The Left Gets Ready to Pressure the Biden Administration
Left-wing activists joined forces with Biden to defeat Trump, but their silence is already ending
For most of 2020, the left played nice. Many progressive leaders joined Joe Biden’s coalition because they believed defeating Donald Trump was paramount and the only way to advance their agenda. But now that Trump is almost out of the way, they’ve made it clear that they are expecting a return on their investment.
That starts with publicly pressuring Biden during the transition period.
In conversations with GEN, seven progressive organizers showed a mix of optimism and cynicism about what they could expect from Biden. Some are anticipating a hard fight with him on issues ranging from immigration and racial justice to foreign policy. Others believe he can be more gently nudged to the left, particularly after their movements gained policy ground on the Biden campaign’s “unity task forces.” Activists are now busy identifying windows of opportunity: On Monday, Biden mentioned the House Democrats’ pandemic relief bill, which calls for immediate forgiveness of $10,000 in student loan debt. High-profile progressives quickly used the momentum to call for Biden to cancel all of it. Meanwhile, the climate justice group Sunrise Movement and the…
