When you need to judge how unpopular our 46th president is at the moment, don’t just look at the polls.
You can look at those, too, mind you; they’re bad enough that even one of Joe Biden’s favorite voices in the mainstream media, Fareed Zakaria, is sounding the alarm over what they’re showing in swing states. LBJ once said that if he’d lost Walter Cronkite, he’d lost Middle America. Biden probably watched Zakaria’s show on CNN last week and thought that if he’d lost Zakaria he’d lost … something. What was it he lost? I mean, Corn Pop was a bad dude, but he was eaten by cannibals. Wait, where’s Jackie?
Enough about the president’s permanently derailed train of thought, though. No, how you can really judge how well the Biden administration is doing is how well they’re keeping congressional Democrats in the fold on major issues. Spoiler alert: Not very well.
On paper, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines regulating whether banks could hold cryptocurrencies should be a slam-dunk for Democrats across the board.
They’re not only supported by the White House, but — as Politico noted — the “anti-cryptocurrency crusade” is led by no less than the Rosa Luxemburg of the upper chamber herself, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
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However, as Politico reported Friday, this past week saw 32 Democrats vote for Republican-backed plans that would end the Biden SEC’s cryptocurrency regulations, in spite of the fact that Biden has threatened a veto.
“The rift may grow further next week when the House takes up sweeping, industry-backed legislation to incorporate crypto trading into federal financial regulations,” Politico’s Jasper Goodman and Eleanor Mueller reported.
Cryptocurrency isn’t generally seen as a highly partisan issue, although a sharper relief is being drawn given Biden’s SEC regulations against banks holding blockchain assets and the crypto-friendly presumptive GOP presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, telling supporters that if he were elected in November he would push back on the regulatory bonanza.
Furthermore, such a vote could be seen as Democrats trying to send a message to unelected bureaucrats under the Biden administration. Like Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who literally said “I wanted to send a message” by voting for the rollback.
Should cryptocurrency regulations be rolled back?
“I’m frustrated because we haven’t had a chance to debate any of the real [crypto] bills,” said Booker, one of 11 Senate Democrats to vote for the SEC rollback.
Among those who opposed the president, as well? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
“New York State already has a strong law on the books, and they weren’t consulted on this regulation,” Schumer said in a statement.
Politico reported that the legislators who voted for the rollback “were motivated by a mix of crypto advocacy, bank lobbying and deep frustration with the SEC under Chair Gary Gensler.”
Furthermore, while key House Democrats like ranking House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Maxine Waters of California plan to try to muster opposition to the plan when it comes to the lower chamber next week, that might be all for naught.
Politico noted that one aide privy to “closed-door discussions” told them that “House Democratic leadership has yet to decide whether to whip against the crypto legislation scheduled for the floor next week.”
Translated out of Beltway-alien speak, “to whip against” means that senior Democrats would pressure their caucus members to vote nay on a certain piece of legislation — in this case, one that would directly roll back one of the regulatory measures the president and left-wing Democrats doubtlessly hope to try and flog on the campaign trail come this fall.
Needless to say, Warren has been the biggest critic of those who voted with the GOP on the SEC rollback proposal, saying in a Thursday interview that she was “concerned about anyone in Congress who is not worried about the threat posed by Iran and North Korea and their use of crypto.”
However, as Politico noted, she “declined to address the differences in her party” — which is to say, she refused to use the occasion to rebuke Democrats for specifically going against a White House agenda item.
When Biden is so unpopular that even Elizabeth Warren won’t stick up vociferously for him to save her precious crypto regulations, that should tell America everything about just how popular he is: When Democrats won’t vote against the president, they don’t want to tie themselves to him, either.
