Biden Faces Growing Dem Defection On Migrant Crisis

Late last month, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey became the most recent blue-state politician to declare a state of emergency over the ongoing migrant crisis and to activate the National Guard to deal with more than 6,000 families in shelters across her state.

Healey’s move was not entirely a surprise. A month ago, she joined a litany of local and state Democrat politicians including New York Mayor Eric Adams, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul in berating the Biden administration for its handling of the crisis.

What is striking is not the actions of Healey and other Democrats, but what they tell us about the way the migrant issue is helping fuel a growing discontent and unease with Biden within the elite of the Democratic party. Governors and the mayors of key blue-state cities are canaries in the coal mine not only because they are often in touch with their voters, but also because they are historically deferential to any Democrat administration in Washington.

There is a reason for this custom. Due to quirks of history and political culture, there are few avenues for advancement for the Mayor of New York City or Chicago. Running for Congress or state legislature is seen as a downgrade, while both cities are viewed with suspicion statewide.

The role of a major city mayor often requires a successful officeholder to lobby on behalf of the interests of their city against those of the rest of the state, which makes it difficult to transition to a statewide run for governor or Senate. No mayor of New York City has ever achieved higher office since the city was consolidated, and the last mayor of Chicago to be elected governor left office in 1907.

Oddly, governors in many of these states have a similar problem. The normal path for advancement is to run for Senate or president. The latter option is always a temptation, but many of the same dynamics which play against any New York or Chicago mayor running statewide also exist when it comes to a governor of one of those states running for president. That leaves a Senate race, but these states are notoriously pro-incumbent. New York has only had three different senators in total over the last 23 years.

The result is that both mayors of major cities and governors of blue states often must look to favor in Washington for advancement, ideally for cabinet appointments.

This helps explain two phenomena more evident in the Democrat than Republican Party.

First, the high representation of former mayors and governors in Democrat administrations, and secondly, the almost slavish fawning with which state and local Democrats tend to treat the party’s leadership in Washington. In the long-run, patronage in the Democratic Party derives from Washington, D.C., and continued influence of state and local leaders can only be maintained by securing appointments there.

Many of Barack Obama’s worst decisions were enabled by the lack of pushback he received from local figures who did not want to risk worrying him. Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in the 2009 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, and the extent of the disaster facing Democrats in 2010 appear to have been disguised from Obama. Similarly, in 2016, Democrat governors desperate for jobs from a famously petty Hillary Clinton avoided providing her campaign with any “bad news.”

This historical context is what makes the current revolt over the migrant crisis so interesting. We should expect Democrat politicians to be exasperated and outraged by the burden the flood of arrivals is putting on their states and cities. We should expect them to be frustrated with the indifference of the administration. What we should also expect is for them to hold their tongues, in the belief that they could still happily take jobs in Washington insisting that nothing is wrong with the border.

The fact that figures like Adams, Johnson, Hochul and now Healey are publicly attacking the White House speaks to a broader breakdown in the functioning of the Democratic Party. That can mean one of two things and quite possibly indicate both are true.

First, they could believe the administration is so detached from the day-to-day reality in the country that it should welcome “bad news” being brought to its attention without blaming the messenger. Second, it could mean that they do not see much future for the current administration, or those who staff it.

Joe Biden is currently running for reelection, largely uncontested by any sort of establishment figure. That would normally indicate both that any patronage in Washington would be dependent on him in the event he wins, and that Democrat voters would punish those who identify themselves against him.

That this is not happening tells us that these Democrat politicians believe that going forward their self-interest will be rewarded by Democrat voters for having positioned themselves against Biden. It also suggests that they believe whoever takes over the Democrat Party after Biden will not be part of the current inner-circle and therefore will not hold a grudge.

Biden and his team should be worried by the diversity of those politicians who are speaking out, as they represent vastly different constituencies. Eric Adams and Brandon Johnson are both African American but represent opposite ideological poles. Adams is a former police officer who ran to the right of the rest of the field. Brandon Johnson was affiliated with Democratic Socialists of America and linked to movements favoring abolishing the police. That both are speaking out indicates that Biden’s name carries little weight either on the right or left of the party, nor with those who think Biden is too friendly to migrants and those who think he is not doing enough for them.

Healey provides an even more interesting example. Healey is the personification of the upscale, high-earning, degree-heavy Boston suburbs. The former state attorney general and Massachusetts’s first Lesbian governor, Healey’s voters are the very constituency (whites with postgraduate degrees) which is keeping Biden’s numbers from a total collapse. If the current Democratic Party can be said to have a cultural core, it would be Healey.

Healey’s criticisms also illustrate the difficulty of Biden’s position. While denouncing “a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making,” her solution was to call for the federal government to expedite work permits for the migrants, rather than to suspend her state’s right-to-shelter law, as Adams tried.

Here lies a hint as to Biden’s paralysis and why things will only get worse. Those on the right of the Democratic Party such as Adams feel that they can gain political points by denouncing Biden for not being tough enough on migrants. Those on the left, with aspirations to market themselves as its representatives, such as Johnson, feel they can denounce Biden for being cold and indifferent. Technocratic liberals like Healey feel they can float “technical solutions” and blame the administration for not appointing people like them to implement them.

Any effort by the administration to appease one set of complaints will only strengthen the others. A failure to respond to any reinforces the image of indifference and weakness which encourages all factions to campaign against the administration on the issue.

A strong president would choose and act. Biden’s approach has been to allow drift, and as with foreign policy since Afghanistan, the fear of alienating anyone has resulted in giving everyone a grievance while advertising an image of weakness which encourages those grievances to be aired. In this case, he cannot even respond to those grievances by crushing dissent at its source. To do so would require picking a side, and the rationale for his current approach is to avoid picking a side within the party.

The greatest danger for Biden is that the migrant issue will combine with others to reinforce the wider perception that the administration is incapable of decision-making, and a punching bag for every aspiring politician or demagogue, at home or abroad. There are dangers with selling yourself on who and what you are not. Not least, you end up being perceived as nothing at all.

Arthur Camman is the pseudonym of a regular writer on current affairs who has taught history at the University level for eight years. He has worked on Capitol Hill, and is familiar with the historical development of the American and British political systems.