Reflections on the 2020 Election, and the path forward

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be the President and Vice President on January 20th, 2021.  This is no small accomplishment.  The United States was on the verge of authoritarianism.  Most evidence shows that countries that are this close often succumb. It IS worth celebrating. 

 

However, the path forward when closely looking at the election results is much more murky.

 

When all the counting is done, the Biden/Harris ticket will have won north of 77 million votes, over 300 electoral college votes, and carried the national popular vote by 5-6%.  This is a pretty decisive win in this era of extreme partisanship.  Biden/Harris owe their win to voters of color turning out in huge numbers (especially women), new young voters turning out and voting 66% for the ticket, some white blue-collar 2016 Trump supporters flipping, and no small number of more well educated Republicans who voted for Biden/Harris and then Republicans down the ballot.  In short, this was a referendum on the Trump Presidency, and he was found wanting.  The spontaneous celebrations around the country show the deep relief that a solid majority of Americans feel right now in getting rid of Trump.

 

Democrats retained control of the House, albeit with a smaller majority, and picked up gains in the Senate despite a tough map.  Iowa, North Carolina and Maine were tough asks for a variety of reasons.  While all eyes will turn toward Georgia and the two Senate seats that are going to a run-off, that is also a tough ask as Ossoff already ran behind Perdue in a high turnout election in a Presidential year where Biden carried the state by some 12,000 votes.  

 

However, Trump/Pence also broke 70 million votes and will likely get to 72 million.  This is almost 10 million more votes than he received in 2016.  Vulnerable Republican Senators outpaced their poll numbers to hang onto competitive seats.  Trump and the Republicans outperformed in south Florida and south Texas among segments of the Latinx population propelling him to victory in those states, along with picking up some House seats in those areas.  The Trump/Pence campaign was able to increase turnout of low propensity voters from his base, less educated white voters and men, as well as micro targeting the Latinx community.

 

It is of little surprise that Trump is not conceding and is trying, without any evidence, to make the claims of voter fraud stick.  It is not surprising that his base is supporting him.  It is a bit more surprising that the Republican establishment is supporting him.  My conclusion here is that the Trump/Pence supporters are more attached to Trump than to the party, and the Republican establishment knows that it can’t anger them.  The fact that they turned on Fox News, an obvious Republican mouthpiece, due to the Arizona call, shows that they follow Trump.  The fact that the Republicans don’t even have a platform also shows that the party has been consumed by Trumpism.

 

The Democrats are already wagging fingers at each other for their losses in the House and lack of more gains in the Senate.  It seems that “defund the police” is a terrible slogan and that the Trump campaign’s pinning “socialism” on several Democratic candidates certainly did hurt in certain areas of the country.  However, the mobilization of the BLM movement, and the attractiveness of “socialism”, especially socialized health care, brought many people of color and young voters to the polls.  In my opinion, the Democrats did a really good job of walking a fine line in this election between the center and the progressive left.  

 

Nonetheless, the seething discontent of Trump supporters and BLM protestors are on clear display evidenced by the massive turnout.  In all likelihood, political gridlock will serve to help the Republicans who flame that discontent, so that is what we can expect from McConnell and company.  So can the gridlock be broken, even without Democrats winning the two Georgia Senate seats?

 

Once you keep digging though, you find some pretty interesting results.  In Florida, a state Trump won easily, 61% voted in favor of raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.  Marijuana, and restorative justice also won.  Oregon decriminalized small amounts of heroine and cocaine.  My conclusion is that there are many winning issues here for progressives that even Trump supporters like.

 

I hate to simplify things but in some ways it looks pretty simple to me.  The White working class has not seen any real wage growth for forty years, and have grown hopeless and willing to follow an autocrat who promises them a grand crusade against evil (which apparently is me and my fellow Democrats).  Black Americans have also seen little progress since the 1960’s and have lost their patience.  Young Americans are much more willing to back proposals that would lessen economic inequality.  In 1992, I was on the Clinton/Gore campaign whose slogan was “it’s the economy stupid”.  It still is.  

 

Here are a series of articles on economic policy that would help all three groups, and of course, the United States in general.

 

$15 Minimum wage, Dollars on the Margins by Mathew Desmond

 

$15 Minimum wage, To Reduce Racial Inequality, Raise the Minimum Wage, by Ellora Derenoncourt and Claire Montialoux

 

These articles make clear that helping the poor out of poverty would be much more effective than anything else in terms of social justice work.  It's not the be all, end all, but it is the place to start.  

 

I would take it further than raising the minimum wage, and the pandemic stimulus may be an opportunity to pass a Universal Basic Income.  Raising the minimum wage will only affect those who have jobs.  With automation, the nature of work is about to change dramatically.

 

There is a lot of misinformation out there so I will link this article from UBI advocate Scott Santens, entitled “There is No Policy Proposal by Any 2020 Presidential Candidate More Progressive than Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend”. Santens, Yang, and many others have done the hard work of gathering all the data on UBI.  I recommend reading their work if you are still skeptical.  I was.  I am not now.

 

There will be even more disinformation and deliberate attempts to re-focus the political discussion away from basic economic issues.  The party that does something about this first will have the upper hand going forward, however, and most importantly, the $15 minimum wage and UBI are winning issues.  Neither is “socialist”, neither is “unfair”, and neither would do anything detrimental to the “economy”.  This is the path forward.