Why the Democratic Party Needs to Embrace Progressivism
By Meher Sethi
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the White House. Woohoo!
But 2020 wasn’t the win Democrats were hoping for…
While ridding the Oval Office of a near-fascist enabler of domestic terrorism was priority number one, there was no “clean sweep.” There was no outright repudiation of this horrible era of politics — one of family separation, climate apathy, ignorance towards facts and science, enflaming of division, and devolution into conspiracy and delusion.
Why?
The Democrats had a strong majority in the House and were optimistic about its expansion, given a high-turnout election following a disastrous COVID response and four years of hell. Polls on Election Day were showing a 75% chance of Democrats flipping the Senate.
The reality? Democrats lost seats in the House; the Senate majority comes down to two close Georgia run-off elections that put the Senate at 50–50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris acting as a tie-breaking vote on legislation (if Democrats vote in lockstep).
Look, I’m as excited as the next person about replacing Trump with a Biden administration. He’s already appointed the first-ever “Climate Czar” in John Kerry, the first-ever Latinx immigrant to be DHS secretary in Alejandro Mayorkas (architect of DACA), a Medicare-for-All supporter in his HHS pick Xavier Beccerra, and, best of all, Congresswoman Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior. Ron Klain, Biden’s to-be-Chief of Staff, handled the Ebola response with swift, decisive action — that gives us hope in the face of the COVID crisis. There’s a lot Biden can do with executive power alone — infrastructure spending, climate treaties and regulations, student debt cancellation, and Medicare expansion. But his priorities would sure be a lot smoother to fulfill with a firm supermajority (White House, House, Senate). So bringing us back to the question at hand: why didn’t Dems win?
There are competing theories—to say the least. Following the election, Democratic law-makers immediately began to point fingers. Folks like Abigail Spanberger and Joe Manchin targeted progressives, blaming talk of “Defund the Police” and “Socialism” for Democratic losses. However, a look at the facts tells us another story.
Exit polls on Fox News — yes, far-right conspiracy-peddling Fox News — demonstrate that 72% of voters favor a single-payer healthcare system. Checks out for a global pandemic.
How did these polls actually play out in the election? Well, every single Democratic co-sponsor of Medicare-for-All won, including swing districts and Republican-leaning districts! It was the blue dogs and conservative Dems that got wiped out, from primaries to general elections. Progressivism is not the problem.
The rest of the Fox News polls reinforce this idea:
- 71% support keeping Roe v. Wade
- 55% support stricter gun laws
- 72% support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as opposed to deportation
- 70% support increased green & renewable energy spending
- 73% support addressing racial injustice in policing through stronger legislation
Let’s look at ballot measures. In Florida, a $15 minimum wage was passed with over 60% of the vote at the same time that Biden — who ran on $15 minimum wage — lost the state. Marijuana laws won everywhere they were on the ballot and Oregon decriminalized drug possession in totality.
Here’s the thing: when people vote on policy and policy alone, they tend to appreciate progressive ideas. They like when their wallets are fatter, banks aren’t screwing them over, and regulations ensure that unchecked and unaccountable corporations are kept in check and held accountable by the government that is constituted of “We the People.” Even Tucker Carlson — everyone’s favorite faux populist — voiced support for legislation sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to curb loan-sharking by capping credit card interest rates at 15%.
On the flip side, some Democratic candidates placed all their eggs in the basket of meaningless word salad. Of the 23,000 Facebook Ads Sara Gideon of Maine ran this cycle, zero included the words “Jobs” or “Economy.” Similarly, Cal Cunningham failed to mention the word “Economy” in a single Facebook ad. Both candidates, despite incredibly close races, lost.
Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the most popular presidents in American history. Through bold progressive policy—the New Deal—his administration revitalized industries, created millions of jobs, and materially improved the lives of the American people. The country loved him so much, they elected him four times, one election in which he only lost two states.
To many voters, the current Democratic party doesn’t represent that tradition. If it did, Biden would have won Florida as comfortably as the minimum wage ballot measure passed. It’s clear that the Republicans are going to stick to race-baiting and the “culture war,” but the American people need help now. Over 50 million Americans will be living in food insecurity by the year’s end and 40 million Americans could soon lose their homes. In the wealthiest nation in the history of the human race, this is unfathomable. Somebody needs to fight for the people.
Democrats: step up to the task; stop fighting for the 1% and meet us here in the majority. This is an FDR moment. This is a New Deal moment.
Folks are fed up with a system that abandons them at every step. For instance, a third of eligible voters in 2020 simply didn’t show up. People want hope. The kind of populist hope that Obama instilled during his campaigns; the kind of dreams that Senator Warren urged her supporters to fight for during her presidential bid; the kind of courage Senator Bernie Sanders found to start a political revolution.
The veneer of respectability might have been enough to barely get Trump out, but Democrats need to bring working class and low-income folks, especially those of color, back into the fold. They need to win labour and unions across the board.
Harry Truman once said, “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan ‘Down With Socialism’ on the banner of his ‘great crusade,’ that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is ‘Down with Progress.’”
Yes, Republicans will call Democrats socialist, whether or not that’s how they identify. Heck, Republicans will call Dems communists, Stalinists, and everything in between. If all the Democrats’ time and energy is invested in running from that shadow and taking such accusations at face value, they can’t emphasize how much progressive policies actually help people. Democrats have to stop allowing themselves to be defined by Republicans and then proceeding to blame activists and progressives for their own messaging failures. If Democrats focus on materially improving people’s lives like FDR did by steering away from neoliberal, market-friendly economics and instead universally support popular policies like medicare-for-all, basic income, high wages, strong unions, public housing, tough financial regulation, and student debt cancellation, it’s going to be really hard to not vote for them.
As AOC once said, the Democratic party’s swing voter isn’t red-to-blue, it’s non-voter to voter. How can that be done?
A bold embrace of progressivism.
It’s not too out-there to bring the party back to its roots. 41% of the House Democratic Caucus is also in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and both Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal have over 100 co-sponsors.
It’s just going to take continued public pressure and grassroots organizing.
