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What led to Trump and what will follow Biden | Letters
George Monbiot (The US was lucky to get Trump – Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat, 11 November) is probably right about Barack Obama paving the way for Donald Trump, because the former failed to tackle big business. I would go even further and say that Tony Blair, another “breath of fresh air” at the time with his Tory-lite policies, more or less paved the way for our Trump – in the form of Brexit.Both politicians had a clear electoral mandate to bring about fundamental changes to their societies: in Blair’s case, to change our parliamentary institutions, as, when it came to corralling business, the UK was very much, and still is, a bit-part player. In the end, his successor handed over a poisoned chalice to the Tory/Lib Dem coalition to attempt to clean up the mess and, after its failure, to face the consequences. Joe Biden, besides confronting neoliberalism, needs to do to his country’s political system what Blair failed to do to his. John MarriottNorth Hykeham, Lincolnshire• George Monbiot paints a bleak prospect for the US and, by implication, the rest of the free world. He writes at length about the failure of Barack Obama to change the basic course of social and economic conditions during his eight years in office. He also comments on how important it is that Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia to avoid a Republican-led upper house. Surely it was exactly this that stopped Obama at every turn – the fact that during his presidency he was cursed with a hostile and belligerent Senate.The 2008 global financial crisis was one of his darkest moments, and I believe it was Gordon Brown who took charge of the initial recovery worldwide. Most politicians realised that it was senior bank staff who were responsible for the disaster. But as the old adage says, “If you owe the bank £100 then you have a problem, but if you owe the bank £10,000,000 then the bank has a problem.” They were just too big and important to be allowed to fail. What didn’t happen, but should have, was that no bankers were exposed and prosecuted. Both Obama and Brown must bear some of the criticism. Richard YoellBromham, Bedfordshire• I am appalled by the advocation of “tub-thumping left populism” as a way forward for the US. We have seen enough of tub-thumping populism (whether of the left or right) in the world during the last 100 years to know where it leads – to mass civil unrest, police brutality, military intervention, civil war, governments shutting down parliaments and locking up (or kidnapping and murdering) political opponents. In short, to unbridled anarchy, tyranny and mayhem. So thanks, but no thanks! For all its faults and weaknesses, I’ll stick with democracy based on free and fair elections, even if it doesn’t always lead us to the ideal society that we may yearn to see realised.Philip StenningEccleshall, Staffordshire• George Monbiot overlooks the way in which the neoliberal doctrine of “making wealth before welfare” has been massively overturned by the response to the Covid-19 crisis, where the primacy of health over economics has been forced on even the most ardent neoliberal regimes, not least in the UK. This will certainly leave an indelible mark on the post-pandemic era. Unlike the disastrous neoliberal response to the 2008 crash, this time we are seeing the start of a possible end of its dominance as the prevailing ideology of our times, for the first time since the Thatcher-Reagan years.Adam HartGorran Haven, Cornwall More
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American politics is now a four-way struggle. Gridlock lies ahead | Daniel DiSalvo and Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti
Everyone agrees that American political parties are deeply polarized. However, last week’s elections point to a new political dynamic. While there’s no doubt that the two main parties remain bitterly hostile to one another, new fault lines within them will take center-stage.
Intra-party factions have a long history in American politics and have often been engines of change. Emerging now is a four-way struggle between ideologically distinct factions, which may render compromise difficult.
The American political landscape increasingly resembles European multi-party systems, which rely on delicate and shifting coalitions that inevitably have a strong centrist bias. Looking under the hood of America’s two big parties, it is evident that the current factions have the potential to yield similar outcomes.
The main fault-line within the Democratic Party is well-known. There’s a deep programmatic divide between a progressive faction, advancing bold but controversial policy proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and a more centrist party establishment, focused on electability and bi-partisanship.
Interestingly, both factions have claimed validation from the recent elections. Centrists point to Biden’s increased vote share among white males in the Rust Belt states as evidence that flipping swing-voters is the most reliable way to electoral success. Meanwhile, progressives underscore that their candidates did well in many congressional races, increased youth and minority turnout, and that the size of the so-called Squad almost doubled in the House.
Division within the Democratic party is likely to intensify. Biden has already signaled that he intends to govern by seeking to find common ground with the Republicans willing to work with his administration. This will frustrate progressives, who argue that moving towards the center is a recipe for losing further congressional seats in 2022.
Republicans are also divided. Despite losing the election, Trump has retained the loyalty of all but a rump of Never-Trump usual suspects who have been consistently critical of him. Clearly, Trump – or Trump-ism – aren’t going away. The President performed better than expected in these elections and is reportedly considering running again in 2024. So he will remain a powerful force within the party, savaging anyone willing to work with the Democrats.
