Assuaging Conservatives’ Fears about a Biden Presidency

“The former option is President Trump; the latter is politics.”

As the reality of a Biden presidency grows more likely, the fears among the ranks of the Trump-skeptical political right are growing. Danielle Pletka’s attention-getting Washington Post op-ed and follow-up New Yorker interview have provided the most coherent case for Trump-averse centrists and conservatives to refrain from casting their ballots for former Vice President Joe Biden. The short of it: Vice President Biden would become a tool of the far-left—both the cultural and economic strains of it. President Donald Trump may be an immoral fool, according to this line of argument, but at least he will not become a vehicle for the Green New Deal, socialized medicine, the 1619 project, court packing, anemic economic growth, open borders, and coastal progressive cultural mores.

Let us accept Pletka’s premise and assume for a moment that a President Biden would not stand up to the far-left flank of his party (and that that flank will gain even more political power in the 2020 election). As Mona Charen has argued at The Bulwark, this is a dubious premise, and Vice President Biden himself recently remarked, “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” But let us say that Pletka is correct and that Vice President Biden will serve as the empty vessel for the far-left.

Even if one finds the prospect of a leftist lurch in American politics less than savory, it is worth asking which scenario is preferable: Having four more years of political circus, where very few public policy issues actually get debated, much less resolved, and the entirety of our politics revolves around a single morally depraved man, or, actually having some real, knock-down drag-out debates over the most pressing issues in American political life? The former option is President Trump; the latter is politics. Vice President Biden offers us politics—a process through which we actually put forth and debate differing positions on matters of public policy. Yes, the stakes of politics can be quite high, and if Vice President Biden wins, more progressive policies may have their day and make their way into law.