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MItchell Plitnick's Analysis and Opinion, Foreign and Domestic

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Epilogue: Why Review Biden's Failed Term

The authoritarian Republican assault can only be defeated by a substantive and popular alternative. To build one, we must start by understanding why the Democrats of Biden, Harris, et al aren't it.

Mitchell Plitnick

Feb 15, 2025

Donald Trump hasn’t been in office a month yet, and already he’s placed the United States under siege. He has assaulted every aspect of government that doesn’t represent personal advantage for him and his cronies and has implemented Project 2025 even faster than we anticipated.

The threat is clear and is made more dire by the fecklessness and cowardice of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. The mainstream media has played its dutiful role in normalizing Trump’s behavior.

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It is fair to ask why I spent so much time in recent weeks writing a three-part post-mortem on the disastrous administration of Joe Biden. After all, the second administration of Donald Trump wasted no time in wreaking havoc on the United States and the entire world, gutting programs and even entire departments of the federal government that aimed at helping people who desperately need it (however problematic those agencies might have admittedly been) while enabling a massive private industry power grab spearheaded by Elon Musk. In short, Trump has launched a coup. And it’s succeeding.

I do not deny that I have had a personal interest in Biden, having followed him closely since I first became a student of American politics in the late 1970s. I see in him everything that is wrong with the mainstream of the Democratic party and have seen it since I first became familiar with the “Senator From MBNA.”

But this was not a personal vendetta. On the contrary, the recent responses from Democratic spokespeople, pundits, and leaders demonstrate that they have learned nothing from the Biden debacle or the fact that Biden and Kamala Harris ushered in what could prove to be the most calamitous administration in North America since the Confederacy.

Democrats blame the voters

Shortly after I posted my recent video on the appalling responses of Democratic mouthpieces using the unimaginable suffering in Gaza as a cudgel to attack voters, I saw someone write, “Everyone knew Trump would be worse for Gaza than Harris, and here’s the proof.”

I was stunned. Sure, I’d seen this notion in many places, but this was from someone who knows better. The complete dismissal of the crime of genocide in this statement is indescribable.

On this specific point, let me be very clear. Trump has proposed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and that is a crime of enormous magnitude.

And one other point must be made clear: anyone with progressive values might (and I’d argue, should) see Harris as an absolutely horrendous figure. But on almost every issue, aside from Gaza, Donald Trump is far worse. Whatever else Harris is, and Biden was, they did not strive for a fascist autocracy.

But on Gaza, it’s a different story. First, Harris, as vice president and as an integral part of the Biden administration, did not propose policies, she acted, and those actions constituted not just complicity but full partnership in GENOCIDE. The toll in Gaza is still not fully known, but by current count, direct attacks by Israel killed over 61,000 people, the overwhelming majority of them non-combatants, and a strong majority of them women and children. More are still buried under the rubble and that figure does not count deaths from lack of clean water, from lack of medical care or medicine, from starvation, exposure, and lack of shelter.

The entire Gaza Strip has been turned into a wasteland. Trump wasn’t lying when he said it was uninhabitable; the United Nations had declared Gaza unfit for habitation due to the conditions Israel’s siege since 2007 had imposed on it long before October 7, 2023. Now, what was there has been utterly obliterated. No schools, no community centers, no hospitals, no office buildings, and, really, no homes to speak of in most of Gaza.

Moreover, Trump’s plan isn’t his own idea. Biden, with Harris’ full support, tried to do the very same thing in October and November of 2023 and was publicly rebuffed by Egypt and Jordan, just as Trump has been. Biden was just quieter about it.

On every level, Trump, as monstrous as he has been, has a long way to go before he can match what Kamala Harris ACTUALLY DID in her term as vice president. It’s more than possible that he will traverse that distance and surpass Biden in horrific criminality. But he hasn’t done so yet.

Let’s not forget that Harris, while she was campaigning, was repeatedly given opportunities to distance herself from Biden’s actions and policies or, at least, to admit they had led to disaster, and she would do things differently. Every time, Harris insisted that she was in full support of Genocide Joe’s policies. Worse, she never missed an opportunity to show her utter contempt for Palestinian life, or for her own Palestinian American, Arab American, and Muslim American constituents and their allies.

No one owes their vote to any candidate. Rather it is the candidates who owe it to the voters to appeal to them, to reflect what they want, and to represent, in a general sense, their worldview and priorities. That’s what democracy means, among other things.

And yet, people make these ignorant assertions, telling voters that Trump is their fault for failing to vote for the very person who, in many cases, was directly responsible for the slaughter of their friends and families. The cruelty of this Democratic argument is mind-boggling, even given the Trumpian reality we live in now.

