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Throughout his presidency, Joe Biden took more progressive political positions than many expected.
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Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told NYT Magazine that Biden wanted progressives in his coalition.
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“[H]I felt compelled to manage when they were a part of it,” Murphy said.
Before Joe Biden became president, he was widely known for his more moderate politics in the Democratic Party.
Throughout Biden’s 36-year Senate career, he was considered the consummate dealmaker and a reservoir of confidence among top leaders as chairman of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committee.
When Barack Obama tapped Biden as his vice presidential running mate in 2008, much of the then-Delaware senator’s appeal was his bipartisan record in Congress.
So many observers were surprised when Biden took more progressive policy positions after entering the Oval Office in 2021. He advocated tough environmental protections, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and expanded clean energy tax credits.
According to Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Biden — who ran against the more liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary — felt that progressives played a crucial role in his successful run for president that year.
And Biden felt they needed to be included in his coalition as he worked with Congress to set legislative priorities.
“When he became president, he felt compelled to govern while they were part of it,” Murphy told The New York Times Magazine of Biden’s feelings toward progressives. “And Joe Biden is a loyal guy.”
“I also think Biden went through this transformation. He went from a neoliberal to an economic nationalist,” the Connecticut Democrat added. “He came to the conclusion that the market was fundamentally broken, that power was too concentrated and without workers.”
Once in the White House, Biden, long a staunch supporter of organized labor, became the first sitting U.S. president to join the line. And the president championed a bold social spending plan known as the Build Back Better agenda, which was overturned over opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. (Manchin went on to play a key role in crafting the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed Congress in 2022 and was signed into law by Biden.)
Recently, some of the highest-profile progressives in Congress — including Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — rushed to Biden’s defense as several Democratic lawmakers urged him to drop out of the presidential race. For weeks, Biden said he would remain the party’s nominee, but after increased speculation, he left the race in July and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
Read the original article on Business Insider
