The Biden Years Will Open Big Opportunities for the Left

Few on the left hold out hope that the Biden administration will be capable of offering a path forward for working people. The Democratic Party’s commitment to pro-Wall Street politics has only been reinforced by Biden’s cabinet choices. Worse still, it’s widely feared that Biden’s attempts to return to “normalcy” will pave the way for a potentially even more dangerous far-right demagogue like Trump to take power. 

This places an urgent responsibility on the small but growing forces of the organized left—especially the 85,000 members of the Democratic Socialists of America—to build a serious and fighting political alternative. Yet DSA remains divided over not only strategy, but over what is in some ways a more fundamental question: what is possible for the left to achieve in the years ahead? 

Many have drawn pessimistic conclusions from Bernie Sanders’ defeat and the Republicans’ strong showing in November. While DSA formally backs the goal of building a mass workers’ party, it seems there is little confidence in our ability to take serious steps toward challenging the corporate Democrats in the next four years.

Recently, our comrades at Tempest published a piece by Emma Wilde Botta which asks “Is Socialism Winning?” in response to the false optimism especially prevalent in official DSA communications. We broadly agree with their critique of the cheer-leading analysis of some DSA leaders, who declared “WE ARE WINNING” following the successes of DSA-endorsed candidates in 2020. 

Of course, it is quite impressive that 26 of the 30 DSA-endorsed candidates won the seats they contested, bringing the total elected DSA members to 155 in 32 states. In her Tempest article, Wilde Botta seems to downplay this achievement. But she also correctly argues:

If the post-election assessment is that the socialist Left is winning, then we do not have to do anything differently. That is the logic of electoralism… Electoral victories are not a sufficient way to gauge whether the balance of forces is shifting… [W]e have not yet grappled with some of the limitations of these gains, namely how little winning an election actually guarantees. Reforms are won based on the balance of class forces.

But alongside many others on the left, Wilde Botta concludes that “a broader assessment of the political landscape shows that the socialist Left is in a weaker position after this election cycle.” We disagree. 

While the left does remain historically weak, we think the mass protests, strikes, and political advances over the last decade—with Sanders’ two campaigns representing the highest political expression of this process—has shifted consciousness to the left, on balance, and increased the confidence and fighting capacity of working people. Equally important, the trendline for the capitalist class points in the opposite direction: the crises of the last decade have dramatically weakened the legitimacy of their key institutions, including both major parties. The growth of right-populism, with backing from a section of the ruling class, is a symptom of their weakness, not their strength.

Looking ahead, socialists have the potential to take serious strides toward political independence and toward building a coherent, mass working class alternative to both Biden and the far-right Republicans. Biden’s promised ‘return to normalcy’ will give way to fresh crises and new, larger waves of mass political participation on both the right and left. 

There will be important openings for DSA in the coming years, but only if we consciously prepare ourselves to seize them. To do so means turning the widespread pessimism on the left—with all the accompanying strategic and organizational conclusions—into determined preparation and struggle. 

The Democrats’ Failed Strategy

The left is correct to be worried about the huge vote for Trump, but much of the analysis underestimates the full impact of the centrist Democrats’ failure—and what could be achieved if a mass working-class political challenge was organized. 

With a deadly global pandemic and more than 300,000 dead in the US, an economic recession leaving 20 million people unemployed, up to 40 million people at risk of eviction, and the largest protest movement in US history for Black lives—it’s no wonder the 2020 US election saw the greatest voter turnout since 1900. 

Turnout was nearly 67% of the voting electorate. Yet this did not result in a landslide for Democrats. In fact, though Biden squeaked out a win, centrist Democrats failed to make gains all across the board. Even Biden’s win failed to provide a real mandate: most of his voters (68%) said they voted against Trump rather than for Biden in national exit polls. And rather than taking a devastating blow, as many hoped, the Republican Party defended almost all their state and federal strongholds and expanded their electoral base.

Trump was a deeply unpopular, blatantly white supremacist and nationalist president, and hatred for him clearly spurred massive voter turnout by youth and people of color in particular. Youth turnout surged, reaching 53% this year versus 45% in 2016, with 62% of 18-29 year olds voting against Trump. Turnout among Latino voters also skyrocketed, as Democracy Now reported on November 11, reaching 64% of all eligible Latino voters, (compared to 48% in 2012 and 2016), with the majority—66%—voting for Biden. 87% of Black voters, an overwhelming majority, voted for Biden. An increase in Indigenous turnout likely played a key role in Biden’s win in Arizona and Wisconsin. 

