{"id":16486,"date":"2020-11-11T12:29:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T20:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=16486"},"modified":"2020-11-11T12:29:29","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T20:29:29","slug":"can-joe-biden-avoid-obamas-mistakes-he-must-for-the-future-of-the-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/11\/11\/can-joe-biden-avoid-obamas-mistakes-he-must-for-the-future-of-the-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Joe Biden avoid Obama’s mistakes? He must \u2013 for the future of the party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Sirota<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats must act to ward off the electoral rise of rightwing extremism by delivering gains for the working class @davidsirota<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tue 10 Nov 2020\u00a0Last modified on Tue 10 Nov 2020\u00a0(theguardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Joe<\/a>
 Joe Biden. \u2018The onus is on progressive activists, advocacy groups and lawmakers to resist the urge to repeat 2009\u2019s deference to a new president. Demands must be made.\u2019 Photograph: Charlie Neibergall\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the final scene of the film The Candidate, the newly elected Democratic Senator Bill McKay asks a harrowing question amid his victory celebration: \u201cWhat do we do now?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats in 2020 have won a similar presidential victory \u2013 and under eerily similar circumstances as the movie depicted. The national campaign was primarily a referendum on the incumbent Donald Trump, with Democrat Joe Biden mostly offering vague promises of a better way<\/a> \u2013 and so the same question is now upon us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer it, you must first appreciate how we arrived at this moment of peril. In this week\u2019s election, Trump kept the race close by winning 82% of voters<\/a> who listed the economy as their top concern, according to exit polls. He was able to do that amid an economic crisis because Democrats did not forcefully articulate an economic message. Instead, Biden cast his candidacy in gauzy platitudes about restoring the country to a pre-Trump status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was enough to barely defeat Trump, who mismanaged the coronavirus response \u2013 but it was not enough to prevent Republican gains down ballot. Even more problematic, that much-glorified pre-Trump \u201cnormal\u201d of crushing economic inequality is what originally created the conditions for Trumpism, and that larger ism probably isn\u2019t going away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of Obama\u2019s presidency, Democrats held fewer elected offices than at any time since the early 20th century<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And so moving forward, the answer to Democrats\u2019 \u201cwhat do we do now?\u201d question should be clear: a new Democratic White House must show it is using its power to deliver for the working class. It must avoid replicating what happened in the first few years of the last Democratic presidency, or else we may get something worse than Trump in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recall that back in 2008, Barack Obama won the White House on a wave of anger at the incumbent president, and he took office under similar crisis conditions. And yet, despite Democrats winning large congressional majorities, Obama\u2019s administration used its power to merely tweak the economic status quo, but not really change it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the get-go, the new White House brushed off progressives and championed a stimulus package that many economists said was far too small<\/a> to quickly right the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Obama\u2019s Affordable Care Act created some long-overdue consumer protections, it ultimately strengthened the power of private insurers. Despite Obama campaigning<\/a> for a public insurance option, his administration dropped<\/a> it, Democratic senators helped Republicans initially vote it down<\/a> and then refused<\/a> to ever bring it back up to force the issue, even though there was a good chance<\/a> it would pass. The result: Millions have lost their health insurance<\/a> and millions more are paying ever-higher premiums<\/a>, while insurance companies have booked huge profits<\/a> \u2013 and now support for the ACA is soft<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Obama backed off<\/a> his promise to pass new union protections for workers, and he reversed<\/a> his promise<\/a> to reform bad trade deals, instead pressing<\/a> even more of those pacts that have become a symbol of a corrupt Washington more interested in enriching CEOs than helping workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama\u2019s administration also refused to prosecute bankers and its Wall Street reform package was pathetically weak. Its Treasury Department helped\u00a0kill<\/a>\u00a0an initiative to break up the banks, while it\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0defended<\/a>\u00a0big bonuses for Wall Street executives who engineered the crisis. The moves were a boon to a financial industry that\u00a0bankrolled<\/a>\u00a0Obama\u2019s campaign, but political poison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this period, progressive organizations and congressional lawmakers largely deferred to the new administration, which tried to bully the left into silence. When liberal groups floated the idea of pressuring incumbent Democrats to support more robust health care reforms, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel infamously berated<\/a> them as \u201cf-ing retarded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The enforced deference and failure to seriously try to transform the economy ended up delivering a cataclysm: Republicans in 2010 took back Congress in what Obama himself called a \u201cshellacking.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of Obama\u2019s presidency, Democrats held fewer<\/a> elected offices than at any time since the early 20th century. Trump in 2016 made fraudulent promises to crack down on Wall Street — and he won the White House by flipping disaffected voters in locales<\/a> that had been particularly hurt by a financial crisis that had never been rectified or reckoned with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, Republicans were a powerful and determined opposition to Obama. But Democrats\u2019 capitulations were disasters. They never understood the truism about political capital articulated<\/a> by Republican strategist Karl Rove: \u201cIf you don\u2019t spend it, it\u2019s not like treasure stuck away at a storehouse someplace. It is perishable. It dwindles away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a likely GOP Senate, a prospective Biden administration is certainly in a weaker position than Obama was in 2008 — but there are ways for the new White House to spend political capital on a working class agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As president, Biden will have the unimpeded executive authority to implement a number of administrative rules and regulations to reform the tax code<\/a>, lower drug prices<\/a>, reduce student debt<\/a>, crack down on Wall Street<\/a> and raise wages<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He can refuse to populate his administration with corporate insiders, lobbyists and Republican Cabinet secretaries and instead staff<\/a> the executive branch with officials committed to progressive economic policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Biden can launch his first 100 days by introducing legislation that honors his campaign promises to boost the minimum wage, strengthen union protections and impose a wealth tax on billionaires. He can also push for a public health insurance option and for investments in infrastructure, renewable energy and climate mitigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Fox News exit poll<\/a> shows many of those are popular \u2014 for example, the survey showed nearly three quarters of voters favor \u201cchanging to a government-run health care plan\u201d and favor \u201cincreasing government spending on green and renewable energy.\u201d Waging high-profile fights with Senate Republicans over these matters is good politics, and could potentially peel off necessary Republican votes for good policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again, Biden often prioritizes decorum, comity and bipartisanship. He has also told<\/a> his donors that if he is elected \u201cnothing would fundamentally change\u201d and that he would not propose<\/a> any legislation to change corporate behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The onus, then, is on progressive activists, advocacy groups and lawmakers to demand the new president fight the good fight. The conflicts — even if unsuccessful — are a way for Democrats to clarify which side it is on in the oligarch\u2019s intensifying class war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Bernie Sanders has the right idea: He said<\/a> he is planning to push a new Biden administration by introducing his own working-class legislative agenda in the first 100 days of the new Congress — and he said he will support primary challenges to lawmakers who abandon the Democratic Party\u2019s promises. That effort could be boosted by newly elected House progressives, who seem eager for a battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Democratic party that did not bow down to corporate power would be a return to the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt. He welcomed the hatred<\/a> of the rich and powerful and championed a New Deal agenda that delivered for the working class. That helped prevent the rise of a fascist alternative and created an era of Democratic supremacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats must be forced to do the same today. Like FDR, they must spend political capital on an agenda that materially improves people\u2019s lives. That is the best way to ward off the electoral rise of right-wing extremism and build a lasting Democratic majority for decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n