I’m Definitely Voting for Biden but…
(A better America could rise from the ashes of a Trump win)
With so much on the line in the presidential election Americans of every political stripe are joining forces to elect Joe Biden. Former Republicans, Independents, and even leftwing Democrats are aligning with the party’s mainstream in support of the Biden-Harris ticket.
Despite the wave of support for Biden’s presidency — or more accurately, Trump’s defeat, there is reason to wonder if a Trump second term might become the impetus for sociopolitical change the country needs.
This comes from the fact that a Biden presidency is viewed as mainstream and would do little to alter the current sociopolitical landscape. For instance, Biden supports maintaining the complex and costly system of private health insurance, and his fiscal and monetary policies likely won’t slow — let alone reverse, rampant inequality. As a centrist, Biden will govern in the tradition of reconciliation and accommodation, so he’s unlikely to embrace bold new ideas. And he has spoken fondly of his friendship with Republicans making it unlikely he’ll challenge the power imbalance long enjoyed by Republicans.
Of course the damage a Trump second term would inflict on the nation is unmistakable. Even with a coronavirus vaccine in place his mismanagement of that crisis would continue to cost the nation in lives and livelihood. A second term would hearten an already revengeful president to further abuse the public trust, its resources and its institutions to settle his personal grievances. He would wreak chaos, inflaming the passions of supporters and opponents alike.
A Trump second term likely would result in Republicans maintaining control of the Senate. Even with Democrat control of the House, a GOP-led Senate would continue its onslaught on the federal judiciary. Quickly filling court vacancies with ideologues molded in the judicial philosophy that prioritizes market capitalism over social democracy.
As Senate majority leader in a Trump second term, Mitch McConnell likely would eliminate the filibuster, especially if Republicans were to take control of the House following the 2022 midterm elections. And if that were to happen expect more tax cuts to follow. It’s even conceivable a Republican-controlled Congress would expand the federal judiciary and Supreme Court in an ultimate, preemptive power-grab.
At the same time, a Trump administration unfettered by future elections and supported by congressional Republicans and a conservative judiciary would commence unabated to dismantling the democratic state. This would include — though not be limited to, all manner of deregulation; as well as rolling back civil rights and voter rights laws, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, block granting Medicaid, eliminating social welfare programs, slashing the federal budget, increasing military spending, and providing even greater legal protections to corporations and the wealthy individuals who control them.
All told, a Trump second term would be demoralizing. The social and economic cost would be enormous and the psychological toll immeasurable. Yet despite the turmoil, perhaps a Trump second term would spark change that’s needed. Enabling our nation to become a true 21st century democracy.
Our nation’s history has been underscored by the conflicting forces of market capitalism and democratic politics. Capitalist past and present worry that democracy will enable the poor to rule over the rich. So in the past, much like today, they want to restrict voting and limit democracy’s reach. In response, proponents of democracy worry that capitalist want to abolish democracy in order to preserve capitalism. They seek to limit capitalist control over the democratic state.
Out of this conflict has come many public benefits representing meaningful social, economic and political progress for the nation. But over time many of those benefits have been weakened or reversed — often in support of a prevailing free-market myth, all while making everyday life harder and democracy less responsive for a majority of Americans.
Today the American Dream is difficult to achieve for most Americans, this in spite of our nation’s wealth and advancement in fields like medicine, technology and education. Despite it all we still have an abundance of poverty, sickness, and inequality. Making it easy to dream of a better life but nearly impossible to ever achieve it.
In contrast nearly every other economically advanced nation has progressed in becoming a 21st century democracy. For example, they all have adopted some version of universal healthcare. Why? Because having healthy citizenry is in the public interest. It’s considered a public good. Only in the U.S. is “freedom” conflated with the struggle to locate and maintain health insurance; and where a “good job” is not necessarily a rewarding job, but one that offers a modicum of healthcare coverage.
Many 21st century democracies had to go through their own version of a Trump second term before they reached an advanced state of democracy. Social democracies, including Sweden and Norway, had periods of social and political turmoil marked by inequality, protest and often violence before emerging as the socially conscious nations they are today. The backstory of early industrial Germany, France, and Britain repeats this pattern.
Make no mistake, I unequivocally want a Biden victory/Trump defeat in the presidential election. Even if the pre-Trump normal life is gone forever I prefer the new-normal a Biden presidency portends over the mishegoss of a Trump second term. Even so, if Trump somehow manages to pull off the unimaginable a second time, I hope the despair that befalls us becomes the impetus for meaningful change that puts us on a permanent path to true greatness. For as the poet Kahlil Gibran aptly noted, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”