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| Cosplay leftist members and members-elect of Congress protest Joe Biden (?). Credit: C-Span. |
Donald Trump is refusing to concede and election he lost, and he is sowing chaos and destruction on his way out of office. But the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have more problems than just the live bombs that an angry Donald Trump will leave in their path. The left's self-proclaimed gateskeepers plan on doing their fair share to derail and sabotage the incoming Biden administration much the same way they did the Obama presidency.
Since it has become clear that Joe Biden will be sworn in as president at noon on January 20, 2021, the alt-left groups - many of which were so repelled by the Democratic party's nomination of Joe Biden over their darling Bernie Sanders that they refused to even endorse Biden over Donald Trump - have alternatively rushed to take credit for Biden's victory and accuse the President-elect of being a corporatist for hiring onto his transition team people who have had jobs before.
Just such an event took place on Thursday on the steps of the Democratic National Committee at Washington, DC. The protest-style rally was organized by the Sunrise Movement - one of the radical groups that did not think there was enough differences between Joe Biden and the incumbent fascist to endorse the Biden-Harris ticket - and was attended by no less than six members and/or members-elect of Congress. The lone US Senator in attendance, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, was joined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17), Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Rep.-elect Mondaire Jones (NY-17), and Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman (NY-16).
It should be noted that all members or members-elect of Congress at the press conference came from solid Democratic districts, and no Republican has won these areas on the general election ballot since the districts were drawn after the 2010 redistricting. Despite that, many of these candidates performed more poorly for their districts than in the 2018 midterms. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, appears to have lost 10-percentage points from her win in 2018, and 5000 raw votes. Khanna ceded four points from his 2018 margin in a deep-blue Silicon Valley district.
Ostensibly, the members as well as the activists had gathered to impress upon the country and the Democratic party the urgent need to address the climate crisis and implore President-elect Biden to create an Office of Climate Action within the White House and push a $2 trillion ambitious legislative agenda. Notably, however, there is little doubt that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are committed to both executive and legislative action on climate change. Not only is Biden considering a dedicated office within the Executive Office of the President, an office akin to what the protesters seemed to be demanding was already part of the Obama-Biden White House before a Republican takeover of the House forced an end to its funding, and the $2 trillion investment plan in green jobs, with 40% dedicated to communities of color, is outlined in candidate Joe Biden's climate plan.
President-elect Joe Biden, who as a Senator wrote the first ever climate legislation passed in Congress, is clearly an ally, and he, without a shadow of a doubt, is clearly not an obstacle to a bold legislative agenda to address climate change. It then begs the question, why target President-elect Biden through a protest-style demonstration rather than the people who are the primary obstacles to a massive climate action plan, namely, the Senate Republican Caucus and its leader, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell?
The members of Congress had an opportunity to directly address the Republican obstructionism and Sen. McConnell after they were asked a question about why their demonstration is not being held in front of the RNC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Mitch McConnell's office. Answering for the group, California Rep. Ro Khanna (disclaimer: Ro represents me in Congress) refused to even name McConnell, and went on to say that their goal was for the Biden administration to push the Senate, even in the case the GOP retains control of the upper chamber, as though McConnell has proven malleable to Democratic White House pressure. Not a single member or member-elect spoke about Republican antipathy to climate legislation, let alone McConnell's desk of legislative death. Not Khanna, nor Ocasio-Cortez, nor Sen. Markey, nor any other member or member-elect even mentioned Mitch McConnell throughout the entire photo op.
And that should really tell us all we need to know about the motivations of the Sunrise Movement and the members of Congress that showed up: they are utterly unserious about actually getting climate legislation passed. Rather, they wish to put on performance theater after performance theater pretending the incoming president can cool the planet with the stroke of a pen.
Think about this: these members and members-elect showed up, supposedly, to remind Joe Biden what his job is once he takes office, but not one dared substantively address what their job is. They are the continuing and incoming members of Congress, and it will their job to pass climate legislation and put it on the desk of the President-elect to sign. Giving speeches and cavorting with a group that did not bother to endorse the party's nominee in the presidential election will not get them any closer to getting actual legislation enacted.
I suggest instead of just trying to tell Joe Biden who elected him - which was most definitely not people in the Sunrise Movement - and what his job is, our members of Congress earn their taxpayer funded paychecks and offices by doing their job. Instead of painting what is likely to be the most climate-friendly administration in history as the enemy, they should concentrate on finding ways to getting meaningful legislation through both chambers of Congress. That is, if alt-leftists actually care about climate justice more than they do about creating a climate of hostility toward Democrats and the incoming Democratic administration.
Time will tell whether they do, but I am not holding my breath.