Biden is still trying to balance between everyone, but the progressives are losing patience and pushing for more decisive measures
Biden’s town hall event in Milwaukee last week provided three major headlines. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party didn’t like any of them.
When asked how he would fight crime, Biden replied simply: “By, number one, not defunding the police.” This is a clear rejection of the progressive mantra over the summer, which Biden’s people feared would harm his campaign.
The second headline was more significant, and related to student loan debt forgiveness of up to $50,000 per student. A large wing of the party, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, supports this. Biden made clear that he doesn’t. He’s willing to examine partial loan forgiveness, especially for community colleges — but not for those who went to expensive private universities. This awakened the ire of Warren and others in the party who called on him to go for it. They forgot one thing: that was Sanders’ campaign agenda, not Biden’s.
Third, and most intriguing, was his statement about the minimum wage. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (widely known as AOC) and Senator Chuck Schumer — politicians on opposite wings of the Democratic Party, agreed to draw up legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. This would more than double the current minimum wage of $7.25. In some states there’s no minimum wage at all, and in Georgia, for instance, it’s just $5.15.
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