What On Earth Are Bernie and AOC Doing??

By backing Joe Biden to the hilt, the progressives aren't doing themselves, or their cause, any favors.

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Here’s a partial list of the Democratic Party bigwigs who are losing faith in Joe Biden as their presidential nominee and, to varying degrees, nudging him to step aside: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Adam Schiff, George Clooney (lol), and now Barack Obama, who, according to The Washington Post today, believes Biden’s “path to victory has greatly diminished.”

Quite notably, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not only not on that list, but they’re standing firmly beside Biden even as other allies are creating distance. Ocasio-Cortez has told reporters the matter of Biden’s candidacy “is closed,” and Sanders gave an interview to The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner, where, when asked if he had concerns about the president’s ability to serve another four years, responded, “Look, I have concerns about everything, you know? And everybody should have concerns about everything.” Heartening!

As a result of this shoring up, Biden has, basically for the first time this campaign, made noise about actual campaign policy promises, among them a cap on raising rent “by $55 [sic]” and reforming the Supreme Court, possibly with term limits and a code of ethics. Some of these announcements reportedly followed negotiations with Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. (Not on the list of these reported progressive demands: anything to do with stopping the genocide in Gaza, something Biden actually has control over and could move on right away.)

Pedants have pointed out to me that this amounts to political “horse-trading,” which, sure. But two smart people recently made clear how ill-advised this is: Jack, in the DMs, compared this gambit to horse-trading on a horse that’s already on its way to the glue factory, and Chapo Trap House’s Will Menaker recently compared the situation with making a deal contingent on reaching New York on the Titanic after you’ve hit the iceberg.

Or, to put it another way: what on earth are Sanders and AOC doing?

Let’s be real here.