Biden is already letting us down

Joe Biden has been President-elect for less than two weeks as of this writing. And even though he’s still months away from actually assuming office and facing Republican opposition in Congress, he’s already abandoning transformative change for tempered incrementalism. Progressives may have no choice but to primary him in 2024 if they want to avoid losing to an even worse version of Trump.

Mounting student loan debt — currently at $1.6 trillion and counting — was a top concern of younger voters in the 2020 election. And according to a recent Tufts University analysis, turnout among young voters aged 18-29 was 8% higher in 2020 than it was in 2016, with young voters making up 17% of the total electorate. 

Given that Biden won by slim margins in critical swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, it would be accurate to say Biden would not be president-elect were it not for young voters. Likewise, it would be accurate to say Biden needs young voters to stay active and engaged if he wants to keep the White House out of Republican hands. But his rapid capitulation on student debt cancellation may end up alienating young voters before his presidency even begins.

Initially, Biden campaigned on forgiving up to $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower if they work in the public or nonprofit sector. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently suggested that Biden could forgive $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower through executive order, instead of relying on Congress. But seemingly overnight, the president-elect shifted his tone to say he'd only forgive up to $10,000 in privately held debt — even though 92% of student debt is federal — and only for "economically distressed" borrowers, which suggests rigid means-testing will stand in the way of the scant few borrowers who may qualify.

Climate change is another top issue for this critical bloc of voters. In September, a poll of voters aged 18-29 conducted by NPR, Marist, and PBS NewsHour ranked climate change as the second biggest motivator for them in 2020 (the economy ranked first). Climate change is such a potent issue for young voters that even 49% of young Republicans told Pew Research this summer that the government should do more to combat its effects.  

But Biden's new climate adviser is Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), who relies heavily on the oil and gas industry for campaign donations. According to OpenSecrets, Richmond ranks 5th among House Democrats in oil and gas contributions, and 22nd out of all members of the House. 

“Cedric Richmond has taken big money from the fossil fuel industry, cozied up with oil and gas, and stayed silent while polluters poisoned his community,” tweeted the official account for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group. “How will young people and frontline communities trust our voices will be heard louder than Big Oil in a Joe Biden administration?”

It also doesn't bode well for progressives that Biden’s national security braintrust includes architects of the 20-year-long Afghanistan war. According to The Washington Post’s James Hohmann, General Stanley McChrystal was present at a national security briefing for the Biden transition team. As legendary journalist Michael Hastings reported in his devastating 2010 Rolling Stone profile, General McChrystal was responsible for the failed “counterinsurgency” strategy that only served to further destabilize Afghanistan. Biden himself correctly predicted at the time that McChrystal’s strategy “would plunge America into a military quagmire without weakening international terrorist networks.” So why is the controversial general now failing up to advise the incoming administration on national security?

Perhaps most troubling is that Biden’s most senior White House staff includes a venture capitalist (chief of staff Ron Klain) and a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist (Steve Ricchetti). Additionally, the frontrunners for cabinet positions in Biden’s White House are a mishmash of corporate executives from the tech and pharmaceutical industries, along with a few Wall Street bankers. 

If this weren’t enough, Biden is simultaneously giving a huge middle finger to the left after it went out of its way to elect him. As The Independent reported last week, progressive icons like Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are expected to be “frozen” out of Biden’s cabinet, despite them campaigning for Labor Secretary and Treasury Secretary, respectively. 

Both Sanders and Warren — former rivals of the president-elect in the 2020 Democratic primary — went above and beyond to do their part to elect Biden. Sanders, who is 79, did multiple in-person events on Biden’s behalf despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Warren, who is 71, held a socially distanced rally for Biden in the swing state of Wisconsin, and even conducted a canvassing event in New Hampshire with college students. Aside from their efforts campaigning for the former vice president, both Sanders and Warren are experienced policy mavens in their own right who would do an excellent job heading federal agencies.

Any potential political concerns about their Senate seats being filled by Republican governors have already been assuaged, as Vermont Governor Phil Scott already said he would fill Sanders’ seat with an Independent who caucuses with Democrats (which Sanders currently is), and Massachusetts Democrats have prepared a budget amendment that would require Governor Charlie Baker to appoint a Democrat to fill Warren’s seat, should she be offered a cabinet position.

Obviously, the choice many progressives made in November to vote for Biden didn’t mean we cast a vote for his brand of neoliberal capitalism, but a vote against plunging America into fascism. That thankfully succeeded, but "not fascism" is the bare minimum, and shouldn't be the finish line. A primary challenge may be what Biden needs to lead boldly. Otherwise, he will fail to win the support of the Democratic base and potentially lose all of us the election in 2024.