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The need for a real alternative

And that is the crux of the matter. The problem we are facing is being misdiagnosed. That misdiagnosis is willful on the part of many Democratic leaders and pundits who want to keep their privileged positions and cushy, highly-paid jobs. For most voters who are buying into these lines, though, it’s simply a matter of their being misinformed.

That is why I felt the need to write these reviews of Biden’s presidency. The point is not to pile on Biden, though he and Kamala Harris certainly merit it. The point is that people need to understand that as long as these people are the alternative to Trumpian authoritarianism, the most we can hope for is the sort of temporary break from Trumpian madness that we had until last month.

Democrats had a perfect opportunity to bury Trumpism once and for all in 2020. People—and not only registered Democrats—were screaming for real change after the pandemic had made the festering sores of American society—in the form both of staggering inequality and of reactionary forces symbolized by the MAGA movement— and the neoliberal world visible to all. And people wanted to do something about it.

Democrats responded with a fear campaign whose goal was to elect the candidate who would defend the status quo, with minor tweaks at most to put a band-aid over the most egregious problems. They were committed to defending a status quo that was failing the overwhelming majority of Americans.

As many of us warned, going down that road would only bring Trump right back, and it did exactly that. Yet many Democrats have learned nothing. They are covering up Biden’s disastrous policies and then trying to argue that it’s the fault of the voters for not voting for someone who, in their eyes (and very much in mine) is guilty of genocide.

Harris spit in people’s faces and then expected them to vote for her. Rather than learn a lesson from that, Democratic punditry has viciously attacked the people with spit on their faces.

The Democratic strategy of running on being “Not Trump” is a dead end. Voters must be offered an alternative, not merely the status quo that few Americans find to their liking. The populist right wing has offered that alternative, even if their stated goals are disingenuous. The left cannot get away with that kind of scam. We cannot offer platitudes but deliver policies that keep things the way they are.

That’s what Harris tried to do. She launched a “campaign of joy” while people continued to struggle to make ends meet. She talked about positive economic indicators while people-not just the poor, but also the middle class—couldn’t pay their bills. Aggregate economic numbers don’t see an uneven distribution of wealth. Wages marginally outpacing inflation after years of soaring prices and depressed wages don’t help. Harris ignored all of this, and she and the DNC told people they were just too stupid to understand the wonderful economic gifts Bidenomics had blessed them with.

This is far from being just about Gaza, which is why, in my three-part review, I spent relatively little time on that issue. Yet even there, the polling showed that those of us who were pleading and begging the Democrats to change their message, their course, and, most of all, their policy on Gaza were dead on accurate. We warned that it was impacting their chances in key states.

Republicans are being true to their ideological roots of corporate rule, ineffective and “small” government, conservative social rules enforced by law, and concentration of wealth upwards. Too often, Democrats are helping them or offering an alternative that still prioritizes the interests of the powerful above the powerless.

This must change.

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A new vision and strategy is needed

The first step is policy. Democrats need to weave together a policy platform based on progressive values, but prioritizing those that already have popular support. Raising the minimum wage is one prominent example. An April 2024 poll found that more than 80% of Americans believe the minimum wage should be increased, and that percentage held steady across party lines: 89% of Democrats, 86% of Independents, and 84% of Republicans agreed on this. Even when asked if they’d agree to raise the minimum wage to$17 per hour (the highest figure the poll offered) Republicans were split, with 45% saying yes and 51% no. Among all voters, it was 64%-33% in favor.

Those numbers make you wonder why Democrats don’t feature raising the minimum wage as a primary plank of their platform. They have it in there, but it’s not something they talk about much. One wonders if we looked at the 4% of Democratic voters who are against raising the minimum wage at all, we might find many of the party’s biggest donors in that group.

There are other clearly popular issues that should make up a Democratic party platform. Significant increases in progressive taxation (and this applies particularly on the state level, as the most regressive tax policies appear there) are popular. So is Universal Health Care, even if people get bogged down in terminology. A December Gallup poll found that 62% of Americans said that it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure that all Americans have health care coverage.

Other issues might require a longer view and shouldn’t be part of the platform until the public has a better general understanding of them. For example, cancelling student loan debt across the board and thoroughly reforming how higher education is funded would be an enormous boon to the country. Cancelling the debt would literally inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the consumer economy, with long term effects that would include a significant uptick in consumer spending across the board. Reforming the cost of higher education, following the model much of the rest of the world uses would be a huge boon to democracy, to scientific and academic competitiveness, and many other areas of American life in the long run.

But many people do not understand the benefits and thus see cancelling student debt as having to pay for other people’s undergraduate degrees, master’s degrees, and PhDs. Public education on this issue is needed.

