Some might take away from Joe Biden’s win in the primaries in Michigan and Mississippi that the Bern has lost the vote of blue collar workers and black people. They may not be happy with the world, but socialism isn’t the solution. Some might take away from Elizabeth Warren’s dropping out that that her intersectional woke agenda had the complete support of Twitter social justice warriors and no one else.
But that’s not Jamelle Bouie’s takeaway.
There’s every chance for the progressive left to make this happen on a national scale. It looks like Biden will secure the nomination, but Sanders won the policy argument. Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina support Medicare for All; Democrats in California, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia support free college. And the future of the Democratic Party — the youngest voters — are with Sanders.
If Biden goes on to win the White House, there’s real space for the pro-Sanders left to work its will on policy. It can use its influence to steer Biden toward its preferred outcomes. It can fulfill some of its goals under the cover of Biden’s moderation, from raising the minimum wage nationally to pushing the American health care system closer to single-payer.
On the one hand, Bouie’s trying to unite rather than divide, realizing that there is a strong chance that the Socialist wing of the Democratic Party and the Intersectionalist Wing of the Democratic Party despise Biden as a, dare I even say it, “centrist.”
On the other hand, Bouie makes a point, that today’s “centrist” Democrat would have been off-the-charts radical left just a president ago. And since Biden has no particular ideological position beyond his willingness to run for his fourth try in his dottage, he can still be easily pushed to do the revolutionaries’ bidding.
If the two Sanders campaigns have, over five years, pulled the center of the Democratic Party as far left as it’s been since before Ronald Reagan, then Biden is likely to hew to that center, not challenge it.
Speaking to supporters after his win in Michigan on Tuesday, Biden promised to unite the Democratic Party and work with Sanders to “defeat Donald Trump.” Biden knows he needs the Sanders left. He’s going to extend a hand. Progressives should take it — and keep planning for when they can make moderates compromise with them.
Bouie’s not wrong, as Biden hasn’t survived politics for the last 100 years by not knowing which way the wind was blowing. If all the progressives take a deep breath and blow hard in Biden’s direction, he can be moved. While defeating Trump is certainly a universal goal of the Democrats, it’s not enough for the socialists or intersectionalists, both of whom realize their Utopian dreams will never come true without a Trump to beat. If there was any doubt of that, Warren’s pathetic showing and Sander’s rejection in Michigan and Mississippi left little doubt.
Bouie is likely right that Biden can’t win without the support of the socialists and social justice warriors, and that leaves him exposed to pandering to their ideology even if the rest of the nation rejects it. Biden has already demonstrated a proclivity to do so, as reflected by his Title IX anti-due process for male students stance. If it will get him elected, he’ll be their Huckleberry.
That puts Biden in a difficult position for the general election, whether to pander to the progressive left or to move the center back to the center, where the mass of America resides.
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Robert Heinlein.
“What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses’.”
If this is true, then why did Bernie lose? He was promising way more in beer and circuses than Biden is or will ever. I wanted my cheetos and pot and loan forgiveness and free healthcare, damnit.
I want to remind us that our perspective on what is liberal is quite skewed. The article says “unabashedly liberal agenda through the Legislature, raising the minimum wage, legalizing collective bargaining for public employees and expanding the right to vote.” The minimum wage has not be raised in over a decade and the right to vote should already be fundamental.
Even Bernie’s polices of universal heath care, free college, better workers rights, higher taxes on the rich, and better social programs are already implemented and normal in every other developed country. Perspective is key and I think our political pundits have lost that.
I’m occasionally told that my worst flaw is that I grossly over-estimate the intelligence of SJ readers. I’m afraid that your use of “us” might mistaken.
“the right to vote should already be fundamental.”
Fundamental for whom? Certainly not for non-citizens. Certainly not for those currently incarcerated after conviction for a felony. Arguably not for those who have been convicted of a felony, whether or not they’ve served their sentence (my primary concern with this last point being that nowadays, everything is a felony)–and a generation ago, none of these was remotely controversial. And showing government-issued photo ID in order to vote does not deny the right to vote to anybody.
Voter ID laws deny the vote to many people such as the homeless, the elderly who were not born in a hospital and don’t have a birth certificate, or those who can’t afford the fees to acquire copies of documents in order to get IDs. Lets not forget the many states that closed DMV offices in rural or minority communities, sometimes having entire counties with no DMV office. Lets also remember the recent case with the Native American tribe who were denied IDs because they did not have a street address on their reservation.
To the exceptionally small extent to which these contentions are legit, there are limited discrete means of addressing them that doesn’t involve the tale wagging the dog. Seriously, are you trying to make progressives look stupid and simplistic?
Molly, I’m so glad you stopped by this here Hotel. This just happened to me! When I went to vote, I knew I needed an ID. So I took one with me. I waited in a long line; way longer than it should be. There should be a law about the length of the line!
