Biden veers Left as he unveils policies

Biden’s gift to sound moderate even as he embraces left-wing policies has made him a “slippery target” for Trump, reports The Washington Post.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

“Biden’s vision comes into view, and it’s much more liberal than it was,” ran The Washington Post headline on July 12 following the release of a raft of proposals from the Democratic presidential hopeful.

Those policies signal “a significant move to the Left from where Biden and his party were only recently — on everything from climate and guns to health care and policing — and reflects a fundamental shift in the political landscape,” the Post says.

The policies, worked on together with allies of one-time Democratic primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have been unveiled in “speeches, interviews, and a 110-page policy document.”

Sanders told MSNBC, as quoted by the Post, “I think the compromise that they came up with, if implemented, will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR.”

Those policies include far-reaching environmental proposals that climate groups are reportedly pleased about, such as building 500 million solar panels, slashing carbon emissions and curtailing fracking, which has made America the top natural gas producer in the world and largely freed it from Arab oil.

Fracking allowed President Donald Trump to tweet on Sept. 16, 2019 after an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities: “We are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World. We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas.”

Given the benefits from fracking, Biden says he will continue to allow current projects, but will ban new fracking permits on federal land. “Fracking is not going to be on the chopping block,” he assured Scranton, Pa. last week. However, as the Post notes, “Liberal Democrats have pushed for an outright ban on fracking.”

Biden’s gift to sound moderate even as he embraces left-wing policies has made him a “slippery target” for Trump, the Post says. It gives as an example Biden’s position on statues, where he favored knocking down those of slave-owners but opposed toppling statutes of Founding Fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Similarly, Biden opposes defunding the police but is in favor of redirecting funds away to other types of services. He came out against providing police with heavy military equipment. He also supported a ban on police chokeholds.

The GOP is eager to paint Biden as a socialist. “Republicans are the party of freedom. Democrats are the party of socialism — and worse,” the Post reports Trump saying Friday in Florida.

“Now Joe Biden and the radical left are trying to impose the same system [as Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro] — socialism plus — in America,” the president said.

Abdul El-Sayed, a liberal activist from Michigan and Sanders supporter who worked on Biden’s policies, told the Post that Biden hasn’t moved as far Left as liberals want, but he is moving in their direction.

“I believe this is an opportunity to say to progressives, ‘We’re not sprinting in the direction you want to go, we’re not throwing touchdown passes, but we are . . . moving forward,” El-Sayed told the paper.

Biden “sees this moment is not going to be kind to the same old approach. It’s a different moment,” El-Sayed said.