Michael Moore implores Biden to reject ‘cowardly center,’ embrace progressive values during first term

Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is urging President-elect Joe Biden to embrace the left, and criticized centrist Democrats who have argued some progressive policies kept Democrats from winning the Senate majority or increasing the party’s House majority.

In an open letter posted on his Facebook page this week, Moore said centrists were trying to push Biden from the left wing of the party.

“I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans,” Moore wrote.

“They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism,” wrote Moore, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).  

“Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way,” Moore wrote. 

Democrats in the House have been battling over the caucus’s disappointing showing on Election Day.

The party had expressed confidence it would gain seats, but instead saw a number of centrist candidates go down in defeat.

Several centrists have blamed the party’s strategy, as well as the embrace by progressives of certain liberal policy issues, including calls to defund the police.

Ocasio-Cortez has argued that a number of Democrats failed to advertise their candidates well enough on social media, though other Democrats have pushed back on that argument.

Moore, a decidedly liberal documentarian who has been sharply critical of elected Republicans in his home state of Michigan and across the country, urged Biden to “not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years.” 

“He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya,” Moore wrote. “The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.” 

Biden, Moore argued, should take the fight directly to the right. 

“Don’t let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids,” Moore said. “You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!”

Biden is likely to face challenges legislatively. Republicans have a 50-48 edge in the Senate with two run-off elections set for Jan. 5 in Georgia.

If Democrats could win both of those races, they could still win the Senate majority since Vice President-elect Kamala Harris could break ties in the body.

But there’s no guarantee of Democratic wins in Georgia, and such a majority if won would be razor-thin.