The Democrats Are Revolting against Biden

The Democratic Party and the Biden administration are one step away from failing in their grand plan to conquer America. Because of the 79-year-old president’s unpopularity, several senators from his own party refused to support some of his incredibly important initiatives — the ones that could turn the U.S. into a dictatorship. This is a grand failure for the party and for Joe Biden personally.

Biden’s presidency is not a personal project but a party matter. Throughout nearly his entire presidential campaign, he was just a supporting actor; his election victory (one of the most controversial and scandal ridden in American history) was an achievement of the Democrats’ “political machine” — starting with governors and ending with ordinary activists. The party did its best; after all, as the new president, Biden was supposed to fulfill a historical mission.

That mission wasn’t only about removing the “insufferable racist” Donald Trump from the White House, but also about making sure that the victory of candidates like Trump (and Trump himself) would be truly impossible. The American system, putting “such a dummy” in charge, had failed — so the Democrats thought. The system had to be changed.

For the U.S., that meant the establishment of a one-party dictatorship — creating an environment in which the Republican Party would lose its ability to lay claim to power on the federal level for a long while. The 2020 election results allowed the Democrats to achieve this goal: They controlled the House of Representatives, the White House and the Senate. (It’s actually 50/50 there right now, but the vice president, who serves as the president of the Senate, has the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote.)

At first, it seemed that Biden would be a weak president with questionable legitimacy, someone who wouldn’t attempt any radical or arrogant reform. But the effort by Trump supporters to attack the Capitol by Trump gave the Democrats a way to hit the jackpot. They presented the situation as one where the nation had to gather around the legitimate president and come together against the protesters. And the nation did unite. Trump was publicly shamed and spat on, Biden’s ratings went through the roof, the triumph of the winners over the losers slowly transformed into building a one-party dictatorship.

There was a detailed plan for it, and it was thorough. The Democrats sought to expand the size of the almighty U.S. Supreme Court, where the conservative justices still hold a majority. The Democrats wanted to give Democratic-controlled Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico statehood so the party could assume permanent control over the Senate. They also wanted to end the filibuster — a Senate tradition that has forced the Democrats to seek compromise with their opposition on the most important decisions. They also wanted to push through immigration reform, to critically increase the number of Democratic voters in large Republican states like Texas, and voting reform, which would normalize the legal loopholes that sealed Trump's defeat.

The Biden administration advanced on all fronts with this agenda, especially pushing forward with voting reform, which is packaged with the elimination of the filibuster. With the filibuster rule still in force, a process which is like staging a strike of sorts requires 60 votes in the Senate to end, it’s impossible to proceed with voting reform; the Republicans know that the future of their party is at stake (as is the future of the entire country), hence they are ready to fight back like during Pearl Harbor.

A year ago, Biden had every chance to win, excel, fulfill his mission and put the country under the full control of the Democratic Party. But something went awry, and we know what it was. Increased inflation, an immigration crisis, the Afghanistan catastrophe, a raging labor market and the 79-year-old president's failure to act caused his ratings to crumble to 30%, pulling down the ratings of the entire Democratic Party.

According to Gallup, in the third quarter of last year, the Democratic Party’s popularity index equaled that of the Republicans, but by the end of the fourth quarter, it was 42% to 47% in favor of the Republicans. If there is no turn in the tide, (and we see no reason that there will be), the Republicans could regain control over one or both houses of Congress after the midterm elections in November. If that happens, Biden can forget about his historic mission. Establishing one-party rule (or, as the Republicans put it, the liberal dictatorship) will be postponed indefinitely.

But the Democrats have almost an entire year until then — and they can accomplish a great deal in that time, if only the party can enjoy absolute loyalty and unity among its ranks. This, however, is unattainable given the president's current unpopularity.

The point is that neither of the leading U.S. parties is really a party by European standards, but rather a conglomerate of politicians, or a federation of several forces with significant differences in their political programs. If one side of the Democrats’ ideology leans toward socialists and Black Lives Matter activists, the other is counterbalanced by functionaries with moderate views from the conservative states, mostly indistinguishable from liberal Republicans.

These days, such political diversity gathering under one party's flag is even less pronounced than in the past. For example, during the abolition of racial segregation spearheaded by the Democratic Party, some members of Congress including Southern senators openly racist views didn’t dare change their party alignment (traditions are very important for the American South), but voted with the Republicans. They were called “Blue Dog Democrats.”

Today's Blue Dogs, who have mutinied at a most crucial moment, are Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

Sinema represents Arizona in the Senate; Manchin represents West Virginia. These states are relatively conservative; before the mass migration of people from Latin America, Arizona was even considered ultraconservative. For a long time, the seat now held by Sinema (the first openly bisexual woman and the second LGBT senator in the Senate’s history) was occupied by the ultraright Cold War fanatic Barry Goldwater, a friend of the Blue Dogs.

With party initiatives on redistricting splitting the nation and driven by the efforts of a very unpopular administration, voting along with the majority of their fellow party members will not be welcomed warmly by many of Sinema and Manchin's constituents. The Democrats in Arizona are different kinds of Democrats than in Democrats in liberal California. During the upcoming midterms, they’ll gladly support a moderate or even not-so-moderate Republican. (After Goldwater, Arizona was represented by John McCain, who was notorious in Russia — quite radical in foreign politics, but moderate in social affairs.)

Virginia, which borders Manchin's state and was once considered the bastion of the Democrats, has already elected a governor in a reflection of what’s happening in the country. It chose the quite conservative Glenn Youngkin, a shock for the entire party, and a glaring warning for both Sinema and Manchin.

Neither senator wants to risk their career, but they’re still aware of the party’s internal rules; hence, they've changed their tactics — they play for both camps. On the one hand, they were convinced by their fellow party members about voting reform (Biden personally played an important role in this), but on the other hand, they met the filibuster elimination proposal categorically asserting that it had to stay as it is.

“Eliminating the filibuster would be the easy way out. It wasn’t meant to be easy. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation,” Manchin stated.

That means that voting reform has almost no chance in the Senate — with the filibuster, the Republicans won’t allow it to pass. Sinema and Manchin understand that perfectly, and they swindle their fellow party members like a dodgy car dealer; “I’ll sell you the car as I promised, but I never said anything about the wheels, the engine and the steering wheel,” — effectively working for both the Republicans and the Democrats.

Now the White House threatens to punish them. Vice President and President of the Senate Kamala Harris has already stated that she “won’t forgive action or inaction” that will lead to the failure of the voting reform.* But punishing the opportunists doesn’t mean the end of the mutiny, and Sinema and Manchin are probably aware that the person making the threats is not the most popular Democratic vice president in history.

As for Biden, he is for now a bit more popular than George W. Bush was toward the end of his second term, but it’s too late for him to fulfill his political mission. That’s the main result of his first year as the leader of the United States.

*Editor's Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.