Deep organizing and movement building also increased turnout. Community organizing in Arizona’s Maricopa County, galvanized by the fight against former sheriff Joe Arpaio, gave Arizona to a Democrat for the first time since 1996. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib’s impressive field game and progressive principles propelled their districts to incredibly high turnouts, which helped deliver Minnesota to Biden and put him over the top in Michigan. And the Black Lives Matter uprising this summer had a significant influence on voter turnout, as voter registrations for Democrats and independents spiked in June, during the height of the protests.

But an increase in voter turnout helped Trump, too. He received 73 million votes in 2020 compared to 62 million in 2016. Like in 2016, Trump found most of his support among white voters, a majority of whom (58%) voted for him. An analysis of voter demographics by The Guardian on November 5 showed that Trump slightly increased his share of higher income voters (those making over $100,000 a year), in a potential reflection of Trump’s pro-rich and pro-business policies. The increase in his popularity with Latino voters is well-documented, particularly in Miami and the Rio Grande Valley, but the percentage of Asian and Black voters supporting him has also increased. In fact, Trump won the highest share of non-white voters of any Republican since 1960.

This fact belies the simplistic, self-justifying liberal narrative that writes-off Trump’s base as just a big “basket of deplorables” as Hillary Clinton put it. Clearly, a section of Trump’s voters are his hardcore, deeply reactionary base—the white nationalists, racist militias, and those around them who support Trump not in spite of his racism and xenophobia but because of it. But there is clearly a wider layer of Trump voters who, while prepared to stomach Trump’s bigotry, are more motivated by their distrust of the corrupt US political establishment. 

Even if you measure Trump’s hardened far-right base by his “strong approval” ratings—and that’s being generous to the liberal narrative—they still represent just 28-35% of the voting electorate. That leaves around 15-22% of voters, at least 24 million people, who voted for Trump in 2020 but conceivably could have been open to a working class challenge to the ruling establishment. It’s those 24 million people, plus the 78 million people or 33% of the electorate who did not vote, that the Democrats failed to win over. 

They failed because Biden offered no challenge to the unpopular Washington establishment. He reassured his billionaire backers that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he were elected president. He told voters two main messages: that he was decent and upstanding in comparison to Trump’s vulgarity and distastefulness, and that he would get the country back to “normal,” the neoliberal model of growing inequality and legalized corporate corruption of politics.

Since these put Biden squarely in the center of the political establishment, Trump was able to continue painting himself as an outside change-maker—despite being president for four years and handing out tax breaks to corporations and the rich like candy. 

No Answer on the Economy

Trump has overseen the worst coronavirus response in the world, criminally downplaying the threat of the virus, actively discouraging people from wearing masks, and offering no government relief to working people apart from one $1200 check over nine months. Unemployment claims are still high and economic upheaval is far from over, much like the virus. And yet, because he failed to offer a robust alternative, Biden allowed Trump to take over the narrative with two false choices: locking down with no assistance or re-opening the economy. 

Biden had no rebuttal. He did not present a generous and robust relief package to make staying home under lockdown possible for workers. He did not propose cancelling rent, utilities, or mortgage payments, or increasing unemployment benefits. He failed to answer people’s concrete fears over their livelihoods and ability to survive. He even refused to back Medicare-for-All, despite its immense popularity and the inability of the chaotic and predatory for-profit healthcare system to take care of people. 

His central response to the pandemic was to insist on “believing in science” and suggest a nationwide mask mandate. Ultimately, Biden’s attempt to pin the catastrophic death toll fully on Trump didn’t stick, because he failed to offer a real vision of what an alternative, caring response could be for working people, and failed to address both our public health and economic crises.

Instead of offering any solution to people’s fears and struggles, Biden’s message centered on the fact that he’s not Trump—stable, not chaotic; presidential, not unpredictable. It was a strategy apparently aimed at the “soccer mom” demographic—suburban women displeased with Trump’s rhetoric—though equally effective at reassuring corporate America he will stand up to his Party’s left-wing. 

