Celebrate! Breathe a very, very big sigh of relief. Among the record number of Americans who went to the polls and mailed in their ballots, over half voted for Joe Biden to reject and decisively defeat Donald Trump!! At least five million more. I wish it was a landslide, but still, big, big whew!
However, don’t stop worrying. Be vigilant. Organize.
Roughly 47% of voting Americans, (including 58% of exit-polled whites) were willing to accept an openly racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, corrupt, wealth-protecting tax cheat, as well as his many elected Republican sycophantic supporters. The causes go way back and continue to this day. We ignore that history and current precipitants at our grave peril. The depth of racism, appeal of authoritarianism, and continued of be-out-for-yourself cynicism will not fade away soon. The danger of armed right-wing violence is ever-present.
I hate it. But that’s where we are. It is the world we live in. We can blame the liars and fear-mongers. We can blame social media, misinformation, and news silos. We can blame the deep-seated racism of our fellow Americans. We can blame money in politics. Progressives can blame moderate Democrat timidity. Moderates can blame imagined progressive overreach. But then, since we cannot accept that life and politics have to be this way, we need to find a way to move forward.
This I know: Democrats, the primary viable election alternative to Republicans, have failed to satisfactorily answer two crucial voter questions for too many voters for too many years.
Do these politicians who want my vote get me? Are they on my side?
Nationally, the response from almost half of Americans and substantially more in some places, has been, “No.” The answer for a good portion of the other half has been, “Well, maybe not, but the Republicans hate me or only care about rich white men.”
That is not enough to move toward, much less achieve, a better future for all of us.
Honestly, I’m uncertain about the way ahead. I think it is important to say that, not out of naïve hope that the nightmare is over, or despair that we are hopelessly divided by racism and selfishness, not in the spirit of bipartisanship with folks who have no intention of compromise, but out of pragmatic humility and respect for the primacy of evidence-based claims over baseless conjecture, however well-intentioned.
We need to do something–with others to fight for real operative democracy, justice, equity, decency, and humanity.
I do have strong inclinations:
1. Over several decades, white working-class men and women abandoned the Democratic Party because they concluded that the party abandoned them. Divisive racism was always there but for a time a robust labor movement provided a counterweight. Then, as globalization undermined living-wage jobs, unions shrunk, and Democratic leadership found corporate allies, insecurity, and racism were ascendant. Republicans know that promoting fear and worker disillusion with Democrats is their only path to retaining power. They will do everything possible to prevent the Biden administration from attaining any success.
We must tear working people away from Republicans. Working-class solidarity for common goals is a must. Local organizing is essential. In addition, Democrats must lead by fighting for policies that can make a real difference in people’s lives, rather than what they think they can achieve in the face of Republican intransigence. That is how they answer the age-old question, “Which side are you on?”
2. The progressive campaigns of Sanders and Warren were a dramatic and positive development in national Democratic politics. While they were not able to rally enough voters around their visions to win the nomination, there is no doubt that they help to bring out an overwhelming percentage of people of color, women, youth, people of low and modest incomes, and non-evangelicals to defeat Trump. Progressive candidates met with electoral success in some places. Some moderates in more conservative locations were tagged with allegiance to progressive causes they did not even support. Was this the primary cause of their defeat or instead their inability to win voters over to what they did stand for? What accounts for the local progressive wins? Were they successful in talking to people who did not begin with a progressive perspective about how we should live together? We need to figure out more effective respectful ways to talk with people about what they see as their needs and together imagine possibilities. We need language that resonates with many. Without more local, state, and congressional progressive wins, we will never achieve national legislative victory.
3. Biden’s moderate stance may have been enough to win the election (in the face of Trump's extreme terribleness and pandemic incompetence) but not enough to crumble the foundation of decades of Republican ascendancy. One explanation is that too many Americans have come to accept that since inequity is inevitable, others’ gains come at their expense. Another is that too many centrists Democrats have treated racism as a third rail to avoid talking about, avoiding confronting the very thing that has undermined their success and a better life for all.
Language matters. When Democrats say, “We need to rebuild the middle class because it is the backbone of America,” or “Everyone deserves a shot at climbing the ladder if they work hard and play by the rules,” it reinforces the norms that there must be a ladder to climb to claim a decent life and that some folks want something for nothing. That supports, “Hey, I work hard for what I’ve got. Why should they get stuff for free?”
4. Unless we find a way to influence a significant portion of that 47%, we are doomed. Unless we find a way–soon–to get more people of all backgrounds to enthusiastically vote for Democrats instead of grudgingly against Republican, the future is bleak. Climate change, poor health, despair, police murders, and food insecurity will kill more and more of us. Inequity in intimate partnership with racism will continue to undermine the lives of some more than others and enable the insecurity of most of us to protect the privileges of the few. The tenuous commitment of Americans to democracy will further erode, if not disappear.
5. The mixed results of the 2020 election show that mobilizing the vote is necessary, but far from sufficient. We can’t expect to build a mass movement or a significant shift in values to emerge from presidential and other election campaigns. Given the demands of modern elections, the Democratic Party is probably not in a position to do the necessary community organizing. However, it can surely more actively and clearly represent and fight for the values and positions for which those organizers struggle.
6. Successful work to achieve a more just, peaceful, equitable, environmentally livable future begins, I think, by strategically selecting issues locally and nationally that make a difference to people’s lives across racial differences. Above all, progressives need to talk with people and imagine possibilities that they have yet to conceive. For example, inequity in housing, health care, global warming, and education impact people of color the most, but create challenge and insecurity for us all. Envisioning different ways of organizing to meet our needs beyond the current ruthless market competition is hard but essential. We need to do it with people.
My gut tells me that is the way to go. For sure, we need to figure it out together and then think strategically.
Arthur H. Camins is a lifelong educator. He writes about education and social justice. He works part-time with curriculum developers at UC Berkeley as an assessment specialist. He retired recently as Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology. He has taught and been an administrator in New York City, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone.
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arthurcamins