A study of three issue areas.
The Democrats have used the very old tactic of winning votes out of fear, recently that of the MAGA boogeyman. But this tactic is finally beginning to lose its effect.
Samuel Clemens’ (aka Mark Twain) sage aphorism, “History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” is certainly one of the more accurate ways to describe the Democratic Party’s approach to the 2024 presidential election in that it eerily, though not surprisingly, mimics the neoliberal, corporate party’s methodology during the 2016 election – paint Donald Trump as a megalomaniac demagogue and dictatorial mad man who will unilaterally destroy “democracy” to generate so much fear in voters that they would have no other choice but to choose the Democrats. This strategy, of course, failed and resulted in the ignominious defeat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as down ballot Democrats, which handed Trump a “trifecta” government.
Yet, there was and is something even more insidious about this modus operandi; that is, establishing and maintaining, a culture of fear associated with Trump and MAGA Republicans provides the Democrats, in their minds, political and legislative latitudes to do anything they want, no matter how inimical to poor and working people, as well as global stability and peace, and get away with it. Afterall, as we are observing in real time, most, if not all challenges to, or demonstrations of chagrin for the Democrats’ legislative and policy agendas are met with reductive and sophomoric retorts along the lines of, “You want Trump? He would be much worse,” followed by some other liberal bullshit along the lines of, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” building off of one of Biden’s famous one liners, “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.”
Recent polls would indicate that the Democrats’ strategy is far from the apotheosis of electoral politics they would believe. According to a recent survey conducted by the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College, Trump leads Biden in five of six so-called battleground states that will ultimately determine the outcome of the election. Moreover, according to a CNN poll conducted last month, 61% of respondents view Biden’s presidency as a failure. This, in concert with previous polls also showing Trump leading or within the margin of error, showcases major challenges for Biden and the Democrats – the people are comparing him and his party to “the alternative,” and as discussed herein, on many issues, Biden has actually been worse. Let’s take a look at the issues that are currently thought to have a massive influence on the outcomes of federal elections taking place in six months.
I. Abortion/Reproductive Justice
To be clear, access to reproductive health is a salient issue that demands the full attention of the U.S. polity. At the same time, the assertion of the Democrats that one election in itself will determine the future of reproductive justice is both hyperbolic and unfounded. A simple review of civics indicates President Trump would not have the ability to institute a national abortion ban via executive action. And, the legislative branch would have little ability to codify Roe v. Wade even if Biden pulls off a Buster Douglas, the Democrats flip the House, and miraculously retain the Senate. This was certainly the case in 2022 when Biden and the Democrats passed the Women’s Health Protection Act in the House, which would have prohibited states from promulgating laws that restrict abortions up until the time of “fetal viability.” Despite having a governmental trifecta, the bill never made it to the Senate floor. But even if it did it would never have secured the 60 vote threshold to overcome a Senate filibuster. Whoever controls the House and the Senate following this year’s election will also not have the numbers to garner 60 votes in the Senate to pass any legislation – save for those considered “must pass” such as bills necessary to keep the government funded and reauthorize already profligate military spending.
All to say, the issue of abortion/reproductive justice is likely to be a State issue for the foreseeable future, which will require much more electoral vigilance and investment at the State level – an area where the Democrats have been anemic since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Trump himself indicated this in a recent interview when he not only indicated that abortion should remain a state’s issue, but also indicated that he would not pursue a national abortion ban. Now I’m not saying that we should take Trump at his word, but I am saying that even if he does renege, he will not have the numbers in the Senate to pull it off. It should also be noted that Trump did speak out against the anachronistic and draconian anti-abortion/forced birth law that was recently upheld by Arizona’s Supreme Court, which was subsequently overturned and it could be argued, that Trump had more influence in repealing the law than Biden given the majority GOP makeup of the Arizona State Legislature.
