The U.S. left – especially the leftist factions most excited about Bernie Sanders – never figured out how to handle Joe Biden. Sanders folded right away. He endorsed Biden, and then he spent endless hours campaigning for him. Most progressive advocacy groups did the same. As usual, they dropped any and all non-electoral work to focus once again on electing Democrats. Now they’ve got a Biden presidency on their hands.
I won’t remind readers what I think of all this. If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know I think progressive advocacy groups fuck up by focusing on electing Democrats to office. They fail over and over, and they’re the Charlie Brown of politics.
But as Biden’s inauguration proceeds after the Trumpist insurrection, many issues remain unsettled. What should we expect from the Biden presidency? What kind of job will he do in office? And do progressives have any chance at all of ‘pushing Biden to the left’?
The Biden Presidency
Biden has a 50-year political history, and he’s voted (and governed) like a centrist for that entire history. Yes, Biden adopted a more liberal platform in 2020, but he’ll govern like a centrist as much as he’s able to do so. In fact, he has already clearly signaled his intention to do so, emphasizing ‘bipartisanship‘ over working toward anything in his platform.
He’ll likely retain much (though not all) of Trump’s immigration policy. And he’ll shift to the right on foreign policy issues. The good news on the latter topic is that Biden probably isn’t as right-wing as Hillary Clinton on foreign policy. Barack Obama even admits as much in his recent memoir. A Biden presidency risks war with Russia, though it doesn’t present risks as large as a 2016 Clinton presidency.
But it’s not all bad under a Biden presidency. He’s already thrown some offices the left’s way, particularly the Interior Secretary. We should also consider the continuing threat of COVID-19. Conditions might push a Biden presidency a bit to the left, especially on economic aid.
It’s worth noting, however, that structural conditions – not the political left – will push Biden leftward if anything does the job. Progressive advocacy groups hold no real sway over Biden. They didn’t deliver him the election, and he doesn’t look to them for advice. The ‘push Biden to the left’ mantra was always a pound of baloney.
A Harris Presidency?
As we think about the 2024 Democratic nomination, it’s important to keep in mind the weak position held by progressive advocacy groups. Any nominee they support begins from a tough position and will need to build a popular movement. They should organize around popular power and direct action, not progressive wonks or policy orgs.
These things will remain relevant, because Biden likely won’t seek re-election in 2024. Biden had little popular demand for his services in 2020 – he was a generic Democrat with high name recognition. And his name isn’t Bernie Sanders. That was good enough for the Democratic Party.
Biden will probably support Kamala Harris for the 2024 nomination. From this position, she likely begins as the favorite. But she doesn’t generally endorse progressive or social democratic ideas, having turned hard against Medicare for All in 2019. While progressive advocacy groups might win her over, they don’t stand a great chance of doing so and Harris would likely remain an unreliable partner toward those political goals.
Any leftist interested in an electoral path in 2024 should be organizing workplaces, tenants, marginalized groups, et al. now – not waiting for the campaign cycle to come around.
Instead, many of these groups advocate what we might call a ‘progressive majority’ strategy. The idea here is that there’s already a latent ‘progressive’ majority among the general public. They just need advocacy groups to awaken and mobilize them for electoral action. Unfortunately, this is wrong from top to bottom. No such majority exists – latent or otherwise. Good organizing begins with direct action and building popular power, not mobilization toward elections.
If electoralists fail to learn these lessons, they’ll be looking at a centrist nominee once again in 2024.
