The main beneficiaries of decades of neo-liberal policies supported by both parties were billionaires. Secondarily middle class, college educated working and middle class people gained in terms of income and wealth. However the working class saw their living standards shredded. The Biden administration made a halting and uneven move left, hampered by lack of reliable Congressional support. Two years of rising inflation coincided with the end of COVID era relief measures and resulted in a dramatic fall in support for Biden and Democrats, particularly among working class voters.
Trump and MAGA were effective in exploiting this sentiment in spite of the absence of a coherent program that would advance working class interests. Trump combined his attacks on inflation with racist attacks on immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people and everyone who deviated from the norms as defined by white, patriarchal society.
The Democrats and the Harris Walz campaign failed to effectively answer this threat. While rightly identifying Trump and Co. as a threat to democracy, they didn’t speak in a credible way to working class anxieties about their economic concerns. They didn’t connect the right wing assault on democracy with the material interests of working class voters. They pursued a strategy that prioritized Republicans and independents in the suburbs over consolidating and extending their working class base. While Harris made joint appearances with Liz Cheyney, an unreformed champion of neoliberalism, she did not do this with Shawn Fain, the charismatic President of the UAW, who represents the resurgence of the labor movement as a progressive force. Choices were made and the consequences of them must be recognized.
The strength of racism, xenophobia and sexism in the working class, particularly among whites, should not be underestimated and Trump took the appeal to these ugly prejudices to new heights. We can and should recognize that a majority voted for a candidate who vocally embraced these ideas and that is a fact that inspires dread and grief.
But it was not this that gave him a convincing victory. His dramatic gains among Latino voters can hardly be attributed to a litany of slurs and a championing of a mass deportation policy that will target mostly Hispanic immigrant communities. Ballot measures to protect reproductive rights largely carried in states that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Also passed in Trump states were measures to raise the minimum wage, extend paid leave and strengthen union rights. The Trump win was not a mandate for right wing policy and cultural initiatives which remain contested territory.
If the election was, first and foremost, a protest against inflation and the failure of incumbents to address long standing working class grievances about economic security, what lessons should the Democrats take from it?
While Harris shares responsibility for this debacle, she should not be the target of a debate about the way forward. Biden had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to bow out and that made a primary or, failing that, some democratic selection process, practically impossible. This could have provided a way for people on the ground to weigh in and might have avoided some of the pitfalls of the campaign as it evolved at the Convention and beyond.
Nor is it fair to sum up the Biden administration as an unmitigated failure. Emergency relief measures slashed poverty and improved the standard of living while in effect. For Labor this was the best presidential administration since the New Deal. The climate and infra-structure legislation were mostly positive, given the balance of power in Congress. Gaza was an ugly policy as is the long uncritical support for Israel by both Democrats and Republicans.
The Biden administration underestimated Inflation’s impact. The messaging that the economy was sound and inflation was falling did not correspond to the lived experience of working class people. Rates may have been falling but prices for so many essential items remained inordinately high.
Nor was there any meaningful policy response. Intermittent administration talk about stopping price gouging was meaningless because it was not matched with any policy initiative. The administration could have called for price controls and moved to cut federal spending on the Pentagon but never entertained doing either. Nor did Harris or Walz in their campaign. The messaging…Bidenomics and then “we feel your pain” only made things worse.
The answer to this defeat is to develop a coherent Left populist message and program that will address the real economic problems faced by working class people with a commitment to racial justice, women’s reproductive freedom, immigrant solidarity and international peace and justice.
This is not the place for an in depth discussion of such an initiative, but I would second two points that others have made (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in a discussion with Dan Denvir is really good).
First, the moralistic approach favored by many on the Left which lectures white workers about privilege is wrong headed and counter productive. It’s not that we should fail to target racism. Rather we need to expose it for what it is, among other things, an attempt to divide the working class and in so doing cripple it in fighting for its interests.
A related point is what might be called Woke orthodoxy, the use of concepts and language in tune with an analysis that isn’t widely shared by most people. Many pundits have jumped on this and, honestly, I think they have a point although where they take it I usually disagree.
We must continue to express solidarity with people who are being threatened by right wing initiatives. The trans community is a case in point. But this doesn’t mean we should treat people who take issue with biological men competing in women’s sports as dyed in the wool homophobes.
The crux of the struggle with the Democratic Party will be whether we have a party that puts billionaires or the working class first. The billionaires are clear that a Left populist movement is a threat to them and they are prepared to fight. Look at the PAC created by Bill Gates and other silicon billionaires that was created to guard against these politics during the election.
As the Trump policies begin to play out there will be an opportunity to develop this struggle. While we should not ignore the need for tactical unity with center Democrats in combating Trump policy, we must articulate and promote a left populist perspective.