This strategy seems to have netted Biden more white and wealthy votes, and, combined with high voter turnout and grassroots organizing, was enough to eke out a victory. But beyond securing the White House, this strategy was an abject failure for the Democrats.  They lost ground in the House, holding on to a narrow majority. Democrats failed to flip many State Legislatures, the first time since 1946 that so few state chambers switched parties. 

Control of the Senate is still up in the air, dependent on both Warnock and Ossoff’s run-off races in Georgia. The races remain close, but the Democratic Party and Biden seem more concerned with maintaining their pro-corporate policies than winning. They could help boost Democrats’ chances by making the case that if Georgia delivers the Senate to Democrats, they will deliver on popular programs like COVID-19 relief to working class people, a $15 minimum wage, and Medicare-for-All. 

Contradictions in the Democratic Party

Centrist Democrats, beholden to big business, are unable to offer serious solutions for working people—but that doesn’t mean that the Biden administration won’t pass anything progressive. Some wings of the liberal establishment have drawn lessons from the electoral disasters of the Obama years, with the Democrats’ massive losses in 2010 and the rise of the Tea Party in response to the Democrats’ strategy of bailing out the banks instead of working people. They understand the need to pass some measures to pacify the left, and to offer some economic relief to their base. 

Pressure from Sanders and the Squad, combined with mass protest movements from below, could force Biden to offer some concessions, like cancelling a portion of student loan debt. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with Elizabeth Warren, has already called for Biden to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt per person through executive authority. 

The left wing of the Democratic Party is growing in both size and strength. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, DSA members from Ferguson and New York, will strengthen the Squad’s presence in Congress. All Congressional incumbents who co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation won re-election. Progressive ballot initiatives won across the country, from free universal childcare in Portland, Oregon, to a slate of initiatives, including rent control, in Portland, Maine. It was a successful election for the left, while centrist Democrats underperformed up and down the ticket. 

This is no surprise: left policies are immensely popular. A Fox News exit poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans (in the 70% range for the following) support a government-run healthcare plan, abortion rights, and offering immigrants a pathway to citizenship. In Florida, 61% of voters approved an amendment to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour—while the majority voted for Trump. 

In response, centrist Democrats went on the offensive. In a now-viral leak, ex-CIA agent Abigail Spanberger, who barely held onto her Virginia congressional seat, blamed the loss on the left and said that Democrats should “never use the word socialism again.” Across the board, centrist Democrats are doubling down on the line of blaming left policy—Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and defunding the police—for their losses. They promise to shy away from bold solutions and continue to compromise with Republicans. 

Of course, this is a recipe for further losses, in the 2022 election and long-term. But just because the Democrats may be weak electorally doesn’t mean that the party is finished, or that the left can just take over. The Democratic Party is a party by and for the capitalists; big business and their centrist representatives, together with corporate media, maintain a firm grip over the upper echelons of party machinery—as evidenced by their coordinated defeat of Bernie Sanders in the primary. Joe Biden and the centrist’s control over the Democrats has been solidified following Sanders’ challenge. They control finances, party policy, and the entire bureaucratic apparatus, and they aren’t going anywhere. 

The experience of 2020 should be a sharp reality check for those in DSA backing a “realignment” strategy of trying to take over the Democratic Party. As the Biden administration fails to offer people a way out of the overlapping crises facing US capitalism, the left wing of the party will likely grow in size and influence. Left candidates are set to make further gains against corporate Democrats over the next couple years. As they expand their size and influence, the tensions and contradictions within the party will grow. 

But in the context of four decades of growing inequality and rising discontent, the contradictions in the party can’t last forever. Corporate Democrats will fight to isolate and sideline the Squad and the Bernie Sanders wing from positions of power and influence, while also exerting immense pressure to attempt to co-opt left leaders. In Chicago, the excitement over the six DSA members elected to city council last year has been complicated recently after Alderman Vasquez capitulated, voting in favor of the mayor’s austerity budget, provoking DSA to publicly censure him. 

This points to the urgent need for the left to build a powerful alternative—a political force capable of organizing and concentrating working class pressure to keep left politicians accountable. While there are still battles ahead within the Democratic Party, there is no way forward for the left to take it over. 

