I’m as pleased as anyone about the defeat of Donald Trump. He’s probably the most unpredictable leader of a major western country in recent times which also made him the most dangerous. Obviously you could write a book about Trump but I’ll just say this for now. He has never been what he’s made himself out to be as some sort of man of the people. Far from it he’s really a ultra Capitalist who’s treaded on anyone’s toes to get what he wants. When you add that to him being a sexist, racist, misogynist, narcissistic law unto himself I’m delighted he lost the Election.
But unfortunately I’m not getting too excited by the Election of Joe Biden as President. Because we have been here before with Obama and Clinton and what did they deliver? Well Clinton especially very little and Obama although he did get through some reforms overall I felt his Presidency was disappointing. Which is I predict is how I’m going to feel about Bidens Presidency too.
Why you might ask? Well for one Biden himself has said “Nothing would fundamentally change” in his administration. Then there’s the fact that unsurprisingly Biden’s transition team includes executives from Lyft, Airbnb, Amazon, Capital One, Uber and Visa which hardly fills me with much confidence. It just tells me Corporate Executives will be running the show again. The ones who have helped to get us in the mess we are in. Add to that what we’ve already seen from recent Democrat administration’s well I won’t be buying the Champagne anytime soon.
Obviously what America does sends a signal to the rest of the world and I think that signal says business as usual. Now honestly I might not sound it but I am happy Biden won because 4 more years of Trump didn’t bear thinking about. But the least worst option does not fill me with the hope we should have been feeling.
Basically we are running out of time because of Climate Change even though Biden is a big advance on the Climate denier he’s got to go a lot further than he’s been saying so far. I mean he supports Fracking for heaven’s sake see here why I’m anti fracking https://morningstaronline.co.uk/-we-need-profits-now-1
What I’m saying is he hasn’t been bold enough and this will end up being another wasted opportunity and with time against us now because we don’t have that luxury. That’s not even mentioning all the other issues like racism, inequality, healthcare etc. So my big worry is in 4 years time Trump or another rapid right winger will win and we will be back to square one. Because it’s the disappointments of a centre or centre left Government that time and again feeds into ordinary people’s perceptions that they have done nothing or very little for them. Trust is lost which leads then to the endless cycle of a right Government getting in power afterwards which does deliver to it’s core electorate the elite. This is exactly what has happened here in the UK too over the last 50 years.
So it’s not even the case now that we as a left make too many promises we can’t keep. Rather we are that safe that we hardly make any promises at all other than we aren’t the bad nasty old Tory/Republicans. But that’s hardly a strategy for very much success let alone trying to solve the problems of life today.
Of course Biden is hardly left and there lies another problem. All those people who supported Bernie Sanders had to make the choice of either not voting and risk Trump winning or supporting Biden through gritted teeth.
So what do we do as a left? 70 million people voted for Trump and nearly 14 million here for Boris Johnson last year. Not all of them are regular right wingers who love Trump and Johnson. There’s many who were from traditional Democrat or Labour voters who feel they have been let down by Governments over the years and that they wanted a change. We can win people like this back but not by calling them idiots or by trying to outdo the Republican/Tories by going further rightwards or by some bland centrism that works for no-one. But we have to mean what we say and be bold and win people around. Not be timid and accept second best. I have to say that Moderates may have the drive to win but they don’t have a vision to sell. The world doesn’t need another Clinton or Blair who won’t challenge the establishment. Which is what I fear about Biden. No what we need is someone who is going to put the fear of God into the establishment because this neoliberal casino capitalism is only working for the top 1% and isn’t sustainable. We need to offer hope for a better future not continue with a society where obsence greed is looked on as a virtue. It’s not it’s sickening and this is where we have got to in our sick capitalist society.
The clock is ticking and we need change. Biden is no saviour just a temporary stop gap at best. It’s all of us together who can be if we carry on campaigning. So to quicken that change we need we are going to need social movements more than ever. It’s the grassroots groups that have the power to change and who I believe we need to be a part of. Be that Climate Change and the Environment, Racism and Sexism or making Corporations pay their Taxes we are all linked together in the cause of making the World a better place for everyone. After all that’s what it’s about at the end of the day and that Clock is ticking faster.
Change We Must, Observations from the Left 