Joe Biden is now the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. Now Biden must work towards uniting the Democratic Party in order to win the General Election against Donald Trump. Biden may be slightly favored in the polls, but a final victory for Biden will rely on the progressive vote. And Biden is no progressive. Should progressives support someone who has opposed progressive policies throughout his long political career?
I believe that progressives should not support Joe Biden for president because of his record. If his treatment of Anita Hill and opposition to Medicare for All was not enough to convince progressives to oppose Biden, then I think a look into his voting record may convince progressives to oppose him.
Joe Biden is very experienced on foreign policy. Biden chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and as Vice President, Biden helped shape foreign policy in the Obama Administration. Biden has been a champion of using drone strikes to attack supposed terrorist targets, but many of the strikes failed to kill terrorist targets and instead killed innocent civilians. Biden’s support of the use of drone strikes would undoubtedly injure or kill innocent civilians and do nothing to help bring peace to war torn areas.
Biden voted for the Iraq War which was a foreign policy mistake that led to the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Biden also holds responsibility for pushing for the Iraq war under the false pretense of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction at the time. Biden would later come to work towards a troop withdrawal, but his vote leaves much doubt as to him being able to make the right response when he is forced to make a difficult decision, such as whether or not to attack another country, if he is elected president.
Joe Biden has voted to harm civil liberties by voting for the USA PATRIOT Act otherwise known as the Patriot Act. Although it is important to note that the Patriot Act was intended to be a bill to strengthen national security after the September 11th attacks and the 2001 Anthrax attacks. Biden was one of 98 senators out of 99 senators who voted for the Patriot Act. The only senator to vote no on the bill was Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. The Patriot Act would prove to be a failure and would trample upon the civil rights of innocent, law abiding citizens. Some of the absurd parts of the Patriot Act included giving the FBI the power to search through a person’s library records and the indefinite detention of immigrants.
Joe Biden does not have a progressive record on crime and social issues either, although it is important to note that many politicians have had a poor record on crime and social issues in the 1990s. Joe Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act otherwise known as DOMA. DOMA was a bill that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and it allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages even if another state granted the marriage.
Biden wrote and voted for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 otherwise known as the 1994 Crime Bill. The 1994 Crime Bill would come to disproportionately affect people and communities of color. Today, the United States has the highest number of people incarcerated per capita and a major factor of this fact can be associated with the 1994 Crime Bill.
Joe Biden has voted to harm American manufacturing jobs with his support for NAFTA and PNTR. Both NAFTA and PNTR would outsource American jobs to other countries such as China and Mexico. The once strong American manufacturing industry is now a shadow of its former self. Estimations of American jobs lost because of NAFTA start from as low as 500,000 to 750,000. The once proud manufacturing cities such as Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburg, Kenosha, and Gary are now a shadow of their past days.
Estimates of American jobs lost due to PNTR start from 3 million jobs and at least 2 million of those jobs were in manufacturing. The United States has a 102 billion dollar deficit with Mexico, a 27 billion dollar deficit with Canada, and a 346 billion dollar deficit with China. Much of the trade deficit can be attributed to disastrous free trade deals such as NAFTA and PNTR.
Although this commentary has not delved into every single one of Biden’s votes in the Senate or his actions as Vice President, it is clear and obvious that any voter who calls themselves a progressive should not vote for Joe Biden. Biden is a dangerous candidate who will hurt the progressive movement with a return to the status quo. Biden has never had a progressive record on the issues and because of his lack of support for progressive issues, he does not deserve and he is not entitled to the votes of progressives.
