Biden, Harris and the Left Outlook in America
Written By: Giacomo Bianchino, Paul Andrews and Lien Tran
The looming inauguration of President Biden is as much cause for left concern as any other such “sacred ritual” in the heart of the empire. While we can celebrate the (continuing) removal of Donald Trump, we must take a look at the newest obstacle to progress in the United States: the Biden/Harris administration. We must weigh carefully what the prospects of a Biden presidency are for the American and international working class. By analysing the records of both the president-elect and vice-president-elect, we can begin to get a sense of what the next few years might look like. Ultimately, we must never lose sight of the fact that, regardless of the different policy nuances of different administrations, the capitalist state and its anti-people agenda remains unchanged.
Joe Biden
Biden is seen by many as “the lesser evil”. Students of history will be aware, however, that presidents with a seemingly more “progressive” pedigree have often had a worse impact on domestic and international affairs than more openly reactionary ones. Biden is indeed no stranger to underhanded tactics and politicking. This is, after all, the man who wrote the Crime bill of 1994, which increased police numbers, raised the minimums and maximums for prison sentences, and oversaw the expansion of the prison system; supported capital punishment as recently as 2019; and the man who, amid the recent Black Lives Matter protests that have erupted in the US calling for defunding the police, has reiterated his support for the police and intentions to increase their budget.
In his victory speech Biden claimed that he would build a nation of “prosperity and purpose.”, but what kind of prosperity, and what kind of purpose? From his history, we can expect aesthetic grandstanding for the workers while he pushes for the interests of the bourgeoisie.
“The unfortunate aspect of Biden that many tend to gloss over is the fact that the majority of his political career has been spent on the conservative side of social issues”
Biden’s political personality is partly drawn from his supposed blue-collar background. He grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania which is a notoriously poor rust-belt town. But despite his self-representation as “working-class,” he was the son of a petit-bourgeois used car salesman, and had a relatively comfortable upbringing. In fact, despite putting forward a nebulous plan to “support” things like collective bargaining, Biden’s record on labour is incredibly patchy. Back in 2019, one journalist pointed out that he has refused support strikes on multiple occasions. He voted for NAFTA and the TPP, and empowered creditors against debtors in the 2005 bankruptcy bill. Biden has only ever visited two picket lines in his political career, both while on the campaign trail.
Earlier in the victory speech, he claimed he would be a president that would “unite” the United States. He claimed to be one “Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States. And who will work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people." His track record on unifying a divided country, however, is not a good one.
The unfortunate aspect of Biden that many tend to gloss over is the fact that the majority of his political career has been spent on the conservative side of social issues. As late as the mid-70’s, he was still somewhat of a segregationist; refusing to support the “bussing” campaigns that led to the racial integration of schools in the South. As senator, he argued for the states’ discretion in deciding whether it was legal to “bus” or transport minority students to white-majority schools and vice versa. in fact, during the Democratic party’s presidential nominee debates in 2019 Biden was confronted with his record by none other than Kamala Harris; instead of recanting his criticism of bussing and accepting that states sometimes need a federal kick in the right direction, he doubled down on his position.
His feet-dragging on civil rights has been on display throughout the turmoil of the past year. The protests against the police murders of hundreds of black people each year and sheer degree of everyday police brutality has been a massive bookmark during mid to late 2020 and an incredibly important movement to those who stand and fight for the civil rights of ostracised people of colour in America and across the world. Biden’s position on these protests and calls to reform the police have offered no concessions or solutions to the ongoing protests and will most likely lead to future unrest, assuming of course, the current issues are stamped out beforehand. When the idea of defunding the cops began to gain traction after the murder of George Floyd, Biden stated “While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people's rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police." We cannot, then, expect much by way of criminal justice reform from a Biden presidency.
In his victory speech he also spoke eerily of restoring America’s “soul.” He claimed that each American must struggle for their “better angels” to overcome their “darker impulses.” Biden’s personal religious convictions have historically put him to the right of most democrats when it comes to the rights of women and the LGBTQI community.