Yet the rest of the Republican party did well electorally, picking up seats in the House and in state legislatures. If they also manage to retain control of the Senate, the prospect of scoring some policy victories may embolden a more pragmatic faction of Republicans, willing to cooperate with the Democrats. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has already made clear that a Biden administration would have to compromise, on Republican terms, or expect systematic obstruction.
The latent cleavage within the Republican Party mirrors the explicit one within the Democratic Party. In both parties, there is a radical wing ready to pour scorn on a more centrist one for opposite but ultimately symmetrical reasons: making too many concessions to the other side.
The consequence will be a four-way struggle, with only two concrete possibilities for effective government, both of which appear improbable. One is cooperation between the two centrist factions across party lines, which would have to crystallize around a moderate, pro-business agenda. While this is likely to please Wall Street, it is also sure to inflame the two more radical factions in both parties.
The other option – which depends on a Democratic capture of the Senate – is a leftward shift of the Democratic party. But that would surely alienate centrist Republicans, creating an unbridgeable gulf between the two parties.
All the other alternatives point to institutional gridlock. In fact, political scientists argue that such gridlock can be strategic when intra-partisan conflicts run deep: extreme factions on both sides encourage obstruction as a set-up for the next election, when they hope their side will increase its power at the ballot box. Refusing to make compromises can be good electoral strategy – even if it is bad for governing.
The paradox emerging from these elections is this: although ideological conflict is at a fever-pitch high, both between and within the parties, the most likely outcome remains a modest and incremental policy agenda.
Daniel DiSalvo is Professor of American Politics at the City University of New York and the author of Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Politics
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti is Associate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York and the author of Techno-Populism: The New Logic of Democratic Politics More - in US Politics
Joe Biden: Black Lives Matter activists helped you win Wisconsin. Don't forget us | Justin Blake
Three months ago, a Kenosha police officer shot my nephew, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back in front of his children. Jacob was rushed to the hospital, where for days he was shackled to his bed, only to find he’d been paralyzed from the waist down. The officer who shot him, Rusten Sheskey, has yet to be charged with a crime and is currently on paid administrative leave.Days after the shooting, Donald Trump came and went, showing little empathy for our family, and calling for a violent crackdown on protests for racial justice. The press, too, came and went, as the drama of uprising transitioned into the long, slow work of healing and change. But even after the cameras left, after the president ignored our pain and took off in his motorcade, Kenoshans kept organizing.In close concert with the Blake family, grassroots organizations in Kenosha began turning protest power into electoral power in one of the most competitive swing states in the country. From the start, our goal was to counteract voter suppression and make sure everyone in our community had their voice heard at the ballot box.On 20 October, our family joined hundreds of activists and community members in a peaceful march from Kenosha to Milwaukee, receiving support along the way from luminaries like the former Ohio state senator Nina Turner and the Rev Jesse Jackson. The march took over 14 hours, ending in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park, where Dontre Hamilton was killed by a police officer in 2014. The message of the marchers was simple: south-eastern Wisconsin has seen too much violence at the hands of the police. It’s time for Wisconsinites to vote out the politicians who have allowed, and often encouraged, this violence in our communities.Make no mistake: now that Biden’s won the election, he owes this country real racial justice reformFor many of the activists in Kenosha, including Jacob’s family, this meant voting Trump out of office. In the last two weeks before the election, we took this message door to door in a canvassing sprint across Kenosha, a city where the Joe Biden campaign itself had very little presence on the ground. But for the thousands of low-propensity voters we spoke to one-on-one in the city of Kenosha, Biden’s 20,000 statewide vote margin might have looked a lot smaller.Mainstream Democrats often invoke “loyalty” as the quality they hope to inspire in their voters. But “loyalty” is a two-way street: party leaders shouldn’t expect it if they can’t deliver for the voters who put them in office. And on this front, particularly with Black voters, Biden is far from perfect. He spearheaded the 1994 crime bill, for instance, which expanded mass incarceration and hurt Black communities across the country.Kenosha’s community leaders are taking a chance on Biden, believing that this turning point will push him to learn from past mistakes and take a moral stance in this moment of national division. And we are tired of Trump’s hateful racism and the increasingly explicit imprimatur he’s given to violent white supremacists. But make no mistake: now that Biden’s won the election, he owes this country real racial justice reform.He must start with the most obvious steps: executive orders that address the immediate need for federal remedies to protect Black and Brown citizens from police brutality; appointing a special prosecutor to investigate both criminal and civil rights violations in the Floyd, Taylor, Blake, Cole and Anderson cases. More broadly, Biden must recognize that poverty and racism are pandemics in their own right, each of which has been exacerbated by Covid-19. Beginning to remedy them will require not just an emergency economic stabilization package, but a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions for the next 12 months, and a prioritization of funding for the communities of color hit hardest by the virus.These demands are not coming from Kenosha alone, but from all across the country, where the Black Lives Matter movement – the largest social uprising in our nation’s history – has inspired a new generation of voters and activists. So while racial justice leaders may have helped Biden take back the White House, come January 2021, we’ll be reminding him exactly who got him there. More
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We're being told Biden won't be able to achieve much. We must reject that idea | Astra Taylor
One thing we have learned from this election is just how crazy our democratic system is. Many crucial victories came down to slim margins in swing states and the idiosyncrasies of the electoral college.
