I have to admit, I spent the last year arguing that Trump is a fascist and no matter what, it was essential to defeat his bid for re-election. Come to find out, the majority of Americans did not think that the reason to vote for Kamala Harris was that she was not Trump. A very high percentage of them remained angry at the gross inequalities in the United States and unsatisfied with the relative improvements in the incomes of low wage workers that had occurred during the Biden years.
When I refer to these percentages, I include all those who did not vote as part of the angry and disillusioned --- those who basically think it doesn’t matter who is elected.
Many of those angry voters who had voted for Biden chose to sit out the 2024 elections. The data is not in yet but it looks like turnout fell as a percentage of those eligible to vote from the 2020 election. This is very unfortunate because some of Biden’s policies actually benefited those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
[For some really good analysis complete with numbers on this issue see Dean Baker, “US Workers are Far Better off than Four Years Ago,” available at here.]
One serious problem was the fact that the increased government subsidies to low-income families, especially the expanded child tax credit as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, reverted back to its lower level in 2022. This cut in benefits obviously played a role in getting some people to answer the “are you better off?” question in the negative, despite all the positive actions taken by the Biden Administration. Many of those benefits --- infrastructure investment, subsidies to sustainable energy projects, new factories being built --- don’t show up immediately. When people begin to feel those benefits it will be over the next few years. Ironically, Republicans who all voted against the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act will get the political benefit of being in office when people start to feel those benefits.
But in fact, there are long run problems that have been building for decades. In my opinion, that is the reason a significant percentage of the population supported Trump in three straight elections. I have been writing about that and talking about these problems for decades (my book SURRENDER which was published in its first edition in 1998 started that process). Anyone who wants a somewhat deep dive into that issue can have a look at the Appendix to a paper I wrote with a former colleague Dr. Jared Ragusett of Southern Connecticut State University.
The body of the paper focuses on the painfully slow economic recovery from the financial meltdown on 2008 which in our opinion was a signal failure of the Obama Administration. We argue that that slow recovery was one of the main reasons Trump won in 2016. However, the Appendix traces the long run problem all the way back to the 1980s and the so-called “Reagan Revolution.”
No doubt, President Biden was saddled with the fallout from the COVID pandemic and the inflation that accompanied his Administration’s efforts to recover from the COVID recession of 2020. However, I firmly believe that decades of sluggish growth in incomes for working people while the super-rich made out like bandits finally destroyed the patience of lots of working class voters. Many just grew tired of the promises that never seemed to be delivered.
There is a very interesting interview by Andrew Perez with data policy wonk Michael Podhozer in the November 13 Rolling Stone.
It is entitled “Why Democratic Turnout Cratered --- and Why it Won’t be Easy to Fix.”
Podhozer says:
The biggest thing that’s not part of that conversation, is that, especially beginning after the crash in 2008 and then the Great Recession, the way in which the labor market changed radically meant that everybody who has come into the workforce since then is coming into a future that is more constrained and more precarious than they were expecting. People before 2008 took for granted that if you had a job, that you’re probably going to have it for the indefinite future, you knew what your hours were going to be, your wages were fairly stable. After 2008 there was such a successful shredding of that kind of labor contract with people who are not in unions, where people stopped being able to expect what their job would be, where they’d be working in a year or two, or even what their hours were the next week or the week after.
That created all sorts of insecurity and mental overhead of just trying to figure out how to keep juggling everything. It made relationships harder. It made raising families harder. Combined with housing, it meant more people feeling like failures because they’re moving back into their parents’ homes. In America, where how you show up as a worker is so much of how people see your identity and worth, it’s really difficult. So then you’re going through that, and then you get Covid — and Covid, you’re fired, right? And even though the [pandemic relief] checks came and kept you from being destitute, there was a period where you didn’t even know if your job was coming back, and who you’re going to work for or what you’re going to do. And social isolation in that context. You’re just insecure. And then you get inflation. And as you know, in this period, two-thirds to three-quarters of people think that the country is going in the wrong direction, over and over again. The confidence and approval of every institution just plummets.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont says it somewhat differently but he’s on the same track. Remember, though he supports Democrats he is a democratic socialist. Though he was a strong supporter of both the Biden Administration and the Harris campaign he penned an OP ED in the Boston Globe that is highly critical of the Democratic Party in general. It is available here but it’s behind a paywall.
Here are some of his important insights.
The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason.
They want to know why the very rich are getting much richer, and the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average employees, while weekly wages remain stagnant and 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
They want to know why corporate profits soar while companies shut down factories in America and move to low-wage countries.