The history of Biden’s personal treatment of women has been the subject of huge scrutiny in the last year or so. Though the allegations of sexual assault brought against Biden by former staffer Tara Reade remain inconclusive, there is broad acceptance that he allowed for a culture of gendered manipulation to exist in his office. Biden has also prevaricated on the question of reproductive rights. Right up at least until 2006, he actively supported pro-life policies. Back then, he was the “odd man out” among democrats in refusing to support federal funding for abortion. Indeed, he supported a constitutional amendment which prevented the funding of abortion through medicaid right up until the presidential race last year. When pressed, he gave no apologies for his former stance.
“We can expect a generally conservative approach to labour, civil rights and foreign policy, with any real flexibility only emerging as vague promises when it is time to get voted back in”
There is similar ambiguity in Biden’s positions on LGBTQI issues. He has made his support of marriage equality a cornerstone of his progressive credentials. He had no need, apparently, to “evolve” like other politicians. Instead, in a garbled story that changed every time he tells it, he once saw two men kissing and either said or was told “they just love each other.” But this fairytale doesn’t accord with his political career. Not only did he vote for the “Marriage Defence Act” in 1996; he claimed in 2008 that “Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that…” It was only in 2012 that Biden arrived at the political position that he supposedly always had personally.
From an Australian and global perspective, it seems that Biden may return to the foreign policy that made the last Democrat administration so infamous. He has claimed that he will “return” America to some sense of normalcy. This is worrying considering that he was part of the government that bombed Syria and Libya to high hell, supported autocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and turned a blind eye to the famine in Yemen. He also voted for the proliferation of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where his youngest son served in combat. Going off this record we might worry that Biden will seek a return of America to the status of international cop and hegemon.
There is a possibility that this won’t be the case. Biden is under pressure from a left-leaning generation of younger Democrats who want to “transform” rather than revive the foreign policy of the past. We will see whether his administration’s orientation will err to the hawkish or dovelike when he chooses his cabinet. Either way, there’s no point holding one’s breath over Biden’s progressive credentials in foreign policy.
From all of this, we can infer a few possible patterns of policy in a Biden presidency. Biden is quite happy to flip-flop on his more principled stances (whether we agree with them or not). He primarily does this, however, at election time. His progressive credentials have ebbed and flowed with the electoral cycle. We can expect a generally conservative approach to labour, civil rights and foreign policy, with any real flexibility only emerging as vague promises when it is time to get voted back in.
Kamala Harris
While undoubtedly retaining great significance as the first Black, Indian-American, female Vice-President Elect, VP Kamala Harris is not the former “top cop” with authority America nor the rest of the world needs. Rather than a flaw of the Neo-Colonial empire, this seemingly paradoxical nature of Kamala Harris’ past is the norm for the United States of America.
“Far from the “progressive prosecutor” image Kamala Harris touts, she is a proponent of solitary confinement and the death penalty”
Throughout her years, Harris has shown herself to be a wily attorney and senator. She has a knack for latching onto socio-political trends and making abrupt changes in personal policy so long as it secures her perceived image as a “progressive prosecutor” and “smart on crime.”
From her years as Attorney General of San Francisco, Kamala Harris established her antagonism to the people with her sponsorship of SESTA/FOSTA. This poorly researched Public Law had the supposed goal of reducing human trafficking by “holding Internet platforms accountable for the content their users post”. SESTA/FOSTA has intensified the efficiency of trafficking in the sex trade by transferring the balance of power towards self-interested individuals who exploit sex workers.
With a primarily U.S. based internet space, this has had devastating impacts on Australian and other overseas sex workers. Where previously sex workers were able to screen their clients and maintain a majority of them online if preferred, SESTA/FOSTA lead to the removal of online screening/barriers between the workers and their clients. This has led to a greater burden on sex workers to meet demands financially and physically in order for them to maintain their already volatile income. SESTA/FOSTA is typical of the uncaring, superficial policy measures taken by capitalist governments that ignore the deeper issues underlying the sex trade.
