OPINION:
President Biden and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill are ignoring the will of the people and governing as if they have a mandate to enact a radical agenda that fundamentally transforms our constitutional republic.
This gross misinterpretation of reality will lead to a Republican rout at the polls in just over a year-and-a-half.
While Mr. Biden promotes himself as a phony unifying moderate, left-wing ideologues in staff level positions — both in the White House and on the Hill — are unilaterally moving forward with extreme socialist policies that 50% of the country rejected in 2020.
Blind to the skyrocketing deficit and national debt, Democrats are irresponsibly passing multi-trillion dollar wasteful spending bills that will crush future generations. Job-killing Green New Deal and wealth redistribution bills are being disguised as “COVID relief” or “infrastructure” packages. Illegal immigrants are flooding across the southern border with dreams of free health care and hotel rooms, paid for by hardworking American taxpayers. Unconstitutional “voting rights” bills like H.R. 1 will fundamentally destroy ballot security and deny states their right to run their own elections.
Recent history has proven that Democratic presidents who misread their mandates and overreach with radical policies the American people didn’t sign up for suffer “tidal wave” losses in their first midterm elections.
In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected with just 43% of the popular vote — not exactly a clarion call for massive change. Regardless, Mr. Clinton tacked hard left in 1993 with the infamous “Hillarycare” health care takeover and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, both priorities for coastal elites. As a result, Republicans won control of both chambers of Congress in the 1994 elections, picking up eight seats in the U.S. Senate and 54 seats in the Newt Gingrich-led red tsunami in the U.S. House.
Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on a message of moderation and unity, and that was the expectation of the American people when he took office. However, once in power, Mr. Obama changed course and pushed ahead with a far-left agenda that spawned the failed Obamacare law, big government bailouts and a massive economic stimulus bill filled with the liberal wish list, like “shovel ready jobs” and “cash for clunkers.” Sound familiar? Democrats yet again faced brutal consequences in the midterm elections. In 2010, Republicans gained six Senate seats and a whopping 63 House seats, wresting back control of the House from Nancy Pelosi.
Now, in an eerily similar fashion, Mr. Biden is ignoring the wishes of the forgotten men and women in America as well by plowing forward with an out of touch radical agenda.
Liberal pundits have been quick to herald Mr. Biden as the new Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson for his so-called “transformational” policies. It was reported last week that the president even met with historians in the East Room of the White House on how to package his massive spending policies in the context of those two presidents. Their conclusion: “It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected. If that means chucking the filibuster and bipartisanship, so be it.”
However, a crucial point is being missed in 2021 — both FDR and LBJ had nationwide mandates to enact their “New Deal” and “Great Society” spending programs that dramatically increased the size and scope of government.
FDR defeated Herbert Hoover in a landslide in 1932 — he won 42 states on his way to amassing 472 electoral votes. LBJ, after assuming the presidency following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, won the 1964 election by carrying 44 states and securing 486 electoral votes. Mr. Biden, by contrast, won the presidency by the thinnest of margins — about 40,000 votes in just three states.
The arrogant presumption of Mr. Biden and his team to compare his administration to presidents like FDR and LBJ is historically illiterate. Mr. Biden is presiding over a divided nation whether he knows it or not — the Democrats have a miniscule five-seat House majority and the Senate is locked at 50-50. By ignoring these facts, Mr. Biden is calling down the thunder from the American people.
Democrats may be resigned to the reckoning coming at the polls in 2022 so, instead of working to enact laws that are popular with the American people, they are trampling on precedent to rush through as much of the liberal wish list as they can, while they still can. This is what’s behind the irresponsible and shortsighted charge to abolish the filibuster; this is why Nancy Pelosi is attempting to steal a House seat from duly-elected Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks; this is why Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is reinterpreting parliamentary and procedural rules to ram unpopular legislation through the Senate under reconciliation.
The Founders’ design of the House and Senate featured built-in guardrails and protections to ensure minority rights so that one party cannot attempt drastic change without building a bipartisan consensus. Unsurprisingly, today’s unhinged leftists view these traditions as inconvenient relics that don’t apply to them.
In response to this unprecedented rush of legislation fast-tracked straight to the floor, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus this week sent a letter to House Speaker Pelosi calling for a “return to regular order in the House.” Vulnerable House Democrats know that their party’s attempts to bulldoze long-standing legislative processes by passing bills with little to no debate will cost them dearly with voters.
The American people voted for unity, transparency and compromise — none of which they are getting from the Biden White House or the Democrat-controlled Congress. The Democrats are governing as if they have a nationwide mandate, which everyone can see doesn’t exist.
Republicans, independents and moderate Democrats across the country must stand up to this irrational behavior and hold the line against the deluge of radical, leftist policies threatening to destroy our country for 19 more months. Then, the American people have a funny way of fixing what’s broken at the ballot box.
• David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and he served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.
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