THE BLUE MIRAGE : IT WAS ALL AOC'S FAULT

Joe Biden's presidential victory has deflected attention from the fact that the Democratic Party under-performed. At a time of a pandemic and a major economic crisis the 'blue landslide' proved to be the 'blue mirage'.

WHILE THERE will be a widespread sense of relief in many quarters that the United States and the world will not have to face the ugly reality of four more years of President Donald Trump, that should not blind us to the fact that the Democratic Party generally performed poorly. Indeed there is a legitimate case to be made that if it wasn't for a virus, Trump would have walked  straight back into the White House.

The 'blue wave' that many people predicted, and which most opinion polls backed up, did not eventuate. It proved to be a 'blue mirage'. With a massive campaign budget that dwarfed that of the Republican Party, the Democrats were still reduced to squeezing out a victory in the swing states. In the end, over 70 million people still voted for Donald Trump.

Beyond the contest for the White House, the Democrats have had a bad time of it. It hasn't won the Senate - although that could change depending on what happens in Georgia - and it actually lost seats in the House of Representatives. And it failed to flip a single state legislature. And, something which isn't being talked about in the corporate media, nearly a third of all eligible Americans didn't vote. If the 2020 Presidential election was 'a victory for democracy' as CNN repeatedly told us, it was a victory that a helluva lot of Americans have not participated in. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz has observed:  'It's really hard for us to turnout nonvoters when they feel nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don't see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.'

Will the Democratic Party establishment take any responsibility for its election day failures? Of course not. In 2016 Hillary Clinton and her fellow corporate Democrats  blamed Russia for stealing the presidential election but the Russians have hardly been mentioned this time round. Maybe they were on holiday. This time the Democratic Party have been looking a little closer to home for a convenient scapegoat to deflect attention from its own failures. That scapegoat has been the progressive wing of the party.

Democratic Party progressives  and the American left generally, despite  their lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden, largely dedicated themselves to the immediate task of defeating Trump.  Even so, that hasn't stopped corporate  Democrats of  churlishly accusing progressives  of undermining the Democratic Party campaign.  Once again, tired old  arguments have been repeated about the American electorate being 'put off' by the promotion of  'radical' and 'socialist' policies.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn has commented : ' if we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialised medicine, we're not going to win.'

But the Democratic Party actually did not actively  promote such policies as Clyburn outlined. It rather chose to focus on the coronavirus and  target 'moderate' Republicans unhappy with Donald Trump. While there was some token acknowledgment  of the  American working class that deserted Clinton in 2016,  there was little in the way of policy that spoke directly to the needs of ordinary Americans.

AOC has tweeted that  'The whole 'progressivism is bad' argument just doesn't have any compelling evidence that I've seen', commenting that policies like Medicare for All are now supported by over 70 percent of Americans.

That there is a growing appetite for the kind of policies  being promoted  by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was underlined by this election. Progressive victors in Tuesday's elections included AOC  herself; Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who retained their House seats as well as helping secure Biden's victories in their key states; Rep.-elect Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), both of whom unseated powerful, longtime corporate-backed congressmen.

Democrats who lost included Reps. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa)—all of whom opposed Medicare for All and reducing police funding.

The real reason for the Democratic Party's lacklustre election results was its failure to articulate a vision that wasn't straitjacketed by a centrist politics that panders to conservative interests. It wasn't enough simply to be anti-Trump.

The call by the American left was to 'Dump Trump, then battle Biden'.  For starters, the progressive wing of the party will be demanding that Biden quickly begin the process of rolling back and repealing the many Trump policy outrages and begin implementing a genuinely progressive agenda. Let battle begin.

NOTE : The  Democratic Socialists of America, of which AOC is a member, had a good election. It endorsed 29 candidates and 11 ballot initiatives winning 20 and 8 respectively. There are now DSA caucuses in 15 state legislatures.