Anyway, when I got to the head of the line, I told them my name and showed the ID. The old white guy said I couldn’t vote because my name wasn’t on the ID and the picture on the ID was of an oriental woman. Believe me, I gave him a ration about that “oriental” stuff! But I also told him that the rule was to show an ID–the rule wasn’t that it had to be my ID. I told him I couldn’t use my ID because it had someone else’s name on it and that person couldn’t vote because he did some crime. He said some stuff, which included the word “dope.” Some of the line people laughed; others groaned or said mean things.
I was humiliated. I want to sue that guy. Do you know a lawyer that can help me?
If you’re, indeed, familiar with other developed countries then you must know that it’s pretty normal to require identification for voting. In fact, I’ve heard foreigners expressing great surprise that you can vote with no ID in the US.
Google “Voter Identification laws wikipedia”, how many countries are there that don’t require voter identification? Right, this country is called “United States” where “Only seven states have a strict requirement for a photo ID, unlike almost every industrialized nation around the globe”.
You should stop selling your fairy tales about other countries, especially, if you’re the one who has no clue.
I don’t think “certainly” means what you think it means…Canada allows prisoners to vote (there may be others, I just know that one), multiple countries allow non-citizen residents to vote at least in some elections, etc.
None of that means you’re right or wrong what policy and laws should be for the United States, of course. Just noting that some of your certain assertions aren’t necessarily so certain.
Conversely, Canada and Europe have no problem requiring IDs to vote, without any fuss about disenfranchisement or infringing on the right to vote. It’s assumed as obviously necessary to prevent ballot stuffing like we saw in America in the Gilded Age and we still see today in less-than-ideal democracies like Russia or Pakistan.
And the Europeans all issue identification cards, which must be carried at all times, and shown to officials on demand. Except maybe the Brits, but they don’t count any more.
Well, I’m in the United States, writing about the United States, and in that context, the first two points are “certain” as a matter of law and history. I also agree with them, but that’s a separate issue.
Actually, even in the United States (of America), writing about the United States (of America), your points are not “certain” either as a matter of law or history. Just from a quick search while no states currently allow non-citizens to vote in state elections, some have in the past – Arkansas stopped in 1926. And before 1900 about half the states allowed or had allowed at least some non-citizen voting. Presently, some states allow municipalities to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections (and a few do). And from a constitutional or legal originalist position, what was done in the past is at least worth thinking about in terms of what should be now, is it not?
Major Strasser: “Captain Renault, are you entirely certain which side you’re on?”
Captain Renault: “I have no conviction, if that’s what you mean. I blow with the wind. And the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.”
–Casablanca, 1942
Biden doesn’t have to do or offer a thing for “the Sanders left.” They have to vote for Biden to defeat Trump. Their mindless, fanatical ideology mandates this. Biden can totally take them for the chumps they are, with a hearty, “Thanks for your votes, now GTF out.”
“While defeating Trump is certainly a universal goal of the Democrats”
Is it?
Trump landed a massive one-two punch to his own face by tying himself to the stock market and then idiotically trying to tweet away a global pandemic. The election is the Democrats’ to lose. All they had to do was field a viable candidate, and they had one, but they openly stole the nomination from him and handed it to an Alzheimers patient with a closet full of skeletons. The DNC prefers 4 more years of Trump over a progressive takeover their party. I’m not sure I blame them.
I never would have taken you for a Berniebro.
I think Bernie is a hypocrite limousine liberal and his policies would be a disaster, but realistically, can a guy who can’t remember his own name beat the world’s greatest reality TV star in what is essentially a reality TV show?
Someone who thinks Bernie stood a better chance against Trump than Biden in the wild? You’re a rare breed, PGP.
Limousine liberal? Bernie? Weird. The guy has more bona fides than that, I thought. Oh well, he’s irrelevant now mostly. Biden doesn’t have to do shit to get people to vote for him against Trump.
Because Trump is such a horrible person, that people will go to the polls in droves just to keep him out of the White House? How did that work out last time? Bernie may not be appealing to people who know anything about economics, but what percentage of the voting population is that? At least he knows who he is and what state he is in, and what office he is running for. He even has passionate supporters. Is anyone passionate about Biden?
I didn’t think they could find a worse candidate than Hillary, but they managed it. Biden was already damaged goods. This is a guy who has groped so many little girls on camera that you get bored by the end of the compilation video. And now he has gone senile. “All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing….. Vote for Obiden Bama!” They might as well declare Trump the winner now.
Biden doesn’t have near the baggage of Hil-Dawg. I was more worried about Bernie even though I know nothing of economics and would have appreciated his positions had he had the opportunity to even try to make them real. I can’t see the electorate picking Trump over Biden at all. Hopefully I’m not making the same mistake as before. Hopefully you aren’t right. I don’t want more Trump. I didn’t vote for Hil-Dawg, but I’ll vote for Biden through gritted teeth. Four years is plenty of the reality-tv president for me. Too bad we didn’t get a wall or the swamp drained, but whatever. Life goes on.
If Biden doesn’t have any baggage, it’s only because he forgot where he put it.