Collapse of the GOP Allows Biden to Move Left

Ezra Klein: “Most discussions of the renewed ambitions of the Democratic Party focus on ideological trends on the left. The real starting point, however, is the institutional collapse of the right. Before Biden, Democratic presidents designed policy with one eye on attracting Republican votes, or at least mollifying Republican critics. That’s why a third of the 2009 stimulus was made up of tax cuts, why the Affordable Care Act was built atop the Romneycare framework, why President Bill Clinton’s first budget included sharp spending cuts. Both as a senator and a vice president, Biden backed this approach. He always thought a bipartisan deal could be made and usually believed he was the guy who could make it.”

“But over the past decade, congressional Republicans slowly but completely disabused Democrats of these hopes… The result is that Obama, Biden, the key political strategists who advise Biden and almost the entire Democratic congressional caucus simply stopped believing Republicans would ever vote for major Democratic bills.”

I made similar points when arguing Republicans were committing political malpractice.