The 2020 Election: A Referendum on Trump

Joe Biden has scored the endorsements of three prominent progressives. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW HARRER | BLOOMBERG

By Mesean Sadri Staff Writer

When Joe Biden launched his campaign for President, his message to voters was that he’ll restore the “soul of the nation” and return to normalcy. Over a year after his initial campaign announcement, his message remains largely unchanged. Behind the substance-free performative messaging lies a campaign devoid of any concrete policy agenda for the working-class. There is no central animating issue in the Biden camp as there was with Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All or with Andrew Yang and universal basic income. In fact, a poll from the Pew Research Center indicates that 56% of Biden supporters are voting for him because he is not Trump. Another 19% support Joe for his leadership, 13% support him for his personality, and a measly 9% support Joe Biden for his policy positions. It’s quite

evident that Biden and the Democratic establishment toral strategy with widespread economic suffering and are staking election victory on a popular rejection to any incumbent president should expect to lose handTrump, and this strategy will likely work. However, the edly. But you can always leave it up to the Democrats left is in for a rude awakening when the democratic establishment uses a Biden victory as confirmation that “A return to “normalcy” neoliberal corporatism and hollow platitudes appeal to voters. will not put food on the taTrump’s incompetence and absence of leadership on the coronavirus have left over 215,000 Americans dead. ble for working people and American billionaires have gotten $845 billion richer during the pandemic, while 40 million Americans filed BIPOC who have been disfor unemployment, 12 million lost their employer-provided health insurance, and 30-40 million are at risk of proportionately affected by eviction. While there is plenty of blame to put on Congress’s inaction, the ultimate question voters will de- the COVID-19 pandemic.”cide at the polls is whether or not their material conditions have improved since 2016. This is grim news for Donald Trump who is overseeing the worst economic to make a straightforward race a lot more difficult than crisis since the Great Depression and a rising death it needs to be. toll due to his inaction on the COVID-19 pandem- Democrats constantly make efforts to appeal to a thin ic. Additionally, Trump has abandoned the populist slice of centrist voters and moderate Republicans. Alrhetoric that propelled him over the finish line back in though progressives are often treated as a fringe part 2016. Trump was successful in the rust belt because he of the party, a Pew Research poll found that 47% of went after disastrous trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, Democratic voters identify as liberal, along with 38% which outsourced millions of jobs and gutted the Mid- as moderates and 14% as conservatives. The more libwest. He strongly denounced the Iraq War and prom- eral-minded faction of the Democratic party makes up ised to end U.S. involvement in wasteful and expensive a plurality of blue voters, but the Biden team believes wars. He essentially outflanked the neoliberal Demo- they don’t need to excite this base of progressives crats and ran to the left of them on a few key issues, because their vote is already guaranteed by virtue of and this strate- gy convinced Trump, the alternative, being so bad. This is exactly enough indepen- dent voters the problem with the Democratic estabto give the billion- aire busi- lishment. They make no concessions to nessman a shot at the White the left on policy issues that are popHouse. However this time ular with all Americans like Medicare around, Trump is going all for All, legalizing cannabis, and raising in on the culture war and the living wage. Republicans are suc“law-and-order” messaging cessful because they never moderate to distract from their message to appeal to Democrats, the dire eco- and they embrace the far-right agenda nomic situation to excite their base. The left, on that transpired the other hand, is constantly under his vote-shamed and chastised watch. Aside for daring to ask better from those who from the Democrats. In already have a a lesser-of-two-evils povested interest litical system, Demoin politics, the crats move further and vast majority of further to the right Americans do to appeal to Republinot care about cans, while destroystatues or Antifa, ing enthusiasm and especially during an trust in their core unprecedented global base. After all, they crisis. Combine a weak elec- PHOTO COURTESY OF PATRICK SEMANSKY | AP just need to be better

Voters are more enthusiastic about defeating Trump than electing Joe Biden. PHOTO COURTESY OF JONATHAN ERNST | REUTERS

than the Republicans right? With the stakes of this election so high, the Democrats cannot risk to run a campaign that abandons the progressive wing of the party. It is worth mentioning that Biden avoids adopting popular ideas from the left likely because the donor class, which funds his campaign, is vehemently opposed to any of the ideas that come from the Bernie-wing of the party. These working-class issues could completely guarantee an election victory for Biden. A May 2020 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 78% of Democrats and 61% of independent voters favor Medicare for All. Another poll from The Hill-HarrisX conducted in late July found that 67% of Americans support providing Medicare to every citizen, with 87% of Democrats and 69% of independents supporting the measure. If Joe Biden came out in support of universal healthcare, the election would be over. Americans need a sense of stability and clear policy vision for the future during a time of so much uncertainty. A return to normalcy will not put food on the table for working people and BIPOC who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. One demographic in particular, Latinx voters, are especially receptive to concrete policy goals. The Bernie campaign shattered records with Latino voters in all of the early primary states and in California because his voter outreach to this community was centered around policy. People of color are understandably much more skeptical of politicians who court them for their votes every four years for their votes, while accomplishing nothing to directly impact their communities. By pursuing a policy-centered approach, the Biden campaign can secure a large enough coalition to not only beat Trump, but to beat him in a landslide, which helps down ballot Democrats running in swing districts and states. It’s not easy to advocate for bold leftist ideas when many leaders on the left such as Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ilhan Omar, and others have essentially signaled that their vote is going to Biden no matter what. By conceding that the other side is so reprehensible that progressives are forced to vote blue, the left essentially loses all of its political leverage in demanding better from Democratic leadership. We are doomed to fall into another election cycle of the lesser of two evils unless there is a massive paradigm shift within the Democratic party. The Democrats must realize that by failing to address the root causes that led to Trump in the first place, we are bound to see the rise of another Trump-like figure. When the 2024 presidential election arrives, the left must make it clear that its voters will not vote for the Democratic Party unless offered a clear policy agenda that benefits the working class. Voting is the only leverage that the working class has, and the progressive movement cannot simply hand the Democrats power and expect they do the left’s bidding. The left needs something to vote, not something to vote against.