Democratic Strife Risks a 2022 Bloodbath—and Biden’s Legacy
If progressives and centrists can’t unite to pass a safety-net package, the promise of the Biden presidency will crumble.
After Joe Biden locked up the Democratic presidential nomination in the spring of 2020, Democrats in the party’s progressive and centrist wings exhibited what was, for them, an unusual type of behavior: unity. Although the presidential primaries highlighted Democrats’ growing ideological fissures, even left-wing firebrands such as New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spurned reporters’ efforts to sow division and quickly fell in behind the centrist Biden. Democrats across the spectrum calculated that they would fare better with one of their own in the White House.
That same logic underlies the Democrats’ two-step strategy for realizing Biden’s agenda. By marrying an infrastructure bill with a social spending bill, both wings of the party would advance their agendas in tandem while showing voters that Biden really was the dealmaker he touted himself to be on the campaign trail. The infrastructure bill passed the Senate in August. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision on Oct. 1 to delay indefinitely a vote on an infrastructure bill brought a swift end to Democratic comity. It also raised a possibility that most Democrats are loath to confront: They could end up with nothing and pay a steep electoral price.