This is the season of progressive discontent.
Which is odd, since Joe Biden just unveiled a budget blueprint jam-packed with progressive goodies, including big spending increases and tax hikes on the wealthy.
But…Via Semafor:
Progressive Democrats worry that President Joe Biden’s team is swerving to the right on crime and immigration….
What’s happening here is pretty obvious.
Biden is choosing the ground he wants to fight on. He’s willing to fight on a robust expansion of government spending and power; he seems to relish a fight on Medicare and Social Security, and tax hikes on the rich, including a 25 percent minimum tax on billionaires (it almost sounds like . . . populism).
But he also understands where the political landmines are. He gets that Democrats are vulnerable on both crime and the chaos at the border, and is moving to dilute two of the most dangerous GOP talking points for 2024.
What Biden gets is this: He can move to the left on tax/spending, as long as he moves to the center on the other hot-button issues where Democrats have been shedding support.