Moving forward, progressives need to rally around serious democracy reform. Every issue we care about, from heathcare to climate justice, flows from that. Without a major intervention – and even with radical candidates winning office here and there – our political system is becoming less and less representative and responsive.
We need to start thinking about voting rights as operating on multiple levels. One is access to the ballot box: are you able to vote? Two: is your vote counted? Then there’s a third – does your vote have consequences? In other words, is your vote impactful politically? Does it lead to the ability for your chosen candidate to govern? That is where we are now. Even after our votes are counted and Joe Biden has sealed the deal to become president-elect, we’re being told that it will be impossible for him to accomplish anything given that the Republicans will likely control the Senate.
We have to challenge that logic as much as we can. The fact that the Democrats didn’t sweep Congress – that Biden may be dealing with a divided government – is extremely disappointing. But there’s actually a lot that a president can do with a divided or weak Congress if they have a spine. For example, Biden can use the same tactics that Trump used to fill various high-power positions without having them confirmed, by using the Vacancies Act and making recess appointments. Biden can also use executive power in bold ways, including to cancel all federal student loan debt using a legal authority called “compromise and settlement”. We must remind the incoming administration of the power it possesses, even if the circumstances are less than ideal. More - in US Politics
The Guardian view on Biden and the world: undoing Trump’s damage | Editorial
Donald Trump is a “symptom of malaise, and decline, and decay” in the US, his former top Russia expert Fiona Hill has observed. If some countries have thus seized upon his presidency as an opportunity, many have been horrified.
Few US elections were watched quite as anxiously as this one around the world. Widespread relief at Joe Biden’s victory is evident. Much foreign policy, unlike domestic, can be enacted by executive order, without the backing of the Senate. At the most basic level, he will be a president who is patient enough to read a report and knowledgeable enough to understand it; who grasps that America cannot prosper alone; who does not lavish praise on dictators while humiliating democratic allies; who listens to his own intelligence services over Vladimir Putin; and who will entrust Middle East policy to seasoned officials rather than his son-in-law.
Mr Biden has already vowed to undo many of Mr Trump’s decisions, rejoining the Paris climate change agreement and rescinding the order to withdraw from the World Health Organization. He plans to extend the soon-to-expire New Start treaty with Russia – the last arms control agreement standing. Tackling the pandemic is likely to be a priority for his international diplomacy: signing up to Covax – the global initiative to ensure that poorer nations also get a share of coronavirus vaccines – would send a powerful signal. More than 180 countries have already done so, including China.
The wait to enter the White House has dangers of its own. Other nations may take advantage of US distraction. The president-elect is not receiving intelligence briefings, leaving him in the dark as he prepares for office. There are anxieties that Mr Trump’s replacement of the defence secretary, Mark Esper, and other senior officials with loyalists may not just be payback for public disagreement, but about paving the way for action at home or abroad. Key administration officials have visited Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia since the election to discuss Iran, raising concerns that Mr Trump might yet pursue a scorched-earth policy – perhaps upping the pressure on Tehran so that it hits back, making it far harder to salvage the nuclear deal.
The Trump administration has been much tougher on Beijing than anticipated, and has taken measures such as imposing sanctions on officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Yet on this relationship, as elsewhere, the president has been both erratic and crudely transactional, making it clear that human rights concerns are barterable for a better deal on trade. The turn against China has also come across the political spectrum, in response to its actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and above all internationally. Countering such behaviour will require intelligence, experience (the state department has been hollowed out and politicised) and consistency. Shoring up international alliances is essential. Finding ways to support Taiwan that don’t backfire in the response they trigger from Beijing will be crucial – and extremely hard.
Critics of Mr Trump have sometimes taken an overly rosy view of US foreign policy before him. Mr Biden is likely, in essence, to pursue the status quo ante. But if Mr Trump recognised that America’s place in the world was changing, he has also sped its decline. That such a man could become president, and that he could govern as he has, has fundamentally diminished US standing. The world has watched in disbelief as the president has allowed coronavirus to ravage his nation – and now as he refuses to concede. Last week, Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, attacked Beijing for crushing democracy in Hong Kong – but while opining, with a smirk, that at home there would be “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration”.
If large parts of the world thought the US was malign or at least deeply flawed before, they also thought it mostly functioning and competent, and often enviable. Demolition is an easier task than construction. Mr Biden will undo some of the worst aspects of the last four years, but he cannot erase them from the record. More