Or we can look at the “Defund the Police” campaign, which was, in my view, poorly labeled. But tearing down and replacing our policing and carceral systems with systems of security and justice which actually promote community security and cooperation and prioritize restorative, rather than punitive justice, would be far more cost-effective and produce a safer, more compassionate society. But to achieve that, we must first educate people as to what prison abolitionism is and allay the fears that they will be left vulnerable to theft and violence.

What this all boils down to is we need a party, Democrats or otherwise, that advocates for progressive values, is strategic about the specific policies it pursues, and is capable of appealing to broad audiences. As progressive policies are enacted and are seen to be working and improving the country, more policies can be subsequently enacted. Success can be built on with even bolder policies as the populace buys in more to the values that are working for them.

The last element is, of course, a charismatic leader. Progressives can crack jokes at Trump’s expense (and to be sure, I have been known to produce some vicious ones). But he has a personal appeal that Democrats can’t match.

Compare Trump’s ability to win over his crowd to Biden, Harris, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, or Hakeem Jeffries. The deficit is clear.

It’s possible to find progressives who can inspire, who can rally crowds, who can be strong leaders. But they face two challenges: entrenched Democratic leadership and our own fear.

Outspoken, passionate, inspirational leaders have an uphill battle among Democrats, and it’s no coincidence that those people are also some of the most progressive figures in Washington. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar join figures from the past like Ron Dellums or Paul Wellstone as progressives who gathered genuine followings and inspired people.

But we allow ourselves to be convinced that such people can’t win over swing voters. History says otherwise. Barack Obama, a centrist who campaigned as a progressive, captured those voters, and so did Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. In Sanders’ case it was moderates and liberals who convinced themselves, incorrectly, that Bernie couldn’t beat Trump that prevented him from being nominated. Obama was able to overcome those doubts, in no small part because Americans in 2008 were angry at both parties. though mostly Republicans, for crashing the economy. But when offered more typical Democratic choices in 2016 and 2024, many of those voters either didn’t vote or went over to Trump. (2020, coming in the wake of the pandemic, was anomalous).

We have good leaders, but we need to defend and promote them. Not only the ones I named, but also those whose like we have failed in recent years, like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.

White supremacists, believers in corporate power, and zealous conservative Christians are supporting what they believe to be candidates who reflect their values. They didn’t vote strategically; recall the Republican hand-wringing in 2012 that mirrored the misguided thinking of “strategic voting” Democrats have embraced? Instead of giving in to that view and moderating their views, more radical forces produced a message that reflected what their voters wanted. More’s the pity. But that was their road to success, as it always is in popular votes.

The authentic way to vote strategically is to support the people who represent our values, our priorities, and our policies, regardless of what a failed and flawed political punditry tells us. And we need to start by building up those candidates now, not wait until a few months before an election when we are again faced with a choice between terrible and much worse.

There are people who will always vote for the Democrat and others who will always vote for the Republican. Those people don’t decide elections. The people who might go either way or the larger group who might not vote at all are the ones who decide elections. That latter group of voters are the ones who don’t vote for the lesser of two evils. Unless you give them someone good, they’re not going to vote at all. Meanwhile, the former group will vote Republican because, in their view, they are at least claiming not to be more of the same.

Democrats don’t need to embrace Liz Cheney or support genocide to bring in those votes. They need to stand for principle and stand strongly and unapologetically. They need to follow through on representing those principles in policy. They need, bottom line, to make people’s lives better, economically, socially, and politically. And, to make that correct choice, they need to be pushed, cajoled, and threatened with being ousted from office by their voters. That’s how politics works.

Democratic activists can either pursue that course or they can continue to lose elections with the likes of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton. The choice is before the Democratic party. Some of the alternatives are already visible in the party, and chasing progressive goals will bring more good leaders into a political arena that repels them now.

Otherwise, we are surrendering to the forces of Trumpian authoritarianism and autocracy. The choice should be clear, and it is dictated most boldly by the disaster that was Joe Biden’s presidency and Kamala Harris’ campaign. If we don’t learn such a clear lesson, maybe we don’t deserve democracy.

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My Latest Articles

Arab states will have to stand up to Trump to avert ethnic cleansing of Gaza

Arab leaders face increasing pressure from the White House to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As they prepare an alternative proposal for Gaza it seems unlikely they can satisfy both Trump and their own citizens.

Mondoweiss, February 15, 2025

Trump’s impossible Gaza plan can still do a great deal of harm

Even though Donald Trump’s call for the U.S. to “own” the Gaza Strip is completely infeasible, there is a real danger he may take steps to pursue this idea, which will be extremely destructive.

Mondoweiss, February 6, 2025

ICYMI: VIDEO: The Racism of Democratic Mouthpieces

I reacted to the wave of Democratic punditry attacking people who couldn’t vote for genocide in November, sometimes even singling out Muslims in a most racist way. Watch the video here on Cutting Through or on YouTube.