Other than just-for-the-fun-of-it election predictions, I generally stick to economic analysis rather than politics.
But I acted as a pundit in this interview about Joe Biden’s waning popularity (in my defense, I also used the opportunity to slip is some criticism of his agenda).
My assertions about Biden pushing a hard-left agenda aren’t new.
I made the same point during the 2020 election campaign.
And I take second place to nobody in criticizing what he’s been doing ever since he got inaugurated.
Indeed, the only thing I’m uncertain about is whether I should be more upset about his class-warfare tax agenda or his proposals to expand the burden of government spending.
And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think my comments about Biden’s leftist ideology are controversial. Not even back in 2020.
For instance, here’s the headline from a Vox column that year by Matt Yglesias.
And here’s a headline from a column that same year by Michael Kazin in the New York Times.
Both of those columns said the same thing – namely, that Biden had embraced a leftist agenda (and both authors were very happy about that development).
I also would direct people to this 2019 Washington Post column by Lane Kenworthy, which observes (with approval) that Democrats have moved to the left.
If you want even more evidence, this analysis from 538 also makes the same point.
And a report from Pew notes that there’s a much bigger gap now between Republicans and Democrats – and it’s almost entirely because the median Democrat is now much farther to the left.
There’s one other point from my RT interview that’s worth highlighting.
I mentioned that we’ve had a strange realignment in the United States. Many rich people have moved to the left while lots of low-income people have moved to the right.
Is this because Democrats are pushing some policies that disproportionately help upper-income people, such as student loan bailouts and expanding the deduction for state and local taxes?
Maybe that’s part of the answer, but I mentioned in the discussion that social and cultural issues are probably the main reason.
In other words, wokeness may be the big dividing line nowadays in American politics – which is not exactly good news for libertarians who want the focus to be statism vs. liberty.
P.S. I also used the interview to explain that Reagan was special because he was able to enact big changes (notwithstanding America’s separation-of-powers system). But unlike other presidents who oversaw big changes (such as LBJ and FDR), Reagan actually pushed through reforms that were good for the nation.
P.P.S. I don’t like the idea of government-financed media, but my philosophical objections haven’t prevented me from appearing on PBS, BBC, and France 24, so I figured it was okay to also appear on Russia Today.
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Image credit: Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0.
