I lean left but I’m not so sure President Biden does

President Joe Biden gets hammered so much from the right, I thought it was time for me to take a few jabs from the left, especially now that the 80-year-old has announced that he will indeed run for a second term. Politicians don’t just lie about what they’re going to do. That’s a given. They have also been known to lie about who they are. For example, Biden and members of his administration aren’t as progressive or compassionate as they pretend to be. They’re pragmatic, so much so that they’re willing to sacrifice principles to avoid a fight or get a desired result. This can’t come as a surprise. After all, in 2020, Biden’s main appeal in a crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls, was that he was perceived to be a moderate. He was a cool customer surrounded by hotheads. And after four years of continuous chaos, ginned up by he who shall not be named, that was just what America was looking for. Even now, as President, Biden often travels down the middle of the road. The other day, I heard a reporter on National Public Radio that mentioned how Biden, who’s pro-choice but also Catholic, prefers to just not talk about abortion, so he doesn’t. Not much. In truth, 

Biden takes a hard left on only a few issues like gun control or protecting Social Security. On other issues, though, Biden veers to the right. On crime, famously, Biden authored the racist 1994 crime bill, which militarized the police force, different penalties for drug crimes, and fueled the mass incarceration of Blacks and Latinos. 

And then there’s immigration where Biden has been a total disaster, because of all his sudden right turns. The President does a spooky-good impersonation of his predecessor, he who shall not be named, in fact copying many of the evil immigration policies of the last administration. At present, Biden is getting ready to revive a policy of detaining families of migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border. See all it’s about is his reelection campaign — and his fear of being painted as an open border liberal by his GOP opponent, whoever it is.

Sometimes Biden and his cabinet secretaries just look away and pretend not to see an injustice, so they don’t have to do anything about it. That is particularly easy to do, it turns out, when the injustice involves an issue that he doesn’t think about, know about or care about. Which brings us back to immigration. The New York Times just published a damning article about how thousands of refugee and migrant children, who had been housed in temporary facilities, and who were supposed to be in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, appear to have been trafficked out of those facilities by U.S. employers. 

The kids, most of whom come from Mexico and Central America, had been put to work in construction, slaughterhouses, factories, and other dirty and dangerous industries, all in violation of federal child labor laws. Some are not even being paid, because they’re working as indentured servants in America, in 2023 — indentured servants. 

And by the way, who knows what else these trafficked children are being forced to do. The finger pointing has already begun. The Department of Health and Human Services says that monitoring the workplace is the responsibility of the Labor Department. And the Labor Department says the welfare of these children rests with DHHS. Both agencies say that they sent word of what was happening to the White House and there, well, nothing happened. White House officials admit — yeah, they got reports from the two departments about something about migrant child labor, but their reports weren’t flagged as a priority. In other words, they were ignored. But they said don’t worry, because they’ll be better, more vigilant in the future. And to think there are Latinos and child advocates and immigration activists out there who actually think that the Biden administration is on their side, that Joe Biden is the good guy. Fools. With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?