Can Biden Bring the Change Bernie Promised Democrats?

With the decisive wins in Michigan and other states on Tuesday, it’s looking more like Biden will be taking the Democratic nomination. Just a month ago, the same strategists who were writing Biden off for his loss in New Hampshire are now describing his ‘insurmountable lead’ over Bernie. In a majority of the primaries, Sanders has underperformed his 2016 numbers again and again. In Michigan, he lost by a double-digit margin, a week after his devastating loss on Super Tuesday.

Pressure rising, Sanders is taking on an aggressive crusade against Biden, insisting that through the years, he has been on the right side of history, while Biden has not.

“The point here is not to just look back 20 years ago, not just to look at consistency; it is to look at which candidate had the guts to cast difficult votes because they were the right votes.” Sander’s told the press on Friday. “All I can tell you is, whether it was Iraq, whether it was DOMA, whether it was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, those were difficult votes.”

Biden’s campaign website brags about the strides for equality he made during the ‘Obama-Biden’ administration, but his track record lacks consistency. In September, Biden was hard-pressed by an Iowan columnist about his past votes for the Defense of Marriage Act and the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. In defense, Biden claimed he didn’t ‘have to evolve,’ reminding the audience of that particular presidential Forum that he had supported same-sex marriage ‘before Obama.’

But what about now? Can Biden win the LGBTQ vote with his sketchy track record, and more importantly, can he deliver on his party’s promises for equality?

Here’s what the democratic party can agree on. Nearly all the democratic candidates backed the banning of conversion therapy for minors, rolling back the spread of rules that allow religious businesses to decline serving LGBTQ customers and ending the Trump administration’s transgender military ban. On Biden’s website, he claims that the enactment of the Equality Act, legislation that would bolster the list of protected classes under civil rights law to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, will be in his ‘top priority’ for his first 100 days in office.

Trying to figure out whether or not Biden believes in marriage equality or is simply ‘evolving’ to meet the democratic party’s progressive standard is a moot point. It’s whether or not he will be able to carry out the promises for equality he’s backing.