Liberals and progressives rejoiced as Barack Obama won in 2008. They preferred Obama from the start of the primaries, and he trounced John McCain in the general election. Finally, they’d get all the things they wanted: universal health insurance, card-check for unions, an end to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the closing of detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, a full review of NAFTA and switch to fair trade policies, and an indexing of the minimum wage to inflation.
Oops. Obama, of course, got none of these things done. Some of them he even could’ve done on his own without Congress. In turn, liberals and progressives offered excuse after excuse for Obama’s shift to the right. And then they campaigned for Obama again as they declared 2012 to be the ‘most important election of our lifetimes.’
Now the same liberals and progressives say they’ll hold Joe Biden accountable if he wins. They think they can push Biden to adopt policies well to Obama’s left. Will they?
Progressives and Accountability
No. I’ll believe it when I see it. Conditions around COVID-19 might force Biden further to the left than he’d prefer to go. But progressives aren’t going to be the ones doing the work. They’ve never done it before. If they’re going to do it now, they need to get to work on November 4. Will they? No.
I’m not Joe Biden’s keeper. But if you’re a liberal or progressive voting for him, you need to be. It’s your work, not mine. And, ultimately, accountability goes beyond posting to social media, writing letters, or donating to ‘progressive’ orgs. It means, in part, using your vote as a tool. You can’t uncritically vote Democratic in every election and then claim to hold Democrats accountable. Accountability requires, among other things, voting critically.
Ideally, it also comes with joining groups fighting for a different future. It comes with expanding one’s participation beyond electoral politics and into more effective methods. But, at a bare minimum, it means using one’s vote effectively as a tool rather than always voting Democratic. ‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ isn’t a plan for change.