Far from the “progressive prosecutor” image Kamala Harris touts, she is a proponent of solitary confinement and the death penalty. She also infamously chuckled in fond memory of incarcerating parents and separating them from their children. The Vice-President Elect has demonstrated repeatedly her willingness to use the law as a tool of terror against the working class.
This terror has taken many forms. She sponsored a bill, for example, that would give local government law enforcement the authority to forfeit civil assets from people merely under the suspicion of having committed a crime. This combined with her anti-truancy program that would threaten and had prosecuted parents of truant children show an ignorant and cruel view towards low-income families which face the greatest rate of truancy due to many nuanced factors.
Another example is her championing of prison labour. During her time as the California Attorney General, Harris followd her legal team as they argued for the high capacity of California’s prisons to be used as a resource pool for cheap labour. A major use of prison labor in California is the state’s low cost firefighting program, called “conservation camps” where inmates risk their lives for U$5.12 per hour (with a U$1 raise for those on the frontlines).
Harris also oversaw the expansion of prison populations in her state. Even as the Supreme Court of California ruled that prison overcrowding represented “cruel and unusual punishment” and in 2014 ordered the creation of an early release parole system, Harris’ legal team argued that as parolees received a faster way out of prison, it would negatively impact the state’s prison labour programs. Even as Harris clings to the narrative that she was “shocked” to find that it was her legal team’s independent ideas that are to be attributed to this economic exploitation, her own history makes this dubious. To further the unreliable nature of this claim is the fact that under Governor Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris and her legal team prevented the release of 5,000 imprisoned people that had been cleared as presenting no risk to the public when they had been tasked with reducing the prison population to 137.5 percent of its design capacity within two years.
“Combined with a self-interested and passive but presented progressive attitude towards her policies and actions makes Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris the perfect pairing for the leering and hawkish Joe Biden”
While her relative inexperience in Foreign Policy will likely prove to be of great use to President Joe Biden, much of what VP Elect Harris has said and done does not bode well internationally. On the issue of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, she followed the expected U.S. Zionist path and stated that "I will do everything in my power to ensure broad and bipartisan support for Israel's security and right to self-defense."
Harris has strafed to the right of other democrats on defence. When Senator Bernie Sanders proposed an amendment that would reduce the 2021 Pentagon budget by 10 percent, ($74 billion) and invest the money in education, poverty alleviation, housing and healthcare, Senator Harris voted against the motion, stating that the reduction must be “done strategically”. Showing that behind her veneer of being a progressive figure within the U.S. electoral system, Kamala Harris holds no care for the people, even those who had genuinely believed in her.
Overall, her history of intentionally out-dated domestic policy and highly covert warmongering ideas, combined with a self-interested and passive but presented progressive attitude towards her policies and actions makes Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris the perfect pairing for the leering and hawkish Joe Biden.
Conclusion
As Republicans and Democrats continue their historic squabbles over the volume and focus of Covid-19 stimulus to be distributed towards in 2021, as well as the possibility of a “bipartisan Trump truth commission”, this is only a sign of things to come for the people of the U.S. and internationally. The events in D.C. show that the antagonisms between and within American classes defies an easy resolution. Within the democratic party in itself there is a burgeoning divide between the party’s “restorationists” and “reformationists” where a difference in priorities promises a great deal of internal conflict with limited action. As such, electoralism beyond local action cannot in any way be relied upon as a method of change, even as a temporary material tool.
With the author of the Crime Bill and California’s former “top-cop” as the President and VP Elects, the left must increase organisation efforts for their communities with international solidarity. As there will likely be a continuation of coups and economic sanctions against more progressive South American states, among other methods of diplomatic warfare, the global progressive movement must be prepared for “business as usual” and continue the efforts to create pressure from below as the Biden Presidency undertaking a ”return to normalcy” for the United States.