Meet the New Boss Same As The Old Boss

Biden is already letting us down He's snubbed Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, walked back promises about student debt, and appointed some disappointing members of staff. The way this is going, the president-elect could end up primaried in 2024 Joe Biden has been President-elect for less than two weeks as of this writing. And even though he's still months away from actually assuming office and facing Republican opposition in Congress, he's already abandoning transformative change for tempered incrementalism. Progressives may have no choice but to primary him in 2024 if they want to avoid losing to an even worse version of Trump. Mounting student loan debt - currently at $1.6 trillion and counting - was a top concern of younger voters in the 2020 election. And according to a recent Tufts University analysis, turnout among young voters aged 18-29 was 8% higher in 2020 than it was in 2016, with young voters making up 17% of the total electorate. Given that Biden won by slim margins in critical swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, it would be accurate to say Biden would not be president-elect were it not for young voters. Likewise, it would be accurate to say Biden needs young voters to stay active and engaged if he wants to keep the White House out of Republican hands. But his rapid capitulation on student debt cancellation may end up alienating young voters before his presidency even begins' Initially, Biden campaigned on forgiving up to $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower if they work in the public or nonprofit sector. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently suggested that Biden could forgive $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower through executive order, instead of relying on Congress. But seemingly overnight, the president-elect shifted his tone to say he'd only forgive up to $10,000 in privately held debt - even though 92% of student debt is federal - and only for "economically distressed" borrowers, which suggests rigid means-testing will stand in the way of the scant few borrowers who may qualify. Climate change is another top issue for this critical bloc of voters. In September, a poll of voters aged 18-29 conducted by NPR, Marist, and PBS NewsHour ranked climate change as the second biggest motivator for them in 2020 (the economy ranked first). Climate change is such a potent issue for young voters that even 49% of young Republicans told Pew Research this summer that the government should do more to combat its effects. Perhaps most troubling is that Biden's most senior White House staff includes a venture capitalist (chief of staff Ron Klain) and a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist (Steve Ricchetti). Additionally, the frontrunners for cabinet positions in Biden's White House are a mishmash of corporate executives from the tech and pharmaceutical industries, along with a few Wall Street bankers. https://ift.tt/3nwPb7C

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