A Biden presidency will empower Sanders’ agenda
I am a former Green Party member who has voted for Howie Hawkins three times (for NY state governor), and Jill Stein twice (for president). I retain great admiration for them and their supporters. But I will vote for Joe Biden in 2020 because doing so will help advance Bernie Sanders’ agenda, and give our planet and democracy a fighting chance to survive.
A look at the predictable consequences of a Biden presidency makes this plain:
1) Biden will stop aiding Saudi Arabia’s genocide in Yemen.
Sanders’ bill that would have stopped U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen has been his greatest-ever contribution to human rights. The bill won unanimous Democratic support, and many Republican votes. It passed both houses of Congress. But Trump vetoed it, and thus green-lit the genocide’s continuance, which persists today.
Biden will sign this bill if he becomes president. For him to do otherwise, and oppose his entire party, united against genocide, would be gratuitously foolish — especially after Biden vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah state” during a debate.
Whether Biden actually severs ties with Saudi Arabia is less certain. It would take an extraordinary amount of courage and vision — which Biden seems to lack — to do so. But signing the bill is enough. And when Biden does act to stop starving and murdering tens of thousands of innocent Yemenis, Sanders’ greatest achievement will have been realized.
2) The planet has a fighting chance under Biden.
The good news is that the Trump Administration admits that man is contributing to climate change. The bad news is they don’t care.
Trump’s explanation for withdrawing from the Climate Paris Agreement included an acknowledgement that the pact, if honored, would decrease global temperatures. But he did not care.
Far scarier was his administration’s “environmental impact statement” that justified ending Obama’s fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles. That document predicted a rise in global temperatures of seven degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, but concluded that attempting to curb that increase was “not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible.”
In other words, Trump is ok with human extinction. He has proven as much through his executive actions. From lowering auto emission standards, to allowing for drilling and mining on public lands, to attempting to revive the coal industry (with some success), to relaxing standards for methane emissions, to suppressing climate science, Trump has done about as much damage as he could get away with.
A President Biden would reverse most of Trump’s ecologically noxious executive actions, and return us at least to the environmental regime of the Obama era. That alone, merits supporting Biden, as the world might not be able to withstand four more years of Trump.
Biden could do much good beyond that too. If enacted, his plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 could ultimately save the human species. This would obviously be difficult to enact without sixty votes; but as catastrophes such as as Australia’s brush fires and record-breaking hurricanes become more and more common, even Republicans begin to take notice.
A second Trump term would be terrifying at best. More likely, it would lead to a despairing country and a rapidly dying planet. It would be madness to allow it.
3) Biden will save the judiciary from ruin.
Republicans’ wrecking of our federal judiciary is well-known and terrifying. They used what can charitably called sophistry (it was more like a damn lie) to justify stealing the swing seat on the Supreme Court from Barack Obama. (Recall that Antonin Scalia’s seat opened up in February of 2016, and the GOP Senate refused to fill it for a full year.)
They then removed every barrier to nominating federal judges as rapidly as possible, shamelessly confirming young and unqualified judges with horrifying speed. This was after Mitch McConnell’s obstructionism had created scores of judicial vacancies under Obama.
Adding insult to injury, they have refused to acknowledge what they have done. Trump has blamed Obama’s “complacency,” not the GOP, for the vacancies, asking “why the hell did he leave that?”
The state of the federal judiciary is so depressing that, like the genocide in Yemen and climate change, staring straight into the problem may harm your mental health. But the statistics are clear. Trump filled over 25% of our federal appeals courts in just three years. The only way to fix this is to elect Biden.
4) Biden will repair our bleeding democracy.
Trump is presently attacking a possible vote-by-mail system that would protect lives during the Covid-19 crisis if it continues through November. But the GOP has been degrading voting rights for years. They have enacted voter ID laws which disproportionately harm black and brown people; gerrymandering that has enabled Republicans to retain legislative majorities in several states where they lost majorities of votes; ex-felon disenfranchisement (both de jure and de facto) which disproportionately harms blacks and Latinos; and myriad other laws and maneuvers that make it more difficult for poor people, ethnic minorities, and college students to vote.
But Trump’s threat to democracy transcends mere voting. He belittles and berates journalists. He lies on a sociopathic level. He claims to be above the law. He encourages violence and lawlessness. He has appointed government officials who have attempted to empower the already-terrifying spread of right-wing extremism throughout Europe. He praises violent racists in the U.S.
