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Joe Biden Isn’t a Liberal or a Moderate. He’s a Christian Democrat.
With his Iraq freedom war vote, segregationist ties and very controversial stances on gays/gay marriage pre recent evolution, Joe almost seemed like some right-wing conservative centrist Dem. But here is another characterization of his political makeup.
Related
June 22, 2020
Joseph R. Biden Jr. voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Two years earlier, he voted to cut off federal funds to schools that teach the acceptance of homosexuality. In 1973, Mr. Biden, in an off-handed response to a question, wondered if homosexuals in the military or government were potential security risks.
nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/politics/biden-gay-rights-lgbt.html
http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/The_Morning_News_Tue__Sep_25__1973_.pdf
Biden had called Republican Vice President Mike Pence - a religious conservative who as Indiana governor in 2014 signed a state law banning same-sex marriage - a “decent guy”
Joe Biden Isn’t a Liberal or a Moderate. He’s a Christian Democrat.
The Democratic front-runner’s ideology has less to do with Obama or the Clintons than a distinct style of European conservatism.
By Carlo Invernizzi Accetti | March 16, 2020, 10:47 AM
Joe Biden is nothing if not familiar to Americans. After watching him in the spotlight of U.S. politics for more than four decades, there’s a natural tendency to assume one already knows the former vice president—not just his personality and biography but the character of his political ideas. It has become second nature to describe his politics with such ready-made labels as “centrist” or “moderate.”
None of these labels is entirely false. But they also obscure much of the specific content of Biden’s platform and worldview. Biden is, in fact, a moderate—but he’s of a type that will likely be less familiar at first glance to American voters.
Biden’s campaign has thus far been very different from those of recent Democratic presidential nominees. Hillary Clinton embodied a form of technocratic liberalism based on a deep-seated faith in data, free markets, and the benign nature of U.S. military hegemony abroad. None of these is prominent in Biden’s current platform, which is much more about restoring a lost unity and civility at home than pursuing a forward- or outward-looking agenda.
Similarly, there was a charge of idealistic progressivism in Barack Obama’s two successful bids for the presidency that is entirely absent from Biden’s mode of self-presentation. In fact, the most obvious reason why Obama chose Biden as his running mate on both occasions is precisely that he was intended to function as a counterpoint to Obama’s own disruptive appeal, complementing the overall message of “Change!” with a more familiar and reassuring under-melody. It is therefore a mistake to assume that Biden merely stands for “Obamaism without Obama”—and even more so to think that his campaign constitutes a reiteration of Clinton’s failed bid for the presidency in 2016.
A more fruitful comparison emerges from the obvious fact that Biden seeks to trace a middle path between Donald Trump’s far-right nationalism and Bernie Sanders’s democratic socialism. Long before the notion of a “Third Way” was appropriated by British Labour Party leader Tony Blair in the 1990s, this was a staple talking point of a specific strand of continental European conservatism, which sought to distinguish itself from both fascism on the far-right and revolutionary socialism on the far-left during the interwar and immediate postwar years: the political tradition of Christian democracy.
This is the family of political parties that came to power in most continental European countries in the aftermath of World War II under the leadership of such figures as Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, and Robert Schuman. But it also remains prominent today in Germany under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the European Union’s Parliament and Commission, with Ursula Von der Leyen at the helm.
Biden’s two main political rivals at the moment are routinely thought of in reference to European political traditions—social democracy in the case of Sanders and far-right nationalism in the case of Trump. It’s time to do the same for Biden. The Democratic front-runner’s political ideology isn’t a watered-down version of his rivals’ or even his predecessors’. It is best understood as approximating a distinct European tradition—one that may indicate Bidenism’s ultimate legacy in the United States.
Stemming out of a 19th century intellectual endeavor to reconcile Catholic social doctrine with modern democracy, the Christian democratic ideology can be characterized in terms of three core principles: a morally tinged conception of the “natural order” as a harmonious and organically integrated society; a remedial conception of the welfare state as a way to protect social unity and stability from the threat of radical takeover; and a conception of democratic practice as a constant process of compromise and reconciliation between conflicting social interests.
Each of these three features finds a powerful echo in Biden’s current political stance and rhetoric. Consider his campaign’s constant claim that it’s involved in “a battle for the soul of America”: This points to the idea of a spiritual and ultimately existential threat against which Biden presents himself as a bulwark. The threat in question is evidently the divisive politics and abrasive style of the current U.S. president. In standing against him, Biden therefore claims to be restoring national unity and a sense of mutual civility.
This concept of America’s “soul” is given further substance by Biden’s frequent references to notions of “dignity,” “honor,” “decency,” and “hard work.” All these terms point to an idealized vision of American society as a harmonious and organically integrated order, one that rests on a foundation of mutual cooperation and a shared set of moral values—and, crucially, is temporally situated somewhere in the past. “This is not how our parents educated us” is a frequent refrain in Biden’s stump speeches.
