election 2020

Last night, I was watching the results at work and stressing like the rest of America seemed to be. But it also made me pissed at the Democratic Party, from the leadership on down. On Twitter, Christian socialist Dean Dettloff wrote, "The fact that things are even close against the worst president in US history is a brutal indictment of the Democrats." And I couldn't agree more. But I also don't think many Democrats get that and realize just how bad the party is and how awful their strategy has been for years. They certainly don't seem to listen to people like him or me, or learn anything from their loses and close races when there's always Naders, Bernies, and Greens to blame. They just seem to repeat the same failed strategies with often terrible candidates to, I guess, play it safe.

That there's even a contest between the two is mystifying only if one doesn't realize that. Looking at the FOX polls from yesterday, for example, 70% of voters want universal healthcare; 71% want Roe v Wade to stay as it is; 72% want a path to citizenship for immigrants. And Florida just voted for a $15 minimum. Fucking Florida, who also went for Trump, again. But what if Democrats offered someone putting all of their energy into supporting things like universal healthcare and a $15 minimum? Maybe they'd have won Florida this year. And yeah, I get that it's still early and Biden has a chance, but I wish just once Democrats went all in with a truly progressive and populist candidate and platform. No establishment moderates approved by the party leadership, just a full-on socialist or social democrat championing the shit out of universal healthcare and education, worker ownership and board votes, a $15 minimum, etc.

If Biden loses, it'll likely be because of our terrible and undemocratic electoral system and because Democrats went with the exact same strategy as 2016 except with a worse candidate (Hillary was far superior, in my opinion). And if he wins, it'll be a slog to get back to 4 years ago. Either way, I want to keep screaming at Democrats to just take the gamble and give the people what they want. Find someone on the outside of both parties who embodies the populist desires of the people — someone who's championing the things people want like universal healthcare, a living wage, etc. — and go all in. I know Bernie has his flaws, but I'm reasonably sure he would've won against Trump both times. And if Democrats really want to win and help the nation progress, they have to start taking chances on people more like him and less like Biden. Maybe I'm wrong, but I want Democrats to try and prove me wrong. Please.

Like many others, Umair Haque singles out one of the biggest problems facing America today—white Americans. He points out, for example, the large numbers of white Americans who consistently vote Republican. The battle for progress has always been WITH white America, it seems, with the majority of nonwhites and progressive whites fighting against them. And as many have pointed out, this stems from the very beginnings of the country itself, which was founded as a nation for white, male property owners (which at the beginning included human beings), and the continued battle to maintain the racial, gender, and class relations (and the inequalities that arise out of them) that have been thoroughly embedded into our economic system, political system, justice system, religious institutions, etc. None of this can be blamed on anyone else. White people started it, and they continue to protect it even though we're inching closer to becoming a failed state as a result. So the question is, what can we do about it?

Obviously, one goal is to challenge and attempt to unravel these social relations and root them out of our social institutions. This means confronting and deconstructing things like racism, sexism, classism, etc. wherever they are found. And part of that is working on ourselves as individuals, as well as being able to see areas where things like a certain colour of skin or gender gives someone an advantage that can't be explained any other way, to see areas where discrimination and inequality oppress those who aren't a certain colour of skin or gender, and do what we can to right those wrongs. And that kind of work is monumental and long-term because it literally means deconstructing and rebuilding our entire society as these things have been built in at the most foundational levels. We have to not only revolutionize our economic system and the power dynamics of capital ownership, but all of the superstructures built on top of that, including our political system, our judicial system, our religious institutions, etc.

But the question today is, what can be done in the short-term in, say, an election? Many white people are opposed to change because they don't want to lose what little privilege and advantage they have. So it seems that the weight of electoral progress is always going to be on the backs of people of colour and the minority of white allies in that struggle. And where I disagree with others is that you can have a chance to win electorally by appealing to more general needs to help to overcome this privilege-preservation instinct to some extent. Besides inspiring many nonvoters and first time voters, there was a sizable percentage of white voters that voted for Obama in 2008 who later voted for Trump, and I think a big part of that was his messaging of hope and change and fixing a broken system that wasn't working for people and the policy ideas that went with the slogans. And Trump later won them over in places like the Midwest by not only appealing to their whiteness, but also to them as workers, who were willingly seduced by his racism as well as his brand of populism.

That's not to say that another candidate would somehow win all the white people over who, deep down, don't want equality extended to nonwhites out of fear or resentment or whatever motivates their racism/acceptance of institutionalized racism. In this, I definitely don't see Trump as an aberration but the culmination of America's racist, sexist, classist beginnings. As bad as he is, as a rich white man willing to combat equality, he appears as a champion to the majority of white people. But the question is, how do you overcome this electorally? What choices do we have? Get someone who's just as racist, or attempt to appeal to material wants and needs? I say the latter. For one, Biden is an old white man who was at his peak in the senate during the 90s and one of the many who spearheaded the Democrats' tough on crime (i.e., black people) years. So you'd think that he'd appeal to some of those white people who realize that Trump has been a terrible president. But despite that, and all the money and praise showered onto the Lincoln Project, more Republicans voted for Trump this time around than in 2016.

Yes, racism accounts for most of that, in my opinion. But I also think it's because Democrats have been trying to play it safe in the last two elections and have gone with candidates who failed to do what Obama did. His message resonated with people and gave them something to vote for, not against. He was a relatively new face to people, someone on the periphery of the party, which further supported his message of change and fixing some of the brokenness of our system. And maybe I'm being way too optimistic here, but I think if there was someone like that who championed the things progressives and social dems like Bernie have made popular — universal healthcare, $15 minimum wage, pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, etc. — things would be far less close, even if they were a person of colour. They might still lose the majority of white people, but I think they'd win enough and excite enough of the rest of the population hoping for progress to vote in large numbers.

Essentially, Democrats need to start voting for and supporting those kinds of people, moving away from the safe, white candidates and those who don't want things to fundamentally change, and towards the next generation of progressives winning seats around the country, speaking the language of progressive populism, and championing universal policies that a majority of Americans at least say that they support. It should also be noted that Biden lost ground with the very voters that Democrats depend on the most, black and latinx voters, so it's not entirely the fault of racism, although racism is likely the primary reason the majority of white voters favour Trump (and Republicans in general). It shouldn't be the responsibility of nonwhites to carry the progress of the nation forward, and white people have to be held accountable for the way things are. But I think this shows that the Democrats' strategy has failed yet again and that they need to do something different if they have any hope of remaining relevant, let alone in power.

I mean, it should be obvious by now that playing it safe and banking on winning Republican voters is a lost cause. Democrats have had a similar playbook the last two elections, and they’ve chosen established candidates who they felt would have an easier path to victory based on things like name recognition, years of service, and moderate policy platforms that were far less radical and therefore less likely to scare away more conservative white voters. And they lost the first elections to, and are currently neck and neck in the second with, someone who frankly should never have made it through the primary process to begin with and has proven themselves to be a disaster. So maybe it's time to throw caution to the wind, take a chance, and try to do something more radical. Maybe it's time to stop playing it safe, quit trying to appeal to the right, quit trying to moderate your message, and just go for it, because what you're really doing is trying to compromise with that underlying racism and desire for a strong business daddy to whip all that good, ol’ fashion racism and sexism and jingoism back into us, meaning you'll lose morally and often electorally anyway. And as difficult as it may be, work on getting the 40-50% of eligible voters who don’t vote to actually come out and vote FOR something.