Add to all of this the virtual guarantee that Trump will cry foul if he loses the 2020 election, as he did in 2016 (even though he won), and I have fully scratched the surface of Trump’s threat to democracy. The widespread worry that Trump will refuse to hand over power peacefully is reasonable.
All of the threats to democracy that arise from Trump alone can be solved — or at least halted for a four year interregnum — by electing Biden.
And Democrats have actually been strong on voting rights. The first bill that House Democrats passed in the current legislative session would have guaranteed automatic voter registration, ensured fair district-drawing processes, and strengthened the Voting Rights Act.
This bill will probably not become law if Biden wins; not as long as the GOP can filibuster. But a Biden win would repair the gaping wound that threatens to kill U.S. democracy for as long as Trump is in office. The alternative is to risk letting Trump kill democracy.
5) New wage and overtime regulations will help millions.
Thanks largely to Sanders’ influence, the House passed a $15 minimum wage bill in 2019, with 98% of the Democratic caucus voting in favor of it. Biden supports a $15 minimum wage too, and would sign the bill if it reaches his desk as president. Once again, unless Biden can convince a Democratic-majority Senate to abolish the filibuster, the bill probably will not pass during a Biden presidency.
But Biden is certain to replicate two Obama-era executive actions that helped millions of workers. One is a requirement that employers who contract with the federal government pay their workers at least $15 per hour (Obama required them to pay $10.10 per hour). Biden mentions this on his website: “He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family[-]sustaining benefits.”
The other executive order would raise the salary threshold at which workers can be considered “managers” and hence be denied overtime benefits. As president, Obama doubled this salary threshold, from $23,660 to $47,476. Trump reversed Obama’s order. But Biden has explicitly vowed to reinstate Obama’s original order (presumably with inflation adjustments). He dedicates a paragraph to it on his website, under the heading “Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned.”
A Biden presidency will help millions of workers, whether or not Biden succeeds in enacting a $15 minimum wage. This is important to Sanders, and it should be to his supporters.
6) Biden will improve the Democratic agenda indefinitely.
Before Sanders’ 2016 candidacy, many Americans took for granted that health care and college tuition expenses would continue to grow, and that Social Security would eventually be cut because of the program’s supposed insolvency.
But Biden has committed to least four policies that would try to reverse all of this. He wants to expand Social Security, provide free tuition for most students at public colleges, lower the Medicare age to 60, and relieve tuition-related debt for most students who attended public and historically black colleges.
Whether any of these proposals are enacted or not, they put the Democratic Party on a different trajectory than it was on during the Clinton and Obama presidencies. Neoliberal austerity programs, from welfare reform to salary freezes to attempts to cut social security abounded during these administrations.
Biden’s record during these presidencies has hardly been progressive, as is well known. But it would be difficult for Biden to enact much austerity, since expanding the welfare state is an integral part of his platform. Biden also seems to understand that he needs Sanders’ and his supporters’ help to defeat Donald Trump. He will think twice before alienating them by reversing the fairly progressive platform that he crafted, largely, to appease them.
As Obama correctly noted in his endorsement of Biden, 2020 is not like 2008. Biden seems to understand this better than Hillary Clinton did, which is why he has been more active in courting Sanders supporters. But even if Biden fails to enact his most progressive programs, his mere promise to do so should aid the Democratic Party’s transformation which began under Sanders and is likely to continue.
Some leftists oppose Biden because of Tara Reade’s allegations against him. But no matter how credible Reade’s case is, Biden’s alleged sexual assault is a pseudo-issue. And to enable Trump to win on the strength of a pseudo-issue rather than a real issue, would seem woefully misguided — especially when Trump’s misconduct has been worse.
The triumph of pseudo-politics over real issues is largely responsible for the mess that we are in today. Trump keenly understands this. This is why he promotes such “issues” as Colin Kaepernick’s protests and mandates for energy-efficient light bulbs during his rallies.
By contrast, the reasons to support Biden could hardly be more substantive or critical. He will try to stop a genocide. He will try to save the human race from extinction. He will save the federal judiciary from generations of right-wing domination. He will stanch the flow of blood from U.S. democracy. He will put money in millions of desperate workers’ pockets. And he will make key progressive issues permanent fixtures of the Democratic agenda.
Bernie Sanders understands this. His supporters should too.