What Needs To Be Done

Let us put aside for the moment the fear that Joe Biden’s lead against Trump in the polls is bad because it seems all too reminiscent of Hillary’s last time. Let us also assume that that Republican defeat in November is so complete that the Democrats win both houses. Let us then consider what the agenda should be for a new Biden Administration in 2021.

The first challenge facing President Biden and the Democratic Party will be to begin the arduous process of undoing the damage Trump and the Republicans have done. This means first of all, of course, leading the country in the effort to put the corona virus behind us and refunding state and local governments and health institutions. But also, reviving rule of law and the administration of equal justice, undoing the dismantling of environmental protections, ending the war on immigrants, reimposing federal oversight of local police performance, aiding states to simplify and protect their voting systems, reestablishing our relations with friends and allies abroad and countering Russian, Chinese and other actors waging cyberwar upon us. These reflect simply the requirement to reverse the erosion of governance and national interest inflicted by Trump and his administration but will nevertheless take great effort and concentration.

But the real challenge will be even harder because it will require going beyond fixing what Trump has broken to fixing America itself as the damage predates him. Indeed, Trump is a symptom of the two fundamental and related problems that afflict us: gross and growing economic inequality and partisan tribalism. Economic inequality reinforces both racism and ultra-nationalism and exacerbates racial inequality. Partisan tribalism has made it near impossible to extract rational political debate and responses to the problems we face from our government.

There is no way to tackle economic inequality without re-conceptualizing how we do capitalism. The United States is as near as one can imagine to a completely laissez faire system, in which not only does the market rule in the economic realm but in politics as well. Both parties are fueled by loose money and have long accepted the results of the market, its up and downs, its winners and losers. The Republicans seek the to protect the gains of the winners and ensure that the downturns don’t lead to raised taxes on the rich or efforts to place limits on the way business is done. The Democrats – to give them their credit – have sought to provide and protect minimum social welfare and have begun to do the same with health care. But they too accept market mechanisms as a given.

It is time to place limits on markets, allow them to operate in some areas, limit how they affect others and ensure that their results work for the majority and not only the few. The goal must be to greatly reduce economic inequality and provide basic necessities – including health care – for all as needed.

Partisan tribalism goes back to the very founding of our republic. But the degree to which it has in the last decades overwhelmed the very ability to actually govern is without precedent. Bill Clinton’s effort in the 1990s to take the Democrats towards a more market friendly approach was met with worried warfare by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. If the Democrats tacked right, the Republicans would go even further in that direction. Since then, they have waged class war in favor of the 1% and against the middle class and the poor by cynically seeking to enlist the latter into an assault on the very government that could protect them. The policies pursued by the Republicans lowered taxes on the rich, cut government services for the non-elite as much as possible and covered everything in the rhetoric of patriotism and charges that the other side were socialists. The Democrats seemed obvious to the possibility of representing the 99% (with Hillary actually calling them the “deplorables”). The Democrats therefore implicitly eschewed the class approach to the political war waged against them instead sinking into a morass of contending internal constituencies each seeking to tear their own piece of flesh from the party and its candidates. Bernie Sanders – not surprisingly an independent – understood this dynamic and sought to bring the party to its natural base. The Democrats twice refused. (Whether or not Sanders was too “socialist” to be elected leaves open the question of whether Elizabeth Warren was overlooked because she was too much a woman.)

Trump may bring the Republicans to their knees. But this will not by itself end the tribalism. Indeed, it seems time for the Democrats to go on the offensive. Clean up Trump’s mess, begin undoing economic and racial inequality, and figure out what kind of country America needs to be to face the foreign, domestic and environment challenges the rest of the 21^st Century will bring. Yes, elect Biden and then get on with it!