The hyperscrutiny of all of Joe Biden's cabinet selections continues largely unabated. Progressives are picking apart all the President-elects personnel moves and are sending him "warnings" and other forms of advice. With control of the Senate at stake and a crucial two years upcoming, progressives are best off giving Biden some room to govern. The Democratic Party has an opportunity to retool their message and root them in policies that could help expand the party. Objecting to Biden's cabinet choices and making demands will not help the vital mission that Biden is about to undertake.

Cabinet Secretaries May Still Need to Get Sign-Off from Mitch McConnell

When making his personnel choices, Biden has had to operate with the realization that he may need to go through Mitch McConnell if the Democrats cannot retake the Senate. He also knows that he cannot pull many lawmakers out of Congress due to the shrunken House majority and the razor-thin Senate contest. As a result, Biden has chosen an orbit of largely technocrat and centrist Cabinet secretaries. This was designed to both win confirmation and to keep the machinery of government running in the midst of a pandemic. However, progressives have been dissatisfied with many of his choices. Some have signalled that they may try to sink his nominee for Secretary of Defense and deny him the waiver that he needs to run the Pentagon.

Here, progressives are not helping their own cause. Even with nearly a half century of experience, many people do not know how Biden would govern. During the campaign, Biden tacked leftward when he realized that he needed to appeal to Bernie Sanders' voters. Many of his policy prescriptions were aimed at throwing a bone to the progressives in the hopes of getting them to the polls in November. Nonetheless, since the Democrats barely won the presidency, Biden does not start owing the Left a large debt of gratitude. This is even more true since the odds are against his running for a second term.

Progressives need to win over Biden every bit as much as he needs to win them, especially now that he has already been elected. Carping over his Cabinet choices and giving him strong warnings is not likely to go over well with a career politician. Instead, it could give Biden a bigger opening to move to the center and try to operate in a Clinton-type manner in which he operates between the bases of the two parties. Even if progressives are not getting everything that they want, they also need to recognize that this is a closely divided country and having a Democrat in office is better than Trump.

Democrats Must Stay Unified, at Least Until January 5 Passes

Moreover, this is the absolute worst time for any sign whatsoever of disunity in the ranks with the stakes still high. Democrats need to put all of that aside in advance of January 5. This is especially true with extremist elements calling for the destruction of the GOP due to its insufficient loyalty to Trump. The best thing that the Democrats can do is stay unified and get out of the way of the Republican civil war between the crazy and the crazier.

The fact is that Biden has actually done a decent job thus far in mixing in the various wings of the party and putting together a diverse cabinet. Not everyone in the process is going to get what they want, and the extreme level of scrutiny that Biden is facing is counterproductive. It can only result in alienation of some of the progressive wing of the party. The leaders of this part of the Democratic Party need to weigh their words carefully, especially before the Georgia runoff elections. Biden needs to have the room to govern as he would from the moment that he takes office. The best way for the Left to influence his policy decisions is making sure that they are in the room and have a line to the President-elect.

Progressives will have their say in the coming year, but can only marginalize themselves if they do not give Biden the space that he needs to establish his presidency. So far, the Left is not off to the greatest start, especially as Biden and Obama have expressed that some of the progressive policy prescriptions may have caused the Democrats to underperform in the past election.