentious. Biden initially ran on integration, but faced pressure from his white constituents. As a result, he not only supported an anti-integrated school bus amendment but sponsored it as well.
To be a progressive, one must realize that you have to do the right thing, especially when doing the right thing is not popular. A senator can and should have a huge influence on leading their constituency. If Sen. Biden truly believed that integration was the way forward, his platform would have been used to reach out to his constituents on why he believes that. It is hard to put your political career before civil rights, especially when a true progressive in this race was marching with Dr. King and getting arrested by the Chicago Police for protesting segregation ten years before this issue.
Anita Hill and the Eventual Me Too Movement
The Anita Hill hearings came back into the public discourse during the recent confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. For those of us who may not have been alive or were too young to remember in the early 90s, the hearings occurred when Anita Hill accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual assault during his confirmation process. Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was criticized for not calling witnesses that would have helped Anita’s case. In many ways, it is similar to how the GOP handled the Brett Kavanaugh hearing in 2018.
As of September 2018, Biden does not regret the way he has handled this case. Biden’s actions did nothing in terms of holding abusers accountable. Furthermore, if Clarence Thomas was indeed innocent, the trial should have been more rigorous. A true progressive would realize this and not deny the additional witnesses. Hill herself has stated that she felt as though she had no allies on the committee. While Biden voted against Justice Thomas, his actions had a lasting impact on how the Senate holds potential SCOTUS Justices accountable under these circumstances.
Fact Check: False
In summation, it is always good to see an influential politician evolve to a forward-thinking stance, but we must consider when that evolution happened. Was it at the beginning when you would face significant outrage for opposing integration or supporting same-sex marriage? Or did you evolve when not doing so would be political suicide?
Few can deny that Joe Biden was an influential VP who helped the Obama Administration make progress on key issues. However, the label of a progressive is not meant to generate an impossible purity test. It is meant to discover who has been consistent in their fight and who has done the right thing despite it not being popular. There is simply more weight behind a person who was on the right side of history when it mattered most, not when the fight was essentially over.