...
foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/16/joe-biden-election-liberal-moderate-christian-democrat/
With his Iraq freedom war vote, segregationist ties and very controversial stances on gays/gay marriage pre recent evolution, Joe almost seemed like some right-wing conservative centrist Dem. But here is another characterization of his political makeup.
Related
June 22, 2020
Joseph R. Biden Jr. voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Two years earlier, he voted to cut off federal funds to schools that teach the acceptance of homosexuality. In 1973, Mr. Biden, in an off-handed response to a question, wondered if homosexuals in the military or government were potential security risks.
nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/politics/biden-gay-rights-lgbt.html
http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/The_Morning_News_Tue__Sep_25__1973_.pdf
Biden had called Republican Vice President Mike Pence - a religious conservative who as Indiana governor in 2014 signed a state law banning same-sex marriage - a “decent guy”
Joe Biden Isn’t a Liberal or a Moderate. He’s a Christian Democrat.
The Democratic front-runner’s ideology has less to do with Obama or the Clintons than a distinct style of European conservatism.
By Carlo Invernizzi Accetti | March 16, 2020, 10:47 AM
Joe Biden is nothing if not familiar to Americans. After watching him in the spotlight of U.S. politics for more than four decades, there’s a natural tendency to assume one already knows the former vice president—not just his personality and biography but the character of his political ideas. It has become second nature to describe his politics with such ready-made labels as “centrist” or “moderate.”
None of these labels is entirely false. But they also obscure much of the specific content of Biden’s platform and worldview. Biden is, in fact, a moderate—but he’s of a type that will likely be less familiar at first glance to American voters.
Biden’s campaign has thus far been very different from those of recent Democratic presidential nominees. Hillary Clinton embodied a form of technocratic liberalism based on a deep-seated faith in data, free markets, and the benign nature of U.S. military hegemony abroad. None of these is prominent in Biden’s current platform, which is much more about restoring a lost unity and civility at home than pursuing a forward- or outward-looking agenda.
Similarly, there was a charge of idealistic progressivism in Barack Obama’s two successful bids for the presidency that is entirely absent from Biden’s mode of self-presentation. In fact, the most obvious reason why Obama chose Biden as his running mate on both occasions is precisely that he was intended to function as a counterpoint to Obama’s own disruptive appeal, complementing the overall message of “Change!” with a more familiar and reassuring under-melody. It is therefore a mistake to assume that Biden merely stands for “Obamaism without Obama”—and even more so to think that his campaign constitutes a reiteration of Clinton’s failed bid for the presidency in 2016.
A more fruitful comparison emerges from the obvious fact that Biden seeks to trace a middle path between Donald Trump’s far-right nationalism and Bernie Sanders’s democratic socialism. Long before the notion of a “Third Way” was appropriated by British Labour Party leader Tony Blair in the 1990s, this was a staple talking point of a specific strand of continental European conservatism, which sought to distinguish itself from both fascism on the far-right and revolutionary socialism on the far-left during the interwar and immediate postwar years: the political tradition of Christian democracy.
This is the family of political parties that came to power in most continental European countries in the aftermath of World War II under the leadership of such figures as Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, and Robert Schuman. But it also remains prominent today in Germany under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the European Union’s Parliament and Commission, with Ursula Von der Leyen at the helm.
Biden’s two main political rivals at the moment are routinely thought of in reference to European political traditions—social democracy in the case of Sanders and far-right nationalism in the case of Trump. It’s time to do the same for Biden. The Democratic front-runner’s political ideology isn’t a watered-down version of his rivals’ or even his predecessors’. It is best understood as approximating a distinct European tradition—one that may indicate Bidenism’s ultimate legacy in the United States.
Stemming out of a 19th century intellectual endeavor to reconcile Catholic social doctrine with modern democracy, the Christian democratic ideology can be characterized in terms of three core principles: a morally tinged conception of the “natural order” as a harmonious and organically integrated society; a remedial conception of the welfare state as a way to protect social unity and stability from the threat of radical takeover; and a conception of democratic practice as a constant process of compromise and reconciliation between conflicting social interests.
Each of these three features finds a powerful echo in Biden’s current political stance and rhetoric. Consider his campaign’s constant claim that it’s involved in “a battle for the soul of America”: This points to the idea of a spiritual and ultimately existential threat against which Biden presents himself as a bulwark. The threat in question is evidently the divisive politics and abrasive style of the current U.S. president. In standing against him, Biden therefore claims to be restoring national unity and a sense of mutual civility.
This concept of America’s “soul” is given further substance by Biden’s frequent references to notions of “dignity,” “honor,” “decency,” and “hard work.” All these terms point to an idealized vision of American society as a harmonious and organically integrated order, one that rests on a foundation of mutual cooperation and a shared set of moral values—and, crucially, is temporally situated somewhere in the past. “This is not how our parents educated us” is a frequent refrain in Biden’s stump speeches.
...
foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/16/joe-biden-election-liberal-moderate-christian-democrat/
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