The Biden Conservatives? (Bret Stephens Strikes Out Again)
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-biden-conservatives/91228/
The idea that there’s such a thing as a “Biden Conservative” is being advanced by Bret Stephens of the Times. It’s about “upholding your principles at the expense of your politics,” he argues. The piece follows a column in the Wall Street Journal by Rahm Emanuel begging the “Biden Republicans” to stick with the Democrats the way the Reagan Democrats have stuck with the GOP.
Good luck to them both, we say. It may be too soon for newspaper endorsements in a presidential race (the nominations haven’t been fully conferred yet). It’s not too soon, though, to suggest that the formulas sketched by Messrs. Stephens and Emanuel fail to compute for the Sun. It’s just hard to see the attraction of Mr. Biden to someone who favors Republican principles.
Mr. Emanuel asks us to be clear about 1968, when feuding Democrats upended the progressive movement. “Today, by contrast,” he writes, “even if Democrats disagree on the path forward, we share the same objectives: expanding health coverage, curtailing climate change, and promoting economic equality and social justice.” In other words, anti-Republican tax increases.
Mr. Stephens offers a more thoughtful reprise than the ex-mayor who failed to save the Windy City. The most obvious recommendations for Mr. Biden, Mr. Stephens suggests, are a “succession of ‘isn’ts.’” Namely, that he isn’t Mr. Trump and isn’t Senator Sanders. That is, he “isn’t angry, bigoted, cruel, demagogic, erratic, frightening or gross” and driving the country “into a ditch.”
It’s not so clear to us that, at this stage of the game, there’s a safe margin between Mr. Biden and the bigotry and demagoguery of Senator Sanders. The former veep was on the stage in South Carolina when, to mark merely one moment, Mr. Sanders lashed out at Israel, calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a “racist.” There wasn’t a peep of protest from Mr. Biden.
Nor does Mr. Trump, in our view, have any corner on anger. Just look at the Democrats ravaging Portland, Oregon, or some of our other cities. Maybe Mr. Biden will find, like President Clinton famously did, his Sister Souljah moment. The doddering Democrat hasn’t found it, yet, though, and we wouldn’t hold our breath. It’s Mr. Trump who’s seized the law and order issue.
Which brings us to the conservative idea. Mr. Stephens suggests — and good for him — that it’s “about the preservation of a constitutional order that is itself liberal.” We take him to be using the word liberal in the classical sense. What can that mean in America, though, if not accepting the decision of the states that, following the Constitution, delivered Mr. Trump the presidency?
The refusal to credit the 2016 election, in our view, is the most basic disqualifying error of the Democratic Party. It was born of a leftist flaw — a sense of entitlement. It has stoked more anger than anything Mr. Trump has done. He, at least, ran and won on his program. He spent less money doing so than the Democrats, and understood federalism. So who is the illberal party here?
We understand that the President is down in the polls and that he could well lose the election. We’re not going to take that as a given though, not from the New York Times. Nor from Mayor Emanuel, who’s already worrying about whether Biden Republicans will stick with Mr. Biden after the Delaware Democrat wins the presidency. For our part, we’ll wait for the election — another conservative idea, however quaint.
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