Let me start with a confession. Contrary to what many leftists predict, I think Joe Biden will probably defeat Donald Trump in the November U.S. election. Yes, it’s still early. And no, I’m not expressing certainty. So, Trump could win.
But he probably won’t. However, even starting from the assumption that Biden probably wins, a few questions remain.
How will Biden beat Trump? What will his coalition look like?
Biden’s Path to Defeat Trump
Back in the more uncertain days of the 2020 election, I sketched out two ways to beat Trump. The first way amounted to a coalition of moderates, independents, and anti-Trump political conservatives, in addition to mainstream, college educated liberals. And the second way amounted to a coalition of liberals, progressives, young people, and non-voters united by a social democratic vision.
While Bernie Sanders obviously represented the second path, Joe Biden leaned toward the first. As the 2020 campaign came to a close, Biden fully leaned in to the first path. And won.
As the 2024 campaign shapes up, it’s clear that Biden is fully leaning in to the same strategy for 2024. In his State of the Union speech, Biden used the racist phrase ‘an illegal’ to refer to an immigrant who committed a crime. He continues to endorse and provide weapons for the illegal Israeli war on Gaza. And while his domestic record includes some support for unions and prioritization of jobs over inflation for much of his early presidency, he still opposes Medicare for All and any real push toward social democracy.
So, Biden has a plan to beat Trump. He’s going to combine generic support for ‘democracy over autocracy’ with a strategic embrace of Trumpist policy on immigration, support for U.S. imperialism abroad, and generally liberal domestic policy.
And it will probably work.
And the Left
As leftists, where does that leave us?
Some leftists suggest that Biden’s success would discredit the left. It would suggest, according to this line of thinking, that the Democrats can just bypass and ignore the left, letting them lean fully into the right wing parts of their coalition.
But that’s not the lesson I draw. And I’ll give two main reasons.
First, the only part of the left that’s actually discredited by a Biden win would be the parts that argue for short term leftist electoralism. And they were discredited a long time ago. Their basic argument that ‘the Democrats should immediately move to the left and reap the benefit of a hidden progressive majority’ was never sound. I’ve been documenting this failure for years. Any left majority coalition has to be built. It doesn’t already exist.
Second, the Democratic Party is going to find a way to blame the left no matter what happens in November. If Biden wins, they will give credit to moderates and independents. And if Biden loses, they will blame the left for whatever reasons are most convenient to them at the time. So, the rhetoric of the Democratic Party is basically already rigged to marginalize the left. Because the Democratic Party, as an organization, is anti-leftist. It opposes socialism on basic grounds of principle. And it will continue to do so, regardless of the results.
For leftists, this means that we have to take next steps with the assumption that the Democratic Party will remain hostile to us in any plausible scenario. It’s mostly folly to worry about whether any particular action or result will ‘discredit’ us in front of the Democrats.
Our obligations are only to our own leftist movements. And, of course, to basic principles of truth and accuracy.
