Status Quo Joe-- Inert, Non-Presence

Trump (+ Pence), Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are preaching out to frightened Americans in a big way-- Bernie and Elizabeth substantively, Trump and Pence as part of the p.r. approach and Newsom and Cuomo with their baby steps. But Status Quo Joe is no where at all. His handlers and the plutocrats who financed his toxic SuperPAC think he has it all sewn up and they don't want voters to notice his frightening-- and disqualifying-- mental deterioration. Trump's daily appearances are propaganda more akin to his MAGA hate rallies than to FDR's fireside chats. Jennifer Senior for the NY Times last week: "In a time of global emergency, we need calm, directness and, above all, hard facts. Only the opposite is on offer from the Trump White House. It is therefore time to call the president’s news conferences for what they are: propaganda. We may as well be watching newsreels approved by the Soviet Politburo. We’re witnessing the falsification of history in real time. When Donald Trump, under the guise of social distancing, told the White House press corps on Thursday that he ought to get rid of 75 to 80 percent of them-- reserving the privilege only for those he liked-- it may have been chilling, but it wasn’t surprising. He wants to thin out their ranks until there’s only Pravda in the room... If the public wants factual news briefings, they need to tune in to those who are giving them: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany." Meanwhile, as French economist Thomas Piketty wrote earlier this month for Le Monde, Bernie is attempting to save American democracy.

Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and in Europe is unjust and dangerous. Everywhere on the main networks and the large daily papers we read that Sanders is an ‘extremist’ and that only a ‘centrist’ candidate like Biden could triumph over Trump. This biased and somewhat unscrupulous treatment is particularly regrettable when a closer examination of the facts actually suggests that only a full-scale reorientation of the type proposed by Sanders would eventually rid American democracy of the inegalitarian practices which undermine it and deal with the electoral disaffection of the working classes.

Let’s begin with the programme. To say emphatically, as Sanders does, that a public, universal health insurance would enable the American population to be cared for more efficiently and more cheaply than the present private and extremely unequal system is not an ‘extremist’ statement. It is on the contrary a declaration, perfectly well documented by many research studies and international comparisons. In these difficult times when everyone deplores the rise of “fake news”, it is right and proper for some candidates to rely on established facts and not resort to obscure language and complex tactics.

Similarly, Sanders is right when he proposes large-scale public investment in favour of education and public universities. Historically the prosperity of the United States has relied in the 20th century on the educational advance of the country over Europe and on a degree of equality in this field, and definitely not on the sacralisation of inequality and the unlimited accumulation of fortunes which Reagan wished to impose as an alternative model in the 1980s. The failure of this Reagan-style rupture is patent today with the growth of national income per capita being halved and an unprecedented rise in inequality. Sanders simply proposed a return to the sources of the country’s model for development: a very wide diffusion of education.

Sanders also proposes a considerable rise in the level of the minimum wage (a policy in which the United States were for a long time the world leaders) and to learn from the experiences in co-management and voting rights for employees on the Boards of Directors of firms implemented successfully in Germany and in Sweden for decades. Generally speaking, Sanders’ proposals show him to be a pragmatic social-democrat endeavouring to make the most of the experiences available and in no way a ‘radical’.  And when he chooses to go further than European social democracy, for example with his proposal for a federal wealth tax rising to 8% per annum on multi-billionaires, this corresponds to the reality of the excessive concentration of wealth in the United States and the fiscal and administrative capacities of the American federal state, which has already been demonstrated historically.

Now, let’s deal with the question of opinion polls. The problem of the repeated assertions that Biden would be better placed to beat Trump is that they have no objective factual basis. If we examine the existing data such as those compiled by RealClearPolitics.com, it is clear in all the national opinion polls that Sanders would beat Trump with the same differential as Biden. These polls are of course premature, but they are just as much for Biden as for Sanders. In several key States, we find that Sanders would come out ahead of Trump, for example in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin.

If we analyse the surveys on the primaries which have just taken place, it appears clearly that Sanders mobilises the working-class electorate more than Biden. It is true that the latter attracts a considerable share of the Black vote, an inheritance of the Obama-Biden ticket. But Sanders mobilises the vast majority of the Latino vote and crushes Biden amongst the 18-29 years age group, as he does in the 30-44 years group. Above all, all the polls indicate that Sanders has the best scores amongst the underprivileged (annual incomes below 50,000$, no higher education qualification), whereas Biden, on the contrary, has the best scores amongst the most privileged (annual incomes above 100,000$, higher education diploma), whether it be White voters or those from minority backgrounds, independent of age.

