Joe Biden’s new left-wing ideas aren’t going to turn down the political temperature | Opinion

Editor’s note: Contributing columnist David Mastio is covering the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee for McClatchy Opinion.

After Tuesday night when Donald Trump bathed in the tears of his vanquished Republican foes as they pledged fealty to the new owner of the Republican Party, President Joe Biden is facing an opponent backed by a party more united than in 2020. His own Democratic Party is falling apart as former friends try to wrest control of the apparatus from the 81-year-old.

The latest blow is influential California Rep. Adam Schiff calling on Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Usually a dogged partisan warrior, Schiff joins 19 other members of Congress in saying the same thing.

Meanwhile the progressive wing of the Democratic Party led by the far-left congressional Squad — that unofficial group of eight young Democrats of color: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts Cori Bush of Missouri, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Greg Casar of Texas and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania — remains among Biden’s most loyal supporters.

Perhaps that is why Biden world has started to teem with new left-wing policy proposals that sound sorta odd coming from the lips of a Biden who was supposed to be the moderate, adult in the room who would turn down the temperature and conflict in our politics.

The first to come out was a plan for national rent control that would limit rent increases on existing rental units to 5% upon pain of losing important tax breaks used by large property managers. To call the plan farcical and discredited before the full details are laid out is an understatement. Finding a respected academic economist to endorse the plan is impossible because it is well-studied that rent control kills new housing production.

As a fig leaf to deal with this fact, Biden’s plan does not apply to new housing. Do you know what all old housing has in common? It was once new housing. Developers are never going to believe that if they build new rentals, the government will simply expand the plan to apply to them at some later date. They’re not stupid.

The second lefty pipe dream to leak out of the Biden camp is the idea of a new ethics code for Supreme Court justices. That’s fair enough, though it is far from clear how Congress or the White House could impose one for separation of powers reasons — the three branches are supposed to be largely independent. But Biden apparently also wants to impose 18-year term limits on the justices.

That’s a laugh for two reasons: One, it would take a constitutional amendment — good luck getting that through our divided state governments. And two, who is the very last person who could credibly advocate term limits? Maybe the guy who was first elected to the Senate when I was a 1-year-old baby living in a one-bedroom apartment in Independence. It is like Bill Clinton chiding Donald Trump for cheating on his wife.

These policy moves matter because they are a SOP to shore up Biden’s left flank as he flails in his effort to remain the Democratic Party standard bearer. The more support he loses after Schiff’s defection, the harder he will have to tack left. Each time he does, he makes his own election in November less likely.

The battle for America’s soul is going to take place among independents in the center of our political world. As Trump doubles down on right-wing MAGA with J.D. Vance, Biden should be staking out territory in the center. That’s not what is happening.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com