The Democratic Party Does Not Care About Progressive Voters
The divorce between the Democratic Party and its progressive base has been pronounced.
The divorce between the Democratic Party and its progressive base has been pronounced.
The chances of Donald Trump to remain in the White House through 2025 just went up following Joe Biden’s choice to select Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.
The nomination of Kamala Harris is an odd choice. She will not bring additional votes to the Democrats. She is a Senator from a state Joe Biden was poised to win handily already. She is not particularly popular with white centrist voters and as the Democratic Primary revealed, she is less popular with black and Latino voters than Joe Biden is. She is a weak debater as we all witnessed when Tulsi Gabbard single-handily obliterated her campaign in an early debate; highlighting Harris’ terrible human rights record as a prosecutor. She was such a terrible campaigner that despite the mainstream media’s attempts to push the “female Obama” agenda during the primary elections, she only garnered 2% of Democrat support and did not even make the late debates.
Even worst, not only will Kamala Harris do nothing to persuade Republican voters who are unhappy with Donald Trump to vote for Joe Biden, she will further alienate progressive voters who were already thinking about bailing on the Democratic Party come November. A few months ago, I wrote a piece about the many left-wing voters who refused to vote for Joe Biden and are no longer willing to be coerced to “Vote Blue No Matter Who.” In that vein, Joe Biden and the DNC strategists remain oblivious to the fact that Kamala Harris is REVILED by the American Left.
Think about what your average progressive voter thinks when he/she sees this:
For the American Left, Kamala Harris embodies everything that is wrong with US politics. She is the very definition of a “Corporate Democrat”, a member of the political establishment who prefer to serve her benefactors than her voters. The fact that she is very popular among the donor class is enough to convince leftist voters that the corporate establishment has nothing to fear from her. With the nomination of Kamala Harris, progressives know that whatever the outcome of the presidential election; Wall Street has won and Main Street has lost.
The Worst Side of Identity Politics
Biden and the DNC are planning to use the fact that Kamala Harris is a woman of color to counter any criticisms against her record or Joe Biden’s. The plan is fairly simple; a female black VP who might even become president would be historic so anyone who opposes the first female black vice-president will be branded as a bigoted, misogynistic, racist who is against the march of progress.
This is what happens when form takes precedence over substance. If the Democrats were genuine in their intention to improve the lives of women and people of color, they would push for the implementation of an emergency UBI, Medicare for all, affordable education; a stream of measures that could be funded through higher taxes on the rich and slashing the defence budget.
Worst, in the BLM era, Harris’s nomination sends the wrong message to ethnic minorities, especially black Americans. Her record as San Francisco’s district attorney would make Jeff Sessions proud: she fought to keep innocents in jail, blocked financial compensations to wrongfully convicted people, kept non-violent offenders in jail to use them as a source of cheap labor for the State of California, withheld evidence that could have freed several prisoners, and has convicted nearly 2,000 people for marijuana offenses.
Kamala Harris’ lack of principles is illustrated by the fact that she attacked her current running mate over his leading role in the racist anti-busing movement. Similarly, just a few months ago, Harris was speaking out in support of the four women who were accusing Biden of sexual harassment. Curiously, she seems to have forgotten all of that now that she has been offered a position of power.
America is more progressive than you think
The reason why Biden did not pick Andrew Yang or Elizabeth Warren is because the DNC is afraid that Swing State voters may be reluctant to vote for a progressive running mate. Additionally, they fear that Trump would be able to use the “Trojan horse” attack on Biden, claiming the progressive wing of the party is only using him as a vehicle to ram their agenda through.
However, over the last few years, American voters have shown that they are not inherently allergic to anything left-leaning. The progressive base of the Democratic Party may have lost the war over the party’s presidential nomination, but its members are quietly winning battles in states and cities across the country. In Congress, Bernie Sanders is now backed by a new generation of young progressive figures who were elected despite being opposed by establishment democrats backed by the DNC and rich donors.
Left-wing voters are not delusional. They are very much aware that America is not yet ready to fully embrace social democracy. Nevertheless, they (maybe naively) hoped that the DNC would finally acknowledge the growing popularity of left-wing populism and consequently, reach to the progressive base of the Democratic Party by selecting a progressive figure as a running mate.
The US is a one-party system: Corporate America
In The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, Geralt of Rivia is quoted as saying:
“Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.”
Being 78 years old, Joe Biden can very well not finish his term if he gets elected. Therefore, his choice of VP was of crucial importance for him and the DNC — as his VP could be the next president. With Harris, the DNC and Biden are envisioning what is considered a centrist administration in the US or what we Europeans would call a right-wing neoliberal government. In that vein, the role dedicated to Kamala Harris will be to compensate and potentially take over a Joe Biden who himself lacks the energy and the charisma to be the representative of a dysfunctional political system.
Knowing that Biden is unlikely to seek a second term — with Kamala Harris — the DNC and its corporate donors are trying to nip in the bud any potential for a future left-wing takeover of the Democratic Party, hence ensuring the long-term survival of the corporate establishment.
Unfortunately for the DNC, their masterplan could very well backfire. At a time when millions of American citizens are raging against wealth inequality, the Democratic Party is more concerned about the well-being of oligarchs than listening to the people. You cannot serve the people and money, and by choosing the latter, the Democratic Party has lost its soul.
Left-wing voters are angry and they have every reason to be. For them, the DNC is not only ignoring progressive policies, it is actively fighting against change. Along those lines, the last six months have confirmed all the suspicions previously held by progressives; the Democratic Party is too corrupt to be reformed and deserves to be burnt to the ground.
The question is now — among progressive voters who live in the Swing States — how many will stay home or vote for a 3rd party? The magnitude of the progressive mutiny is hard to assess but a survey of the progressive media sphere betrays an immense sense of bitterness and anger among left-wing voters.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are acting like the election’s outcome is a foregone conclusion. Worst, they seem to take the progressive vote for granted forgetting that in 2016, many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters stayed home on Election Day.
Despite the loss of life, a record-high unemployment rate, and pictures of Americans lining up at food banks — all of which can be blamed on Trump’s disastrous management of the crisis — he still has the same odds of winning in 2020 as he did in 2016. If Trump manages to turn the economy even perceptibly upwards by November, he would be once again a tough opponent to beat while facing a Democratic Party that is fractured and weakened.