Progressives Can Make Truly Great Changes Happen During the Biden Presidency
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
01 February 21
Onless consciously resisted, one of Donald Trump's lasting triumphs will be
the establishment of such a low bar that mediocre standards will prevail for
his successor. Of course, providing a clear contrast to the atrocious Trump
presidency is irrefutably necessary - but it's hardly sufficient.
To give high marks merely for excelling in comparison to right-wing
Republicans is to cheer high jumps over very low standards. And the opening
months of President Biden's term are an especially bad time to grade him on
a curve, as top appointees take charge and policy directions are set.
With corporate forces fully mobilized and armies of their lobbyists deployed
to constantly push the new administration, the need for activating
grassroots counterpressure from the left should be obvious. Yet an
all-too-common progressive refrain now is along the lines of "Step back and
give Biden a chance!"
The refrain is understandable. And mistaken. It's essential to vigorously
advance progressive agendas that are morally compelling and tactically
effective - to deliver notable improvements in people's lives and prevent
the Republicans from recapturing Congress (as happened in 1994 and 2010 with
big GOP victories just two years after the corporate-friendly Democratic
presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama took office).
One of Trump's overarching "achievements" was to move the frame of feasible
political options rightward. Now, the achievable options must be moved in a
decidedly progressive direction - not simply back to the future with a
"third Obama term" aiming to reinstate the gist of a pre-Trump status quo.
Encouraging as some of Biden's first executive orders may be, they're not
transformative. Last week, under the headline "Biden's Executive Actions
Just Scratch the Surface," the editor of The American Prospect offered a
sober assessment. "What Biden is doing, even if it extends only to reversing
Trump-era rules and actions, will help a lot of people," David Dayen wrote.
But, "in a lot of ways on these executive actions, the style is doing a fair
bit more than the substance."
On January 28, when Biden signed an executive order on Obamacare, he
emphasized his self-imposed restraint. "There's nothing new that we're doing
here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to
the way it was before Trump became president," Biden said. And: "I'm not
initiating any new law, any new aspect of the law. This is going back to
what the situation was prior to Trump's executive order."
Prior to Trump, tens of millions of people in the United States were already
uninsured or underinsured - and that was before Covid struck.
Some reporting indicates Biden might now realize that chasing after
Republican partners in Congress would be a fool's errand. Yet Biden has a
bad history of reaching across the aisle to make harmful deals. "Mr. Biden
finds himself managing the outsize aspirations of the progressive wing of
his party while exploring the possibilities of working with a restive
opposition that has resisted him from the start," The New York Times
reported in a front-page story on Sunday.
Whatever the phrase "outsize aspirations" means, a key reality is that
progressives must keep building pressure during this time of extreme crises
- with several thousand Americans dying from the coronavirus every day,
economic catastrophes deepening for many, racial injustice continuing to
fester, and the climate emergency still worsening.
Much of what Biden can do would require no congressional action. Dayen
points out that, as per the Constitution, presidents "are implementers" -
and "they should implement to the maximum potential allowed by law."
When gauging the Biden presidency, we should throw away yardsticks that are
designed to measure its distance from the Trump presidency.
So many people are dying from lack of health care, and Biden has yet to take
- or call for - the magnitude of steps that are urgently needed to save
lives. One proposal, initiated by Rep. Ilhan Omar and gaining support in the
House, would provide recurring stimulus payments. A comprehensive plan, put
forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders, would establish free health care as a human
right for everyone in the United States, in effect Medicare for All, for the
duration of the pandemic.
How to pay for such momentous programs? One bill, introduced by Rep. Peter
DeFazio, provides for a transaction tax on Wall Street that would raise vast
amounts of revenue from people most able to afford it. One bill after
another has sought to substantially cut the military budget and make the
funds available to meet crying human needs.
Only continuous and intense pressure from grassroots activism can induce
Biden to support such vital measures.
"We should have learned a lesson from the Obama-Biden years, where many
progressive forces gave a honeymoon to the administration, believing that
they needed space and believing that they were gonna be under a lot of
pressure so we should back off. It was the worst possible thing that we
could have ever done," said Bill Fletcher Jr., a former senior AFL-CIO
staffer who is now executive editor of GlobalAfricanWorker.com. "We need to
stand behind Biden-Harris at nose length so that they cannot retreat without
running smack into us."
Progressive journalist Sonali Kolhatkar said: "Biden has already faced
relentless calls for so-called 'unity' from pro-Wall-Street and pro-war
corporate Democrats and media pundits, which is of course code for
capitulating to centrism and even conservatism. He needs to hear even
stronger calls from his constituency, calls that are loud enough to drown
out the Wall Streeters and warmongers."
In the words of progressive populist Jim Hightower, "The question is not
whether Biden will produce the transformative change that America urgently
needs. He won't. Rather the question is how hard, far, and persistently we
progressives will push him."
If President Biden is pushed hard and far and persistently enough, some
truly great changes are possible.