"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. . . .
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
William Butler Yeats
The Biden presidency is shaping up as an effort at bi-partisan centrism.
Sanders lost. Then Trump lost. Biden didn't win or have coattails. Biden is a survivor.
The 2020 election was a disappointment to progressive Democrats. They are the 30% of Democrats who identify most strongly with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with Medicare-for-All, and with language that implicates capitalism itself for problems of income distribution. They want real change in America, not slow, incremental Band-AIDS. They don't have the votes to win elections--or at least didn't in 2020.
Pete Buttigieg, who radiates a meritocracy elitist vibe, fought Bernie Sanders to a tie in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire vote. Biden crushed everyone in South Carolina when Black Democrats spoke. Democrats rejected cold, aloof Bloomberg; Klobuchar and Buttigieg left the field; Warren was a compromise Democrats didn't want. It came down to Sanders and Biden. If progressive change is the future of a fair, prosperous, and just America, then Americans are going to have to wait for it, because voters didn't buy it. Democratic voters chose Biden.
Trump thought he would insult Biden with the brand "Sleepy Joe." Joe is no firebrand. Sleepy, low-drama, emotionally mature Joe, bi-partisan, can't-we-get-along Joe, looked pretty good.
The post-election period is demonstrating even more plainly than did the campaign the differences between Biden and Trump. Biden is centrist in policy, calm in manner: Mr. Reasonable. Trump is frantic and erratic. He is threatening vetoes of proposals his own White House demanded. He is lashing out at everyone, tweeting and re-tweeting accusations. Everyone is against him, he writes: His Attorney General, Republican Governors, Mitch McConnell and John Thune and the other Republican ingrates, the Supreme Court ingrates, election officials up and down from Secretaries of State to County Clerks, all turncoats.
A college classmate wrote wondering if a bipartisan centrist coalition in the Senate might be capable of getting done some of Biden's agenda, perhaps with Joe Manchin in play as either a Democrat or a Republican. The policies would be a grave disappointment to progressives, but it might make baby steps toward extending access to health care, addressing income inequality, making education more affordable.
A Trump voter wrote a response to him that helps explain the surprising and unintuitive 2020 vote where Biden won, but the GOP gained U.S. House seats and state legislative seats. Biden did not win. Trump lost.
Adolpho Garcia is a college classmate. He is a partner in a Boston law firm with international clients. His family escaped Castro's Cuba when Dolf was a child. He grew up in the Miami area, and like many Americans with a history that links back to Cuba, he voted for Trump. He says he is OK with Trump being a rough, pugnacious guy since that is the nature of foreign leaders. They are nasty people--"despicable human trash"--and need an equally nasty American president to counter them. Dolf doesn't want a president he would enjoy sitting down with and having a beer. But he recognizes the American public might.
Adolpho Garcia:
[Bi-partisan centrism] is the only hope that Biden has to get anything done. Biden did not win. Trump lost because Trump is his own worst enemy and such a personal disaster. I am convinced that there are at least 10 million legal, legitimate voters who basically support the Trump policies, but absolutely, positively were not about to have four more years of Trump in the White House.
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| Adolpho Garcia |
The fact is that Trump lost the election and has no one to blame but himself. To his credit, Biden knows that. Biden knows why he won. This is why Biden, who wants to be a successful President, is making the appointments that he is making. I believe that Biden will govern as a centrist, precisely where Bill Clinton found his success and popularity before his pecker did him in. Liberals and progressives succeeded in defeating Trump.
I believe that they will be very disappointed with Biden. I suspect that the more that I can warm up to Biden, the more unhappy liberals and progressives will be with him.
There is hazard here for Democrats. Biden can only govern if he cobbles together majorities, and the votes to get them will be with Manchin, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, possibly Mitt Romney. They aren't progressive. A majority of voters wanted an end to Trump's high drama, but a government built around Joe Manchin will leave progressives unhappy. The 75% of Republican voters who insist that Trump's election was stolen from him--notwithstanding denials of it by Trump's own election security chief, Attorney General, and judges he nominated--suggest that it will be hazardous for Republicans to compromise with Biden centrism. They consider Democrats dangerous and they want them vanquished.
There was a majority in America that wanted Trump gone, but there may not be a majority that wants to end the fighting. On the left, too. Progressive Democrats will consider government built around Joe Manchin something worth fighting about. To win, Biden needed to unify Democrats. To govern, he divides them.
4 comments:
Progressives are already disappointed. Get ready for Austerity Joe. Almost 4 million lost their homes to the banks with Obiden in the Great Recession. That was just a warm up. We got sold out, banks got bailed out ...
A lot will depend on the post-COVID economy. The middle classes will need relief for the foreseeable future, especially the working poor. What's coming will make the New Deal look like a fortune cookie.
I think many underestimate Progressive's patience, especially those who take some responsibility for the Trump calamity. Progressives have learned the lesson of complacency and there are vigorous and growing constituencies for healthcare, climate change and social justice. Democratic activism will keep Biden on track.
Posted for Diana Newell Meyer:
One correction on Peter's introductory comments. Some of us really really wanted Liz.
Much will depend on who runs the senate. Allegedly Mitch McConnell has pledged again to oppose all of Biden's offerings. I suspect that one of the democrats will win in Georgia, not enough to oust Mitch.
Even politically astute observers often overestimate the power of the Presidency. Lots can be done through regulatory changes and executive orders, but real systemic change - the kind wanted by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party - requires legislative action. True enough, Obama had a Democratic congress his 1st 2 years in office, but his majority depended upon centrist Democratic Senators from places like West Virginia, Florida, North Dakota and Montana who's constituencies did not support - for example - as Medicare for All option. So we got ACA, not perfect, but as my mom used to say, half a loaf is better than nothing.
So rather than bemoaning the centrist nature of Biden's cabinet picks, or worrying that Joe Manchin is about to become the most powerful Democratic Senator, here's my humble suggestion:
The most effective thing the progressive movement could do, would be to organize a massive movement of young leftists to Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska....... low population states easily moved from Republican to Democrat with no more than 100,000 votes per State. Look at Vermont, historically a rock ribbed Republican stronghold, today another borough of NYC.
Walk around Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Manhattan and you see armies of 20 and 30 somethings wearing their Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State hoodies. There will be no systemic progressive change until the US Senate is in firm Democratic hands. And don't count on any constitutional amendments for a popular vote or changing the "2 senators per state" formula. Fat chance of that.
So come on all you Bernie-crats and Democratic Socialists, pack your bags and move to Montana et al. Perhaps AOC could be in the advance guard? I'm certain you will be greeted with open arms, open carried.
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