#Divided Dems in 2022 danger

While the media pay relentless attention to the intraparty GOP squabble over Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (until recently the third-ranking Republican in House leadership), the average American might not even be aware that the Democrats are facing a much more serious schism — divisions that threaten their hold on power. 

One of the most dramatic ruptures is now playing out over the Jewish state. Several high-profile progressives — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, among the most prominent — have vociferously defended Palestinian terrorism, smearing Israel as a racist “apartheid state.” Such rhetoric, once relegated to left-wing radicals on college campuses, is now a norm on the House floor. 

“We have lost the emotional side of the argument,” one pro-Israeli Democrat recently groused off-the-record. 

Yet, amid the raging Gaza conflict, President Biden OK’d an arms sale to Israel worth around $735 million. When Biden, who has so far taken a cautious both-siderism approach on the issue, landed in Detroit last week to visit an electric-car plant, he was confronted by the Hamas-supporter Talib, who pleaded her case against aid on the tarmac. 

Now Tlaib and others like Bernie Sanders are trying to scuttle the arms deal, a slap in the face to Biden’s foreign policy. 

It is not merely Israel. As Biden tries taking a tougher stand on China, Politico reports that the progressive wing has been lobbying the White House to soften its position in hopes of avoiding conflict with the government in Beijing. 

Sure, the Democratic Party is changing, but how long will the moderate wing allow itself to be cast as champion of Hamas and Communist China? 

Even Biden’s record spending proposals face internal opposition. His historic $2 trillion dollar “rescue” package has done little to help the recovery. Last month, economists expected to add around 1 million jobs, but we came up 800,000 jobs short. Biden, who continues to support generous unemployment benefits that disincentivize work, is now threatening to raise taxes and spike energy prices by pushing green policies. And as inflation worries continue, the president still advocates spending another $4 trillion dollars. 

“I can see the ads now. ‘Joe Biden the $6 trillion dollar man,’ ” one Democratic strategist told The Hill. “Most Americans want the government to work, but spending $6 trillion doesn’t make political sense.” 

In the Senate, the most obvious obstacles to these colossal bills are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, but there are likely dozens of other moderate Democrats strewn across Congress who do not relish explaining their party’s embrace of massive deficit spending and a socialistic turn. 

Indeed, in his efforts to placate the progressive wing of the party, Biden has, to one degree or another, embraced a slew of leftist issues that not only divide Democrats, but will create electoral difficulties for their party in the 2022 midterms. Packing the Supreme Court, granting Washington, DC, statehood, eliminating basic voter-ID requirements through federal legislation, banning guns, and hiring 87,000 new IRS agents to audit Americans might be popular in deep-blue areas, but they aren’t the types of positions that win elections in contested districts. 

House Democrats, already dealing with redistricting — Republicans will likely gain somewhere around five seats — are going to face even tougher odds if the progressive left continues to dictate the agenda. And the closer we get to elections, the more these divisions promise to be exposed. 

The media is doing their best to downplay the civil war on the left while portraying the GOP as the party divided. What happens when the Democrats blow up in their face?