We Are Stronger This Time

While DSA and other left forces are prepared to coalesce behind a strategy to break from the Democratic Party—while recognizing that the active forces are not yet ready to achieve a new mass party—the next years will present significant opportunities to strengthen our position. While the socialist left in the US remains relatively small and isolated, we’re entering this new period in a stronger position than we have in the last half century. 

We’re in an incredibly different moment than we were in 2008, when Obama was first elected. Unlike Obama, Biden commands little trust or hope; he enters office with almost no mandate. It’s rare to see a candidate win the presidency while their party loses so abysmally. The relief of defeating Trump and the myth of “normalcy” appealing to many Democratic voters may mean that Biden’s honeymoon could last a few months, but it will be nowhere near as deep-felt or long-lasting as Obama’s, who entered office buoyed by a real sense that the status quo could change. Biden’s win as the “not Trump” candidate means that what little excitement around him exists could wear off rapidly, replaced by disappointment and dismay—particularly as the economic crisis and coronavirus continues to worsen. 

The working class has been radicalized over the past 12 years as well. We’ve lived through Occupy Wall Street, the Great Recession, two Black Lives Matter uprisings, a worsening climate crisis, and now the crises of 2020. Millions have been radicalized through these experiences, and have lost faith in the Democratic Party and other key institutions of US capitalism. We’ve seen the Obama-Biden presidency crack down on Occupy Wall Street, send federal troops to beat protesters in Ferguson, and bail out the banks while Black people lost almost half their wealth in the foreclosure crisis. 

The socialist left has also changed significantly. We’ve gone through two increasingly popular Bernie Sanders primary campaigns, as well as the rise of democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez. The term “socialist” has become more widespread than ever in the US. And the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has emerged as a pole of attraction on the socialist left, given new life from an influx of members after the first Bernie campaign, with skyrocketing membership since then. Now with 85,000 members, we’re the largest socialist organization in the US since the Communist Party in the mid-1940s. 

This new socialist left, armed with popular demands like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, has not yet existed under a Democratic president—we’ve only organized under the unfavorable, defensive terrain of Trump. We have a real ability to continue growing in size with the momentum of DSA, and an opportunity to expose the fully capitalist nature of the Democratic Party leadership and use their inevitable disappointment to build support around a socialist program. 

But it’s not enough to have passive support for a socialist program. Translating passive support into active organizing means steering people’s immense anger and deep desire for change into a coherent, united front movement that brings together left and working-class organizations and that fights on a common set of demands around common initiatives. If DSA, alongside the Squad, left unions, the Sunrise Movement, Black Lives Matter groups, and other socialist organizations can come together, we could form a coherent fighting challenge to Biden’s administration.  

This means coming together around bold common demands, and a clear, agreed-upon political program. Key demands for our moment include the popular, well-known ones: Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, cancelling student loan debt. They also include demands from the Black Lives Matter uprising, like defunding the police and, simultaneously, massively investing in chronically underfunded and exploited Black communities through housing, education, childcare, transit, and social services. And we must come out fighting for a massive COVID-19 relief and safety program: monthly stimulus checks, expanded unemployment, cancelling rent and mortgage payments, an increase in paid sick time, and, additionally, a massive green jobs program to bring people back to work safely. 

It’s not enough to simply raise these demands: we need to wage common initiatives around them. Mass protests on inauguration day, demonstrations and direct action, and militant workplace actions like strikes, all coordinated and cohered around a clear program, are some of our potential tools. DSA alone, of course, isn’t strong enough to achieve this scale of coordinated action, but it could help to popularize and agitate for what’s needed and set an example wherever possible.

Running DSA candidates in the 2022 midterms—primarying centrist Democrats, challenging Republican strongholds, or running on a democratic socialist ballot line where appropriate—is another way to build up a coherent and coordinated mass socialist movement. DSA candidates should be beholden to a clear political platform, champion a set of socialist demands, and be held accountable when they stray from these, which Chicago DSA aims to require of their candidates following Vasquez’s vote for austerity.

Our strategy must be to build up a left challenge over the next four years that can lay the groundwork for a new, working class political party—one that engages in all aspects of working class struggle, not only on the electoral plane, and one that can ultimately be a tool for the overthrow of capitalism and the self-emancipation of our class.

An earlier version of this article, “Averting Trump 2.0,” was published on December 7th.