{"id":10947,"date":"2023-08-21T20:14:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T00:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=10947"},"modified":"2023-08-29T22:18:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T02:18:40","slug":"trapped-in-the-democratic-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/08\/trapped-in-the-democratic-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Trapped in the Democratic Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

P<\/span>resident Joe Biden has made \u201cBidenomics<\/a>\u201d the centerpiece of his reelection campaign, touting it as an explicit break with Ronald Reagan\u2019s \u201ctrickle-down economics\u201d and a return to FDR\u2019s New Deal policies. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan calls it \u201cthe new Washington consensus,\u201d<\/a> while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen terms it \u201cmodern supply-side economics<\/a>,\u201d a post-Keynesian development strategy. But Bidenomics should be labeled \u201cimperialist Keynesianism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden designed it to prepare U.S. capitalism for imperial rivalry with China<\/a>, ameliorate domestic social inequalities, and neutralize challenges from the Left and especially the Trumpian right. While the administration failed to secure increased spending on social infrastructure, it has implemented a new industrial policy investing in hard infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing to restore U.S. supremacy over Beijing and other rivals.<\/p>\n

Biden won the support for this program from most of the union officialdom, NGO bureaucracy, and progressive and socialist politicians. They have helped demobilize struggle with the exception of the new rank-and-file militancy in the labor movement expressed in strikes against Hollywood, \u201cno\u201d votes against sell-out contracts, and union drives among unorganized workers.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the Republican right has intensified their fight for their reactionary program in the so-called red states and nationally. Moreover, Donald Trump, despite his conviction and multiple indictments<\/a>, remains the overwhelming favorite<\/a> to win the Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

Faced with this threat, most of the Left will follow the lead of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar in endorsing and campaigning for Biden. That leaves the field open for the Republicans to posture as the only opposition to the Democrats, giving them the opportunity to win over sections of the discontented petty bourgeoisie, new middle class, and working class deeply dissatisfied with Bidenomics.<\/p>\n

Once again, the Left finds itself trapped in the Democratic Party, largely demobilized and disoriented. Now is the time to reckon with the failed electoralist strategy that has led us into this cul-de-sac, abandon it, and adopt a new one based on organizing social and class struggle and reestablishing our independence from both capitalist parties.<\/p>\n

The roots of Bidenomics<\/h4>\n

Breaking with this failed strategy begins with an accurate understanding of Biden\u2019s program and why he adopted it. He never intended to implement a neoliberal program and did not adopt Bidenomics, as some on the Left argue<\/a>, because of pressure from the small U.S. socialist movement, Bernie Sanders, and other left-leaning politicians.<\/p>\n

Biden and his brain trust developed it to overcome the relative decline of U.S. imperialism. Three developments had led Washington into this unexpected predicament. First, the long neoliberal boom enabled the rise of new imperial rivals, especially China and Russia, as well as increasingly assertive sub-imperial powers like Saudi Arabia and India, among many others.<\/p>\n

Second, Washington\u2019s defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan undercut its hegemony in the Middle East and globally. Finally, the Great Recession hammered the U.S. and EU particularly hard, while China, based on its massive stimulus package, became for a time the epicenter of global growth.<\/p>\n

These changes brought an end to Washington\u2019s unchallenged hegemony and ushered in a new asymmetric multipolar world order<\/a>. The U.S. remains the dominant power but is less able to dictate international politics than it has for the last few decades.<\/p>\n

This new order is beset by the deep and multiple crises<\/a> of the system that have exacerbated class and social inequalities and triggered political polarization in countries throughout the world. In the U.S., these inequalities have triggered waves of struggle from Occupy to Black Lives Matter and a ripple of labor militancy among both union and non-union workers.<\/p>\n

The combination of crisis and resistance has led to the emergence of a new socialist Left with the DSA as its most prominent national organization. This radicalization on the Left enabled Bernie Sanders\u2019 two unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic Party\u2019s presidential nomination. At the same time, the crises have driven sections of the new middle class and petty bourgeoisie toward increasingly reactionary politics.<\/p>\n

Trump rode this tide of right-wing radicalism to the presidency in 2016, transforming the GOP into a party of the far right. Once in power, Trump implemented a program of \u201cilliberal hegemony<\/a>,\u201d promising to \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d by putting \u201cAmerica First.\u201d He abandoned Washington\u2019s bipartisan grand strategy of superintending global capitalism and incorporating states with carrots and sticks into the so-called rules-based liberal order.<\/p>\n