U.S. President-elect Joe Biden (R) looks on as former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks after he was nominated to be Secretary of Transportation during a news conference at Biden's transition headquarters on December 16, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque-Pool/Getty Images)
Why Progressives Must Not Give Joe Biden a Political Honeymoon
Silence or merely faint dissent would enable the third Democratic president in four decades to again sacrifice progressive possibilities on the altar of corporate power.
The third time would not be a charm.
People on the left did very little to challenge Bill Clinton after he won the presidency in 1992. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
People on the left did very little to challenge Barack Obama after he won the presidency in 2008. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
"Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations."
Now, we're being told that people on the left should pipe down and do little to challenge Joe Biden. But silence or merely faint dissent would enable the third Democratic president in four decades to again sacrifice progressive possibilities on the altar of corporate power.
Clinton and Obama--no less than Biden in recent months--could sound like a semi-populist at times on the campaign trail. But during 16 years combined in the White House, they shared a governing allegiance to neoliberalism: aiding and abetting privatization, austerity budgets for the public sector, bloated budgets for the Pentagon, deregulation of corporate behavior, and so-called "free trade" agreements boosting big-business profit margins at the expense of workers, consumers and the environment.
The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history. Yes, Clinton and Obama won re-election--but their political narcissism and fidelity to big corporations proved devastating to the Democratic Party and very helpful to the GOP.
During Obama's eight years as president, Democrats lost not only both houses of Congress but also more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures. As the New York Times noted, "In 2009, Democrats controlled both the state senate and house in 27 states, the Republicans 14. After the 2016 elections, Republicans controlled both branches of the legislatures in 32 states to 14 for the Democrats." Republicans also gained more governors.
It's worth pondering Obama's blunt assessment of his administration's first term: "My policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."
Yet the Obama era is now being fondly and routinely hailed as a kind of aspirational benchmark. We're now being told to yearn to go back to the future under the leadership of the soon-to-be president who boasted last year: "I'm an Obama-Biden Democrat, man, and I'm proud of it."
On the verge of 2021, populist anger and despair are unabated. And, as economic disasters worsen at macro and individual levels, more widespread populist rage is predictable. Only progressive populism offers an appealing alternative to the toxic pseudo-populism of the Trumpist Republican Party.
Pushing the Biden presidency in the direction of progressive populism is not only the morally correct thing to do, given the scale of human suffering and the existential threats posed by economic unraveling, the climate emergency and militarism. Progressive populism can also be the political antidote to the poisonous right-wing manipulation of genuine economic and social distress. In sharp contrast, "moderate" programs have little to offer.
My colleague Jeff Cohen describes the "No Honeymoon" campaign we're immersed in at RootsAction.org as "an effort to help save Biden from himself and from following in the footsteps--missteps, really--of his predecessors Obama and Clinton. Too much hesitation, vacillation, corporatism in the first two years will likely bring on a Republican landslide for Congress in 2022, as Clinton's vacillation and corporatism, like NAFTA, did in 1994, and Obama's in 2010, for example his bailing out Wall Street but not homeowners through a foreclosure freeze."
To avert a big Republican win in two years, Cohen says, "Biden has to deliver for poor, working-class and middle-class people. Policies that make a big difference in people's lives -- including cancellation of federal student debt and pushing for a $15 federal minimum wage. That will mean listening more to progressive allies, progressive economists and legal experts--and less to the Democratic corporate donor class. If he doesn't deliver, Biden plays into the hands of the GOP faux-populists, setting us all up for defeat in 2022."
"The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history."
In the #NoHoneymoon launch video, released last week, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign national co-chair Nina Turner--now running for Congress in a special election--explained the concept of No Honeymoon. "We mean that we the people hold the power," she said. "That we must continue to fight for what is just, right and good, and fight against what is not just, right and good. We mean that we must have solidarity and commitment, one to another."
She added: "As long as there are injustices, we will continue to fight. What do we mean by that? We know that when everyday people put a little extra on the ordinary, extraordinary things happen. . . . We mean that we will not be seduced by smiles--we need action, and we need it right now. We will not relent. And that's what we mean when we say 'No Honeymoon.'"
Over the weekend, under the headline "Biden Cabinet Leans Centrist, Leaving Some Liberals Frustrated," the New York Times declared with typical media framing that "the president-elect's personnel choices are more pragmatic and familiar than ideological"--as though centrism itself is not "ideological." The newspaper reported that "there is no one yet in Mr. Biden's cabinet carrying the torch for the policies that he campaigned against during the primaries: free college for everyone, a costly Green New Deal, an anti-Wall Street agenda, universal health care and steep increases in the minimum wage."
Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations. Progressives must now take responsibility and take action. As Nina Turner says, "everything we love is on the line."
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just three days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
The third time would not be a charm.
People on the left did very little to challenge Bill Clinton after he won the presidency in 1992. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
People on the left did very little to challenge Barack Obama after he won the presidency in 2008. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
"Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations."
Now, we're being told that people on the left should pipe down and do little to challenge Joe Biden. But silence or merely faint dissent would enable the third Democratic president in four decades to again sacrifice progressive possibilities on the altar of corporate power.
Clinton and Obama--no less than Biden in recent months--could sound like a semi-populist at times on the campaign trail. But during 16 years combined in the White House, they shared a governing allegiance to neoliberalism: aiding and abetting privatization, austerity budgets for the public sector, bloated budgets for the Pentagon, deregulation of corporate behavior, and so-called "free trade" agreements boosting big-business profit margins at the expense of workers, consumers and the environment.
The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history. Yes, Clinton and Obama won re-election--but their political narcissism and fidelity to big corporations proved devastating to the Democratic Party and very helpful to the GOP.
During Obama's eight years as president, Democrats lost not only both houses of Congress but also more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures. As the New York Times noted, "In 2009, Democrats controlled both the state senate and house in 27 states, the Republicans 14. After the 2016 elections, Republicans controlled both branches of the legislatures in 32 states to 14 for the Democrats." Republicans also gained more governors.
It's worth pondering Obama's blunt assessment of his administration's first term: "My policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."
Yet the Obama era is now being fondly and routinely hailed as a kind of aspirational benchmark. We're now being told to yearn to go back to the future under the leadership of the soon-to-be president who boasted last year: "I'm an Obama-Biden Democrat, man, and I'm proud of it."
On the verge of 2021, populist anger and despair are unabated. And, as economic disasters worsen at macro and individual levels, more widespread populist rage is predictable. Only progressive populism offers an appealing alternative to the toxic pseudo-populism of the Trumpist Republican Party.
Pushing the Biden presidency in the direction of progressive populism is not only the morally correct thing to do, given the scale of human suffering and the existential threats posed by economic unraveling, the climate emergency and militarism. Progressive populism can also be the political antidote to the poisonous right-wing manipulation of genuine economic and social distress. In sharp contrast, "moderate" programs have little to offer.
My colleague Jeff Cohen describes the "No Honeymoon" campaign we're immersed in at RootsAction.org as "an effort to help save Biden from himself and from following in the footsteps--missteps, really--of his predecessors Obama and Clinton. Too much hesitation, vacillation, corporatism in the first two years will likely bring on a Republican landslide for Congress in 2022, as Clinton's vacillation and corporatism, like NAFTA, did in 1994, and Obama's in 2010, for example his bailing out Wall Street but not homeowners through a foreclosure freeze."
To avert a big Republican win in two years, Cohen says, "Biden has to deliver for poor, working-class and middle-class people. Policies that make a big difference in people's lives -- including cancellation of federal student debt and pushing for a $15 federal minimum wage. That will mean listening more to progressive allies, progressive economists and legal experts--and less to the Democratic corporate donor class. If he doesn't deliver, Biden plays into the hands of the GOP faux-populists, setting us all up for defeat in 2022."
"The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history."
In the #NoHoneymoon launch video, released last week, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign national co-chair Nina Turner--now running for Congress in a special election--explained the concept of No Honeymoon. "We mean that we the people hold the power," she said. "That we must continue to fight for what is just, right and good, and fight against what is not just, right and good. We mean that we must have solidarity and commitment, one to another."
She added: "As long as there are injustices, we will continue to fight. What do we mean by that? We know that when everyday people put a little extra on the ordinary, extraordinary things happen. . . . We mean that we will not be seduced by smiles--we need action, and we need it right now. We will not relent. And that's what we mean when we say 'No Honeymoon.'"
Over the weekend, under the headline "Biden Cabinet Leans Centrist, Leaving Some Liberals Frustrated," the New York Times declared with typical media framing that "the president-elect's personnel choices are more pragmatic and familiar than ideological"--as though centrism itself is not "ideological." The newspaper reported that "there is no one yet in Mr. Biden's cabinet carrying the torch for the policies that he campaigned against during the primaries: free college for everyone, a costly Green New Deal, an anti-Wall Street agenda, universal health care and steep increases in the minimum wage."
Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations. Progressives must now take responsibility and take action. As Nina Turner says, "everything we love is on the line."
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
The third time would not be a charm.
