This was a criticism aimed at Bernie Sanders today by CNN's Dana Bash, and I have some choice thoughts to give on this matter, given my politics are similar to Bernie in this regard.
I think that for me, it's important to understand history. In 2016, I was a bernie bro. I wanted significant systemic change not seen in this country since the days of FDR in the form of a UBI, medicare for all, and free college/student debt forgiveness. In 2020, my beliefs stayed the same, although I split my loyalties between Bernie and Yang on the matter, as both had different ideas that I liked but neither of them were perfect.
I started developing metrics around then to judge candidates. I had a four tier system in which I graded candidates in the 2020 election into basically Bernie, flawed progressives (Yang was in this second tier), fauxgressives (people who faked left but were kind of center), and outright centrists. In 2020, Biden was a centrist. However, the pressure from the Sanders campaign, not to mention the counsel of tier 3 "fauxgressives" like harris did move Biden from a tier 4 candidate up to a tier 3 candidate. But still, that's basically what Biden was, a tier 3.
And while I expected Biden to govern like a tier 4 candidate, I came around to him because he actually governed like a tier 3. He was for the child tax credit, the minimum wage going up, union support, build back better, etc. But...he was still tier 3.
In this election, I mostly used a modified version of my original 2020 metric to judge candidates, with Biden basically still being the equivalent of tier 3. I also had a second metric by which I judged people according to my actual agenda, but I dropped that because everyone did terrible on it. I think Biden only had 30/100? Yeah. So...let's face it, Biden was never amazing, Biden was tolerable. I was compromising. We bernie bros are always said that we dont compromise, but I did compromise...with biden...understanding that we werent getting any better and that my latitude to demand more was limited. I felt like this was the best we were gonna get, and decided to move the ball the furthest it would go in my direction. This doesn't mean Biden was ever the end all be all of policy, not even close. He was a milquetoast centrist who adopted some progressive measures here and there and I made the strategic decision to support him in order to get incremental gains, recognizing that the change i actually wanted was off the table.
And now after the election, people are saying he wasnt pro working class enough, and compared to the agenda that I support, and bernie supports, he isn't. Is Biden for UBI? Is he for medicare for all? Did he even act on that public option he was for? Did he push for a higher minimum wage in practice? Did we actually get much change at all under the Biden administration? The answer was resounding no.
Oh but he forgave student debt. yes, $10-20k. Some people have $50k, $100k, or even more. We're literally screwed, but Biden's bail out was the equivalent of Trump throwing paper towels during hurricane maria's recovery in Puerto Rico. Stuff like the chips act, the inflation reduction act, etc? We love to act like we want more jobs, but I dont think jobs are the answer. We had full employment already. People weren't happy because, just as i predicted would happen, we ended up being on the other side of the phillips curve, and we started getting inflation. Unemployment, inflation, choose one. Oh but the economy is perfect because we have low unemployment and low inflation now? Well it isn't all its cracked up to be, is it now? Almost like it doesnt matter how good the economy is, it doesn't solve the fact that people will suffer under this crappy system no matter what happens! This is why i started being for UBI to begin with. it isn't JUST because I'm "lazy" and hate working (although i do hate the concept of work, yes). It's because I also understand that the entire paradigm of a full employment economy isnt all its cracked up to be, and it doesnt matter to some extent if we're under the new deal paradigm or the reagan one. We need to do better than either of these. Obviously the new deal one was better, but it really is overrated in peoples' heads. Now that we're basically at the strongest economy since the late 1960s, something that it took LITRALLY 50 YEARS to happen again, it kinda sucks, doesn't it?
The fact is, reality is nuanced, and these things exist on spectrums. It's not fair to say Biden did NOTHING for workers. But it's also not fair to act like Biden had this amazing pro worker policy that materially made their lives better in noticeable ways. No, Biden didn't do NOTHING. But biden also didn't rise to the occasion and deliver a new new deal of legislation that permanently and radically changed peoples' lives for the better. And that's what the moment calls for. That's what it's BEEN calling for, since before Biden, or even before Trump set foot in the white house.
I'm still for the same agenda I've been for since 2016, if anything, I defended it. During the 2024 election cycle, I decided to compromise for strategic reasons. Biden/Harris lost, so that relationship is over.
Also...Harris. You guys do realize this, and you can go back to read my posts, that I was extremely "meh" on her, right? She wasnt for a public option, she was for a child tax credit only for families with children (gee, no wonder you didn't get the "bro" vote...), she didn't really run on this progressive populist agenda. In some ways, she was to Biden's RIGHT. And we were supposed to be enthused by this? I still understood she was better for Trump, but COME ON, we NEED to be doing better than this. Biden's presidency was just...okay. Like 6/10 okay. Lukewarm, tepid, I compared it to hot water in your car cup holder with floaters in it for crying out loud (for reference floaters are little bits of food that came off your teeth from drinking it that's floating around in that water as you continue to drink it).
And to be honest, harris was just as, if not even more tepid. She was Joe Biden....but without a public option, and with...a Liz Cheney endorsement. And republicans in her cabinet....ARENT YOU JUST EXCITED GUYS?! /s
Look, I know I tried to defend these guys, but I did it to beat a fascist. It's not like I actually think their agenda is the bees knees. I still support my original agenda mostly, I was just being strategic in the moment while lamenting how we screwed this up by nominating Biden in the first place.
If we want to move forward, given everyone is going in the whole "we need to be pro working class populist" direction, yeah, i'll revert back to my original vision. UBI, medicare for all (or a public option, keep in mind the fiscal constraints), free college with ACTUAL student debt forgiveness, housing plans, a reduced work week, etc.
I actually agree with the idea of making america great again. But not in the trumpian way. Trump is a demagogue, he's always been a demagogue. If you wanna make america great again, you gotta understand why it stopped being great. And I got two words for you on that one: Ronald Reagan. We abandoned the new deal coalition, and we implemented neoliberalism. And the democrats became complicit in the Clinton era. That's why our living standards have gone to crap over the past 40-50 years, and that's what we need to undo.
But we gotta do more. FDR's paradigm was one still based on jobs, and even at the peak of the new deal era, in the late 1960s and early 70s, we kinda realized jobs werent the answer, and they never will be. We need a UBI. We need to move beyond this dream of jobs and full employment. It's overrated. And Biden, if anything, proved it. You can have an economy with all the jobs in the world, but if they still suck and you can't afford to live, you're not gonna be happy. We need to do better. So, we need a paradigm shift that only forward thinking thinkers like me, and people like Andrew Yang, actually advocate for. We need to understand that we need to redefine what prosperity means in America away from just full employment, to ending poverty regardless of employment status. From there, let the market do what it always does. Set the number of jobs around the number of people willing to work them, to balance the best we can between unemployment and inflation, and let it run from there.
That's my dream for America.
Biden was better than nothing, but yeah, he still sucked. Harris sucked too. And if the right wants to lean into the whole Joe Working Man thing in the whole democratic party autopsy, two can play at that game, because the populist right might be able to outdo the elitist left in that game, they can't outdo the populist left. And they'll run back to the right and scream 'communism" the second we try. But because we're not afraid of being called a couple of words, we'll just double down, saying "yeah, we're gonna make your lifes better, and there's nothing you can do to stop us, but to vote against us, but are you really gonna do that?"
And what can I say? if the people are so stupid to vote against us, then they can face the consequences of their own choices. We wanna make peoples' lives better. If they don't actually want that, and they wanna live in crap, they can go ahead and do so. Just stop pretending to care about the working class, you demagogic hacks.
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