Now it so happens that the highest potential for mobilisation is amongst the most underprivileged social categories. Generally speaking, voter turnout has always been relatively low in the United States: just barely above 50%, whereas it has long been between 70%-80% in France and in the United Kingdom, before falling recently. If we examine things in greater detail, we also find that on the other side of the Atlantic, there is a structurally lower participation amongst the poorest half of the voters, with a difference in the region of 15%-20% with the richest half (a difference which has also begun to be visible in Europe since the 1990s, even if it remains less marked).

To put it clearly: this electoral alienation of the American working classes is so long-standing that it will certainly not be reversed in one day. But what else can we do to deal with it than to undertake a far-reaching re-orientation of the election programme of the Democratic Party and to discuss these ideas openly in national campaigns?  The cynical, and unfortunately very commonplace vision amongst the Democratic elites, that nothing can be done to mobilise further the working-class vote, is extremely dangerous. In the last resort, this cynicism weakens the legitimacy of the democratic electoral system itself.

Also last week, Norman Solomon contrasted what Bernie doing with what Biden is laying in wait to "accomplish." He wrote that "On the surface, the coronavirus emergency has nothing in particular to do with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. What’s obvious is that Donald Trump’s unhinged bluster and inaction let the pandemic get a lethal jump on the United States, people are dying while huge numbers of lives are in jeopardy, and quick drastic steps are imperative. Yet at the same time, the differences between what Biden and Sanders are advocating have enormous implications for what could be done to curb the deadly virus in this country."

The absence of a public health system is consistent with a timeworn pattern of massive holes in the public sector. Biden merely wants to patch up some of the holes, while Sanders wants to build strong structures on truly democratic foundations.

“It is time to ask how we got to where we are, not only our lack of preparation for the virus, but how we end up with an economy where so many people are hurting at a time of massive income and wealth inequality,” Sanders said at the close of his recent debate with Biden. “It is time to ask the question of where the power is in America. Who owns the media? Who owns the economy? Who owns the legislative process? Why do we give tax breaks to billionaires and not raise the minimum wage?”

While so-called “moderate” Democrats like Biden don’t want to answer-- or even hear-- such questions, Sanders insists on continuing to ask them. Such perseverance has never been more needed than at this pivotal moment, with so many lives in the balance. “Where the power is in America” has everything to do with why the U.S. government’s response to the unfolding coronavirus catastrophe has continued to be so anemic, foreshadowing so many more deaths and so much more grief.

It’s urgent to implement all-out measures to contain the coronavirus spread (seriously aiming for containment rather than merely “flattening the curve”). Meanwhile, policies are needed to make sure that insurance-industry profiteers and other sectors of corporate America don’t get away with rapaciously benefiting from catastrophe in ways that would cause untold misery for vast numbers of people.

A pair of campaign documents released this week-- the Biden “Plan to Combat Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Prepare for Future Global Health Threats” and the Sanders “Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic”-- convey big differences in approach to the current unprecedented crisis.

Biden proposes to tweak the health care system and aid only some who suffer economic distress. In sharp contrast, Sanders is proposing far-reaching measures that include free health care for all (“Medicare will ensure that everyone in America, regardless of existing coverage, can receive the health care they need during this crisis”) and major financial assistance to all (“emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person in America every month for the duration of the crisis”).

Calling for programs that would spend at least $2 trillion in response to the coronavirus emergency, Sanders laid out commensurate programs—to “mobilize on a scale not seen since the New Deal and World War II to prevent deaths, job losses, and economic ruin.”

Joe Biden vs. Bernie Sanders is not only an electoral contest between presidential candidates. It’s also a contrast of patchwork fixes vs. profound structural changes. Refusal to upset the apple carts of corporate power vs. willingness to fight that power. Tepid adjustments vs. truly transformational agendas.

Sanders was correct when he said last week that “poll after poll, including exit polls, show that a strong majority of the American people support our progressive agenda.” Days ago, the Bernie 2020 campaign sent out a mass email declaring that “our campaign has won the battle of ideas.”

Whether the ideas that Sanders is championing can appreciably shape the government’s response to the coronavirus will have a lot to do with how successful the United States can be in limiting its terrible effects.