People on the left did very little to challenge Bill Clinton after he won the presidency in 1992. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
People on the left did very little to challenge Barack Obama after he won the presidency in 2008. Two years later, a big Republican wave took control of Congress.
"Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations."
Now, we're being told that people on the left should pipe down and do little to challenge Joe Biden. But silence or merely faint dissent would enable the third Democratic president in four decades to again sacrifice progressive possibilities on the altar of corporate power.
Clinton and Obama--no less than Biden in recent months--could sound like a semi-populist at times on the campaign trail. But during 16 years combined in the White House, they shared a governing allegiance to neoliberalism: aiding and abetting privatization, austerity budgets for the public sector, bloated budgets for the Pentagon, deregulation of corporate behavior, and so-called "free trade" agreements boosting big-business profit margins at the expense of workers, consumers and the environment.
The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history. Yes, Clinton and Obama won re-election--but their political narcissism and fidelity to big corporations proved devastating to the Democratic Party and very helpful to the GOP.
During Obama's eight years as president, Democrats lost not only both houses of Congress but also more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures. As the New York Times noted, "In 2009, Democrats controlled both the state senate and house in 27 states, the Republicans 14. After the 2016 elections, Republicans controlled both branches of the legislatures in 32 states to 14 for the Democrats." Republicans also gained more governors.
It's worth pondering Obama's blunt assessment of his administration's first term: "My policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."
Yet the Obama era is now being fondly and routinely hailed as a kind of aspirational benchmark. We're now being told to yearn to go back to the future under the leadership of the soon-to-be president who boasted last year: "I'm an Obama-Biden Democrat, man, and I'm proud of it."
On the verge of 2021, populist anger and despair are unabated. And, as economic disasters worsen at macro and individual levels, more widespread populist rage is predictable. Only progressive populism offers an appealing alternative to the toxic pseudo-populism of the Trumpist Republican Party.
Pushing the Biden presidency in the direction of progressive populism is not only the morally correct thing to do, given the scale of human suffering and the existential threats posed by economic unraveling, the climate emergency and militarism. Progressive populism can also be the political antidote to the poisonous right-wing manipulation of genuine economic and social distress. In sharp contrast, "moderate" programs have little to offer.
My colleague Jeff Cohen describes the "No Honeymoon" campaign we're immersed in at RootsAction.org as "an effort to help save Biden from himself and from following in the footsteps--missteps, really--of his predecessors Obama and Clinton. Too much hesitation, vacillation, corporatism in the first two years will likely bring on a Republican landslide for Congress in 2022, as Clinton's vacillation and corporatism, like NAFTA, did in 1994, and Obama's in 2010, for example his bailing out Wall Street but not homeowners through a foreclosure freeze."
To avert a big Republican win in two years, Cohen says, "Biden has to deliver for poor, working-class and middle-class people. Policies that make a big difference in people's lives -- including cancellation of federal student debt and pushing for a $15 federal minimum wage. That will mean listening more to progressive allies, progressive economists and legal experts--and less to the Democratic corporate donor class. If he doesn't deliver, Biden plays into the hands of the GOP faux-populists, setting us all up for defeat in 2022."
"The idea that corporate centrism is the best way for Democrats to defeat Republicans is belied by actual history."
In the #NoHoneymoon launch video, released last week, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign national co-chair Nina Turner--now running for Congress in a special election--explained the concept of No Honeymoon. "We mean that we the people hold the power," she said. "That we must continue to fight for what is just, right and good, and fight against what is not just, right and good. We mean that we must have solidarity and commitment, one to another."
She added: "As long as there are injustices, we will continue to fight. What do we mean by that? We know that when everyday people put a little extra on the ordinary, extraordinary things happen. . . . We mean that we will not be seduced by smiles--we need action, and we need it right now. We will not relent. And that's what we mean when we say 'No Honeymoon.'"
Over the weekend, under the headline "Biden Cabinet Leans Centrist, Leaving Some Liberals Frustrated," the New York Times declared with typical media framing that "the president-elect's personnel choices are more pragmatic and familiar than ideological"--as though centrism itself is not "ideological." The newspaper reported that "there is no one yet in Mr. Biden's cabinet carrying the torch for the policies that he campaigned against during the primaries: free college for everyone, a costly Green New Deal, an anti-Wall Street agenda, universal health care and steep increases in the minimum wage."
Silence or grumbling acquiescence as the Biden presidency takes shape would amount to a political repetition disorder of the sort that ushered in disastrous political results under the Clinton and Obama administrations. Progressives must now take responsibility and take action. As Nina Turner says, "everything we love is on the line."