AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
With Democrats’ likelihood of retaining control of Congress slipping away, an astonishingly low approval rating, and more than half of Democrat voters saying they want someone else on their party’s ticket in 2024, Joe Biden may already be a lame duck president by year’s end. But that isn’t likely to stop the radical policies emanating from the White House – and may only encourage the embattled president to double down on his destructive progressive overreach to cement his imagined “legacy.”
After taking office last January, Biden quickly pivoted from his campaign message of “unity” and “bipartisanship” to a hardcore left-wing agenda. On day one, he passed a slew of executive actions rescinding many of President Trump’s successful policies, including a moratorium on oil and gas exploration on public lands, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, and turning the southern border into a nightmare.
In Congress, the White House worked in lockstep with progressive lawmakers to advance an extreme left-wing agenda straight out of the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playbook. After passing billions of dollars’ worth of government handouts under the guise of “pandemic relief,” Congressional Democrats pursued everything from a federal takeover of elections to mass amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The infrastructure bill, the only remotely bipartisan (and even that is debatable) major legislative initiative passed this Congress, was only ever on the table because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had promised to ram through Biden’s massive $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill immediately after – something which was only blocked thanks to Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) realizing that passing the bill would amount to political suicide.
All of that, however, may pale in comparison with what Americans might expect from a lame duck Democrat Congress and a Democrat president who know that his party may not regain undivided power for a long time. Even if Republicans do win back the majority in November’s midterms, Democrats will still have unified control of government for two months before Republicans take control in January. That’s a long time for Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden to go for broke – literally.
With a historically weak president in the White House, an unfavorable Senate map in 2024 and 2026, and a potentially huge Republican majority to overcome in the House, Democrats could potentially be out of power for several electoral cycles, increasing the urgency to pass their progressive agenda while they still can. Moreover, given their age and the growing opposition within the Democratic Party to older, white leaders, it’s highly unlikely that Pelosi, Schumer, or Biden will ever be in such a position of power again – further incentivizing a radical final act from the three.
The possibilities are truly frightening. In a last-ditch effort to save their Senate Majority, Democrats might try and add Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states. Democrats might also be inclined to try again on a federal takeover of elections, or even some of the various progressive provisions of Biden’s Build Back Better Act, the Green New Deal, or other extreme left-wing priorities.
Some of these prospective legislative initiatives might be blocked by Senators Manchin and Sinema, two Democrats who have shown they are not afraid to buck their party – in part because they themselves have tough reelection bids looming in 2024.
Nonetheless, the White House will still be in Democrat hands for at least another two years after November’s elections, and with the growth of presidential power in recent decades, Biden still can enforce the woke agenda from the top-down. If Biden decides that his chances – or those of a potential successor – are doomed in 2024, he might happily jump off the liberal deep end in a bid to convince himself and others that his legacy is that of a martyr for progressive causes. As counterintuitive as it may be, a Democratic wipeout in the upcoming midterms could end up convincing the President to govern even more liberally.
In this case, it would likely be up to the courts to counteract any abuse of power from the executive branch. Already since Biden has taken office, judges have stepped in to block Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors as well as to order Biden to continue President Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy. Such actions would likely become more common under a lame duck Biden presidency. States would also still have some recourse to counter Biden’s actions, as has been seen in places like Florida and Texas.
In short, Americans would be wise to continue holding Democrats accountable, even in the event of a Republican victory this November. The most dangerous government is an unwatched one, no matter if they have one day or one year left in power.