Biden's Greatest Triumph?
The American Rescue Plan is fine as emergency relief, but early indications of Biden's overall policy approach, both domestic and foreign, raise serious concerns
Covid-19 relief is on the way. The Democrats were able to overcome the right wing of their own party and pass the $1.9 trillion relief bill. Joe Biden gets to be the hero, Kyrsten Sinema managed to still come off as awful by dancing as she voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour (which would still not qualify as a living wage in most of the country), and some Republicans had the gall to claim credit for the relief bill despite voting against it.
No American president in living memory had a bar nearly as low as Biden does. Donald Trump left office with a destroyed economy, a country that had seen hundreds of thousands more deaths than necessary from a pandemic, and a society that had been set against each other, with a substantial minority passionately believing some of the most absurd lies ever told.
Yes, the bar for Biden was set low, and he’s comfortably cleared that bar. But is it good enough?
It’s still early; the man has only been in office for seven weeks. On an administrative level, Biden had a huge mess to clean up, and there is no doubt that he has brought a level of competence to the job that was sorely needed. He has reminded everyone that, while the notion of an outsider in the White House might be romantic, a basic level of administrative competence and understanding of both the role and the workings of government are indispensable in this job, regardless of one’s policy positions.
More than that, Biden has reminded the country of the virtues of leadership. Biden understands the need to project some sense of compassion for people, as well as the need to send out the right messages to inspire people to do simple, but important things like wearing a mask in the midst of an airborne pandemic.
A political veteran of five decades, Joe Biden knows how to do these things, as he certainly should by now. But the real challenges are much deeper than cleaning up Trump’s many messes. The real test for the Biden presidency will be reversing trends that he has been a central contributor to over his long career. Is he up to that challenge?
The early returns, even at this moment of a significant policy triumph for the White House, are dubious. On the domestic front, Biden’s early days have raised significant concerns, even while he has also had a significant triumph. And on foreign policy, the outlook is particularly grim.
On a broad level, the so-called America Rescue Plan is a huge step and a major investment. But it is also a mere patch, albeit a considerably more effective one than Biden applied with his boss, Barack Obama, to 2009’s economic crater. It does not address the underlying issues that have been developing for decades. The $1,400 checks that millions of Americans will be getting will certainly help, like many of the provisions in the relief bill. The child tax credit, small business relief, the extension of $300 per week of additional unemployment benefits, the funds for states and municipalities, and of course the specific funding for medical supplies and facilities to directly combat the coronavirus and get the vaccines distributed are all going to help people desperately trying to dig out of the holes created by the pandemic and the unprecedented incompetence of Trump’s response to it.
But there will be little else to show for this $1.9 trillion expense once the crisis is over. The institutional problems that left the richest country in the world completely vulnerable to a pandemic will remain. The massive inequality, the lack of universal health care, the threat of poverty that three quarters of the country lives with, the ongoing racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and many other problems that have led to so many of our crises remain. And, given the unprecedented size of the spending bill, there is going to be much greater resistance from conservative Democrats, let alone Republicans, to addressing those issues in a significant way.
Once these one-time stimuli have had their effect, the economy is likely to stabilize and land in a relatively strong position. That will obviously remove the immediate political pressures that have led most Democrats to endorse progressive measures. Much of what the coronavirus relief bill does reflects progressive priorities and are examples of just the sort of measures that mainstream Democrats have previously refused to act on. That political inertia, born of the nature of our political system where massive monied interests pay the bills for both parties, is going to snap back in a hurry when the stimulus does its job.
On the other hand, the relief bill will prove that progressive ideas work and that conservative ones do not. Putting money in the hands of the masses leads to a healthy economy for everyone, while continuing to concentrate that wealth in the hands of billionaires creates a sickly economy that offers some positive indicators in the aggregate while leading to increased hardship for the overwhelming majority.
The poverty levels are bad enough. The obscene numbers of homeless people and families food uncertainty are unconscionable in a country with our wealth. But even in the middle class, the amount of work people have to do to achieve home ownership and sufficient funds for a decent vacation a couple of times a year, to pay for their children’s needs and education and other basic elements of “a good life” is at an unreasonable level. Two adults must often work 50 or 60 hours a week each to achieve that kind of income, and often accumulate large debts to do so. Those people live in constant fear of an economic downturn that can destroy their lives.
Ending poverty and homelessness is easily achievable in the United States. So is forgiving student loan debt, paying everyone a living wage, and moving toward a high quality of life for all of us. The principles embodied in the coronavirus relief bill prove that we can do it. The only thing stopping us is the belief that our government should protect not the lives of its citizens, but the wealth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
The defeat of a $15 per hour minimum wage and the White House’s almost immediate surrender on that front indicate that this is not a priority for Biden, despite the fact that leading Democratic members of Congress have clearly recognized that this is an extremely popular initiative.
All of this demonstrates the desperate need to redouble efforts for progressive change. Biden would never have been so bold on the relief bill if he hadn’t faced pressure to act in a forceful manner. A long and sustained fight can lead to a living minimum wage, guaranteed housing and food for all, universal health care, affordable education, and debt forgiveness. Every one of those measures will be a net economic boon for the country as a whole and it’s all possible if we have the will to fight it.