Abortion has become the Democrats’ new Citizens United, and they have reduced it to a rhetorical exercise bereft of an actual plan to enshrine the right to reproductive justice for all women regardless of class or race. For if the Democrats were actually serious about the health of women, they would not only decry and move to deracinate a capitalist, profit-driven healthcare system that still presents myriad challenges for poor and working women, they would also be speaking more about one of these challenges; higher rates of pregnancy-related deaths among Black and Indigenous women, two constituencies the Democrats cannot enjoy electoral success without. That access to abortions is greatly contingent on the racial identity and economic status of an individual is well established, by attempting to primarily plead their case on this issue to suburban soccer moms who either reside in states where access to abortion is not under threat, or who have the financial means to travel to states where they can safely and legally access abortions, shows that the Democrats are not serious about this issue beyond their belief that it can help them electorally.
The Democrats are doubling and tripling down on the issue of abortion/reproductive justice – both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) are giving their candidates a steady diet of spoon fed talking points to keep the issue front and center. However, this could actually backfire on the Democrats and showcase their hypocrisy on this matter for the reasons discussed above and also as it pertains to the reproductive justice rights of Palestinian women that have been decimated by the State of Israel’s current genocidal pogrom, which is being facilitated, in large part, by Biden and the Democrats.
II. Climate Change/Environmental Racism
If you speak to the average liberal, they will likely assert that the climate crisis offers Biden one of his best chances to distinguish himself from Trump. The Democratic party continues to take victory laps for passage of Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is characterized by many as a “historic climate bill.”Liberals proclaim that the IRA proves Biden has been listening to and delivering for key members of the coalition that got him elected including young folk and those who reside in environmental justice communities (aka Disadvantaged Communities), the vast majority Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor folk.
I’ve previously written on why the IRA is less a climate bill and more a poison pill for Black and Indigenous communities, for reasons that include the fact that the “historic climate bill” will open up 600 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing, increase the use of nuclear power, and relies heavily on a scam technology known as carbon capture and sequestration a technology that primarily benefits the fossil fuel cartels that’s proven to fail time and time again, as well as put Black communities at increased risk of pipeline explosions and exposure to toxic emissions as with what occurred in Yazoo County, Mississippi.
The effectiveness of the IRA is being questioned more frequently as of late and there are also questions rising about who primarily benefits/will benefit the most from the large sums of government largesse contained in the bill. One of the environmental groups who are the biggest proponents of the IRA actually developed a calculator that demonstrates how the law will primarily and mostly benefit white, affluent households and their communities .
Currently, it’s estimated that less than 20 percent of IRA and funding from the CHIPs Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), ostensibly to address the climate crisis, has gone out the door. And a closer look at who has received large lump sums of the funds further indicates the IRA may be doing more to help fossil fuel cartels than hold them to account for decades of damage to the climate, climate denialism, and environmental racism. In fact, last August, Biden’s Department of Energy awarded Occidental Petroleum over $1 Billion dollars for a project in Louisiana, which in turn increased the price of the oil giant’s shares by 3.3%. Furthermore, changes to the Internal Revenue Service’s 45q tax code included in the IRA are poised to deliver billions more to the fossil fuel industry, and in some cases, actually reward it to utilize carbon capture technology to extract more oil. This seems to explain why fossil fuel cartels are excited by a so-called climate bill as reported by journalist Kate Arnoff in her piece, Why is the Fossil Fuel Industry Praising the Inflation Reduction Act ?
Adding to the Democrats’ dilemma of attempting to paint Biden as a climate hero and Trump a climate threat is the fact that Biden has actually approved 50% more oil and gas leasing at this point in his presidency than Trump’s . Biden has approved some of the largest fossil fuel projects in the nation’s history including the Willow Project in Alaska, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, scores of Liquefied Natural Gas export facilities, and, most recently, the largest oil project ever off the coast of Texas. This further proves that under his presidency fossil fuel cartels are cleaning up financially and the people, especially environmental justice communities, will be left to clean up the mess while their health and very lives hang in the balance.
III. Gaza and Palestine – The Less than Grand Finale
During a presidential candidate’s forum in Chicago hosted by local Arab and Muslim organizers and organizations, Dr. Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party nominee for president, remarked, “For people of the global and moral majority, Gaza is the last straw.” Gaza and Palestine present the Democrats with one of their most byzantine political challenges in, perhaps, a generation as this issue offers them nearly no ability to distinguish themselves from the GOP. The political arm of the zionist industrial complex, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has actually provided a higher average of political contribution to the Democratic Party since 1990.
