It’s clear the undertow of the progressive wave has pulled the Democratic Party far to the left

Photos: AP Images

The so-called “Blue Wave” that broke over Congress in the November 2018 midterms handed the Democratic Party a 41-seat gain and control of the House, and opened the door to President Trump’s impeachment.

But that wasn’t all. The anti-Trump fury of the Blue Wave also crashed down over moderate Democrats. The arrival of the “Squad” — a quartet of young, socialist anti-Israel Democrats — was the clearest sign that the party was shifting leftwards. In the biggest upset, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez — then a 29-year-old progressive activist known as AOC — defeated long-serving Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley.

Two years later, it’s clear that the undertow of the progressive wave has pulled the Democratic Party far to the left. Congress rejected AOC’s ruinously expensive Green New Deal to fight climate change, provide Medicare for all, and guarantee a “living wage” for all Americans. But despite the initial proposal’s $51 trillion price tag, the progressives’ energy forced Joe Biden to move with the times. Repackaging the “climate emergency” for blue-collar workers uninterested in trendy progressive causes, Biden promised “good union jobs that expand the middle class” — a $2 trillion Green New Deal in all but name.

It’s not just climate rhetoric. For all his “C’mon, man!” Joe-from-Scranton spiel, Biden is no continuity candidate. On issue after issue, from abortion and alternative lifestyles to the death penalty and immigration, Biden and the Democrats have shifted leftward.

“By any understanding of ‘moderate’ as that term was used when Obama or Bill Clinton were president,” writes Jeff Jacoby, “Biden is no moderate. As his party has shifted left in a hyperpolarized era, he has shifted with it.”

Republican strategist Jeff Ballabon agrees. “Biden is clearly a veneer of moderation over a party completely overwhelmed by the left,” he says. “The utility of the moderate wing in today’s Democratic Party is as a smokescreen for the far left.”

With all the sound and fury of the 2020 elections, the leftward shift of today’s Democratic Party, with progressives ascending from grassroots to commanding heights, is one of the biggest stories of this political era. For old-style Democrats, conservatives, and those concerned about the future of Jewish life in America, the tectonic shifts on the left raise big questions: How will the world of AOC shape politics going forward? What is the appeal of neo-socialism, especially to young voters? And how can moderates everywhere push back against the progressive tide?