That hope contrasts sharply with foreign policy, which remains a low priority for most Americans, including Democrats and even many radical leftists.
Take the Iran deal. The forces opposing an immediate re-entry into the JCPOA are the very same ones that led us into the disastrous invasion of Iraq. They have been proven wrong about everything, and at every turn. Yet they continue to exert a heavy influence on foreign policy, in great measure, because this has not been a priority for progressives, leaving a vacuum for the neoconservative warmongers.
The U.S. broke its word and quit the JCPOA without any grounds to do so. Yet we are placing demands on Iran for our re-entry. That is an absurd stance, and one that is fundamentally at odds with avoiding conflict, not to mention common sense. Meanwhile, the “maximum pressure” policy enacted under Trump remains in place, doing its destructive work. While some progressives are speaking out on this, one need only look at the relative volume of calls from progressives on this subject compared to domestic issues.
The Biden administration has indicated it will not reverse most of Donald Trump’s actions in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and it is following Trump’s policy fairly closely on Venezuela. He has given no indication that he will reverse Trump’s edict recognizing the illegal Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. Little has changed in terms of working with Latin American countries like Guatemala and Honduras to address the crises there—largely of our making, as they are also in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and much of this hemisphere—that would stem the flow of refugees toward our borders far more effectively than militarization of the border and imprisonment of asylum seekers.
That’s not to say Biden is not different from Trump. American engagement is important, and even the insincere parroting of claims of interest in human rights and international law makes some difference in some of these areas. Biden has certainly re-engaged on a global level, but apparently, he is, at best, aiming at restoring the pre-Trump status quo ante. He can do a lot better.
The lesson here is that progressive influence is growing in the Democratic party. It has gotten where it is by being smart but also by being bold. It has come from creating pressure, not counting on wealthy and mostly white male politicians to do the right thing.
The priority now has to be increasing pressure on the Biden administration and on Democrats in Congress. Taking a principled stand will bring things like a higher minimum wage; a compassionate foreign policy; a new system replacing the prison-industrial complex and the racist policing system with social measures that actually prevent, rather than only punish crime; universal health care; and quality higher education for all. Those are not pipe dreams. Every one of them is doable and within our grasp.
It starts with the need to do away with the filibuster. Biden must exert leadership within his own party. When Joe Manchin indicated reluctance to back the American Rescue Plan, Kamala Harris promoted it in West Virginia. Manchin kicked and screamed about it, but eventually he had to go along. Presidents have done similar things throughout American history to bring members of Congress in line.
It is certain that, if we mobilize and get these strong measures passed, progressives will continue to be elected, because we will have made the overwhelming majority of Americans wealthier, more secure, more comfortable, healthier, and better educated. And the more of this program we can enact, the more popular and powerful progressives will be.
The effort to do this will need to be sustained far beyond the Biden years. But the rewards will be worth it.
Except for Palestine
Thanks to all of you who have already bought my book with Marc Lamont Hill, Except for Palestine: The limits of Progressive Politics. If you haven’t picked it up yet, you can get it in hardcover, audiobook format or eBook and those links will allow you to buy from independent booksellers. It’s also available from all the big places too if that’s your jam.
The first month’s sales have gone very well, and the book went out of stock on bookshop.org. Never fear, more are on the way.
We’ve already had a good number of events around the book’s release, and there are more coming. I will be updating this page at my web site regularly as we add more upcoming events, videos and audio recordings of past events, and new interviews and podcasts, so you can hear and see all we have around this book.
We’ve done a lot of great appearances and they’ve varied quite a bit. I am not just shamelessly self-promoting when I say it will be worth your while to watch many of them. Two that I really want to highlight because I felt really good about them are:
Marc’s and my appearance on Democracy Now! Where we talk with Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh. Watch and listen here.
We also talked with our beloved mutual friend, Noura Erakat at an event co-presented by Haymarket Books and our publisher, The New Press. Watch here.
Recent Articles
Neera Tanden has spent far more energy attacking progressives than she has fighting Republicans. So it’s not surprising that many progressives celebrated her failure to win confirmation for the position of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Biden administration. But in this case, the reason she lost this fight was more important than her defeat. It was not a victory for progressives, but a defeat. I explain at Medium.
Facebook has become the latest battleground in the fight to stop supporters of Israel’s policies to define criticism of Israel as antisemitic. I look into it in this piece at The New Arab.
Israel has argued that the Oslo Accords supersede the Geneva Convention and mean that they have no responsibility to vaccinate Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. That’s not true, and even if it were, the Oslo Accords actually commit Israel to work with the Palestinian Authority to vaccinate Palestinians under occupation. I explain at Medium.
At Responsible Statecraft, I addressed speculation that anger at Netanyahu over his embrace of Republicans might temper Biden’s lopsided support for Israeli policies. It won’t, as I explain.
Recommended Articles
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For Gaza’s most vulnerable, home is no safe place for COVID-19 recovery
By Fidaa Shurrab, +972 Magazine March 12, 2021
The Anti-Democratic Origins of the Jewish Establishment
By Emmaia Gelman, Jewish Currents, March 12, 2021
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