Israel’s genocidal pogrom against Gaza is one of the few political issues that enjoys bipartisan support of the duopoly. Earlier this month President Biden signed a bi partisan law to send $25 Billion of the people’s money to the State of Israel that will enable the settler colonial nation to continue its assault on Gaza. And last year we watched as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson held hands while leading a chant of, “No Ceasefire” to a pro zionist crowd in D.C.
But it’s not just the policies and military support of Israel that is exposing the duopoly, it’s also the response to the valiant protests across the country led by college and university students, their allied professors and administrators, young people, and a growing coalition of people demanding Palestinian liberation and divestment from the Israeli war machine that reduce the ability of Biden and the Democrats to depict Trump as an authoritarian seeking to suppress free speech and other elements of the First Amendment. From New York City to California, both Democratic Party strongholds, we have witnessed some of the more brutal manifestations of state-sanctioned violence and repressions of everyday folk demanding an end to the genocide and accountability for the Netanyahu regime.
The Democrats know Gaza could very well be the final nail in the coffin of Biden’s dwindling re-election prospects. Biden and the Democrats can rarely, if ever, even find Arab and Muslim leaders willing to speak with them on Gaza, which further denies them the chance to even attempt to suggest that Trump would be worse for the Palestinians.. This is likely why the Democrats have resorted to superficial attempts to flip the narrative through a concerted Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO) campaign exercised by their tendentious corporate media arm including, but not limited to MSNBC aka MSDNC, and the New York Times.
For instance, neoliberal negro exemplar, Charles Blow, recently penned an opinion piece in which he appears to be dismissive of the student protests that have resulted in over 2,000 arrests nationwide. In said piece, Mr. Blow, in analyzing the protests, posits, “Republicans are probably overplaying their hand in the way they’ve opposed the protests and vilified the protesters.” It seems that Mr. Blow is either completely separated from reality, is suffering from abject ignorance, is clearly a shill for the Democratic Party, or a combination of all three. The fact of the matter is that Biden himself, while holding hands with D(NC)SA’s Representative Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez, labeled all of the protests as “antisemitic” further fueling the antisemitism hypochondria complex engulfing the nation at present. Biden’s feckless assessment is shared by numerous members of his party including Senator John “Shotgun” Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Hillary Clinton who recently suggested that the student protestors are, “ignorant of Middle East history.”
It appears Biden and the Democrats are hoping, as Blow suggests in his piece, that the issue of the genocide in Gaza will experience a “fast metabolism” and simply fade away as an issue by November when voters will inevitably conclude that Trump is more “authoritarian.” That the Democrats and their liberal apparatus actually believe this forms a miasma of abject ignorance and elitism – and it also shows they’ve learned nothing since 2016. Do they really expect people to forget about a rising death toll of innocent civilians emboldened by Israel’s use of U.S. weapons? Is it their assertion that the people will forget that, under the direction of Joe Biden, the U.S. has vetoed every vote for a ceasefire at the United Nations and recently voted against recognizing Palestinian statehood, proving that their calls for a “two state solution” is specious at best? And do they expect people that have been brutalized by law enforcement, many who are trained by the Israeli Defense Force, to simply forget and move on, when we all know that if this kind of wonton exercise of force against civilians and young people was happening under Trump the Democrats would be the first to decry it as an affront on free speech and peaceful assembly?
Conclusion
As demonstrated herein, the Democrats have lost their Trump card and realize, more than anyone, they cannot rely on a reductive, languorous narrative that a second Trump presidency will result in social, climate, economic, and reproductive justice cataclysms without tarnishing their own record and that of Joe Biden’s. Hence why they are throwing unfocused and unprincipled rhetorical haymakers that demonstrate their desperation more than their belief that they have a winning electoral strategy and a candidate who can beat Trump.. Because for all the lies being told by liberal media, Biden’s acolytes, and their masters at DNC HQ the one that’s most profoundly false is that Biden is the lesser of the two evils.
No Compromise
No Retreat