Powerful signs that Biden will have a tough time to control progressives and their growing influence inside the Democratic party

We wrote recently that, even if Biden wins easily in November, things will never be the same inside his party. It seems that the progressive wave is getting stronger, especially after some big victories of progressive candidates in the recent Democratic Primary. The most impressive of them, is AOC's new victory against a Wall Street puppet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez achieved an astonishing victory through an unreal percentage (72.6%).

Therefore, Bernie's political revolution is far from over. The progressive army is growing stronger and Biden will have a tough time to deal with the Leftist pressure inside the Democratic party. Maintaining the neoliberal agenda won't be a walk in the park on a sunny day.

We already have strong indications towards that case. As Joe Garofoli reported recently for the San Francisco Chronicle [emphasis added]:

California progressives are not letting up on Joe Biden after he released a clean-energy plan last week that is more left-leaning than what he campaigned on during the primaries. They want him to go further left on that and other issues — and they aren’t going to stop pushing him even if he defeats President Trump in November and winds up in the White House.

Progressives don’t expect Biden to shift course anytime soon and embrace their top priorities, including a Medicare for All health care plan and the Green New Deal environmental outline. But while many are pleased with some of the policy compromises that came out of a recent unity commission composed of Biden and Sanders supporters, they aren’t satisfied with everything in the 110-page document. Biden is reviewing the proposals that will shape the Democratic Party platform.

“It’s better than what Biden campaigned on,” said Amar Shergill, chairman of the progressive caucus of the California Democratic Party, the largest affinity group in the nation’s largest Democratic state organization. “We don’t reject progress when we get it. This represents progress.”

But Shergill added that progressives will keep pressuring Biden even if he wins the presidency. “We’re going to get the best possible deal we can now, make it the new normal for Democrats, and then get up the next day and keep trying to get more. Even after he’s elected.”

Yet, it seems that the Leftist pressure comes from all directions and already starts to change fundamentally the Democratic party on key issues.

It can be seen clearly from the fact that many Democrats are now seriously challenging the influence of the Israeli lobby inside the party. Progressives play a significant role as they push towards a pro-Palestinian stance that will unquestionably condemn the Israeli crimes against Palestinians. As MintPress News reported recently [emphasis added]:

Once upon a time, America’s political elite, whose politics diverged on many issues, wholeheartedly agreed on one single foreign policy matter: their country’s blind and unconditional love and support for Israel. In those days, the influential pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ruled the roost, reigning supreme in the US Congress and, almost single-handedly, decided on the fate of Congressmen and women based on their support, or lack thereof, of Israel.

While it is too early to proclaim that ‘those days are over,’ judging by the vastly changing political discourse on Palestine and Israel, the many opinion polls, and the electoral successes of anti-Israeli occupation candidates in national and local elections, one is compelled to say that AIPAC’s tight grip on US foreign policy is finally loosening.

[...]

On June 25, a whopping number of nearly 200 Democratic House members, including some of the most staunch supporters of Israel, called, in a letter, on Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials to scrap their plan to illegally annex nearly 30 percent of the West Bank. [...] While the wording of the letter was far from being dubbed ‘threatening’, the fact that it was signed by stalwart Israeli allies, such as Florida Congressman, Ted Deutch and Illinois Congressman, Brad Schneider, speaks volumes about the shifting discourse on Israel among the center and even conservative corners of the Democratic Party. Among the signers were also prominent figures in the Democratic establishment, like Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer.

Equally important, is that the influence of the younger and more progressive generation of Democratic politicians continues to push the boundaries of the party’s discourse on Israel, thanks to the tireless work of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues. Along with a dozen Democratic lawmakers, Ocasio-Cortez issued another letter on June 30, this time addressed to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Unlike the first letter, the second one was assertive and markedly daring. [...] The reason that it is no longer easy for the pro-Israel lobby to maintain its decades-long hegemony over Congress is that the likes of Ocasio-Cortez are, themselves, a byproduct of the generational and, likely, irreversible change that has taken place among Democrats over the years.

But the progressive battles against the neoliberal "dinosaurs" of the Democratic party are far from over. Another one, probably one of the most decisive, will take place on the general election, as Shahid Buttar managed to earn a place on the ballot. Although it seems that the odds are against him as he will have to face the chief-"baroness" of the party, Nancy Pelosi, many things could change until the election day.

Buttar frequently attacks Pelosi from the Left quite hard. In a recent interview with Mark Steiner of The Real News, he started saying that "frankly, running against the speaker is easier than it sounds, if only because she does such an effective job of advancing Republican interests. So, she does a great deal of campaigning on my behalf by doing as much as she does to support and enable the Trump administration while mouthing supposedly resistance to it."

In another interview with Aaron Maté of The Grayzone, Buttar stated that Pelosi "is tough. She is very effective at getting things done for Wall Street. And the substance of our critique, the reason I'm running, is that, we, the people of the United States have been unrepresented in the Democratic party, for entirely too long."

Α surprising Buttar victory against Pelosi would radically shift the power of balance towards progressives inside the Democrats. Biden will lose his most critical ally. Then, progressives could even destroy his plans for another absolutely devastating war against Iran.

As we wrote almost two years ago, progressives will have to fight against two monsters at the same time towards 2020 presidential elections: Donald Trump and corporate Democrats. And despite all hopeful signs, we have to stick to our initial estimation: it would be almost impossible to defeat them both, without their own independent political party.

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