They want to know why the food industry enjoys record breaking profits, while they can’t afford their grocery bills.
They want to know why they can’t afford to go to a doctor or pay for their prescription drugs, and worry about going bankrupt if they end up in a hospital.
Donald Trump won this election because he tapped into that anger.
Did he address any of these serious issues in a thoughtful or meaningful way? Absolutely not.
What he did do was divert the festering anger in our country at a greedy and out-of-touch corporate elite into a politics that served his political goals and will end up further enriching his fellow billionaires.
Trump’s “genius” is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.
While Trump did talk about capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, and a new trade policy with China, his fundamental explanation as to why the working class was struggling was that millions of illegal immigrants have invaded America and that we are now an “occupied country.”
In his pathologically dishonest world, undocumented immigrants are illegally participating in our elections and voting for Democrats. They are creating massive amounts of crime, driving wages down, and taking our jobs. They are getting free health care and other benefits that are denied to American citizens. They are even eating our pets.
That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious. But it is an explanation.
And what do the Democrats have to say about the crises facing working families? What is their full-throated explanation, pounded away day after day in the media, in the halls of Congress, and in town meetings throughout the country as to why tens of millions of workers, in the richest country on earth, are struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent? Where is the deeply felt outrage that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care for all as a human right while insurance and drug companies make huge profits?
How do they explain supporting billions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is causing massive malnutrition and starvation for thousands of children?
In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.
This election was largely about class and change and the Democrats, in both cases, were often on the wrong side. As Jimmy Williams Jr., the president of the Painters Union, said, “The Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working-class message that addresses issues that really matter to workers. The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump. That’s not good enough anymore!”
As an Independent member of the US Senate, I caucus with the Democrats. In that capacity I have been proud to work with President Biden on one of the most ambitious pro-worker agendas in modern history.
We passed the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of the COVID-19 economic downturn; made historic investments in rebuilding our infrastructure and in transforming our energy system; began the process of rebuilding our manufacturing base; lowered the cost of prescription drugs and forgave student debt for five million Americans. Biden promised to be the most progressive president since FDR and, on domestic issues, he kept his word.
But, unlike FDR, these achievements are almost never discussed within the context of a grossly unfair economy that continues to fail ordinary Americans. Yes. In the past few years we have made some positive changes. We must acknowledge, however, that what we’ve done is nowhere near enough.
In 1936, in his second inaugural address, FDR spoke not only of his administration’s enormous achievements in combating the Great Depression, but of the painful economic realities that millions of Americans were still experiencing.
Roosevelt’s words remain relevant today: “I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day... I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children... I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
Of course, the world is today profoundly different than it was in 1936. We are not in an economic depression. Unemployment is relatively low. People are not facing starvation.
But the Democratic leadership must recognize that, in a rapidly changing economy, working families face an enormous amount of economic pain, anxiety and hopelessness — and they want change. The status quo is not working for them.
In politics you can’t fight something with nothing. The Democratic Party needs to determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times, and it needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for. Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can’t represent both.
While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.
If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed.
In my view, here are some of the working class priorities that Democrats must fight for:
· We must end Citizens United and stop billionaires from buying elections.
· We must raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to a living wage — at least $17 an hour.
· We must pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make it easier for workers to form unions and end illegal union busting
· We must protect senior citizens by increasing Social Security benefits and extending the solvency of the program by lifting the cap on taxable income.
· We must bring back defined benefit pension plans so that workers can retire with security.
· We must do what every other wealthy nation does and guarantee health care to all as a human right, beginning with the expansion of Medicare to cover home health care, dental, hearing, and vision.
· We must cut prescription drug prices in half, no more than is paid in other countries.
· We must provide guaranteed paid family and medical leave
· We must guarantee equal pay for equal work.
· We must create fair trade policies that work for workers, not just corporate CEOs.
· We must build 3 million units of low income and affordable housing
· We must make public colleges and universities tuition free, childcare affordable for all, and strengthen public education by paying teachers the salaries they deserve.
· We must adopt a progressive tax system which addresses the massive income and wealth inequality we are experiencing by demanding that the very wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes.
· We must save taxpayer dollars by ending the massive waste, fraud and abuse that exists in the Pentagon.
These are extremely popular ideas. The Democratic Party would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver. The simple fact is: if you stand with working people, they will stand with you. In my view, if Democrats deliver on an agenda like this, they can win back the working class of our country and the White House.
To Senator Sanders’ admonition to the democratic party i can only say a loud “amen”.
Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies.
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