Symptoms

Almost four year ago, I wrote Clinton vs Trump, in which I considered both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to be very weak candidates for President in an open field. I wrote then, “After a spirited primary season, it comes down to an establishment neoliberal candidate and a populist moderate candidate, both of whom are widely disliked and distrusted outside of their loyal core.” Clinton carried the popular vote, but failed to win the electoral college, failing to inspire rural voters in supposedly “blue wall” states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Some pundits claim she hadn’t even campaigned in Wisconsin because she took it for granted.

Once again, Bernie Sanders ran an inspiring campaign but currently trails an uninspiring establishment neoliberal candidate, in this case his “good friend” Joe Biden. Sanders devotees are again stunned, again feel cheated (denial) and accuse Bernie of being too nice to rivals Biden and Elizabeth Warren and lacking a killer instinct (anger). Now some are claiming that Sanders has pushed the party left just by running (bargaining). Left-leaning sites claim that Sanders was actually out-maneuvered by former President Barack Obama, who orchestrated the withdrawal of other establishment candidates to allow a Super Tuesday surge for Biden. Centrists claim that Sanders’ call for a political revolution frightened moderates. Funky Academic, Irami Osei-Frimpong opined on Rising that,”black people look(ed) at Bernie Sanders the way most of America looks at Marianne Williamson.” – meaning I suppose, someone with good intentions, but who could cause serious turmoil if elected.

Though he was never as disliked as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden is also a vulnerable candidate. One subplot of the failed impeachment effort was a cushy board position given to Joe’s troubled son, Hunter. Photographs of Joe Biden invading the personal space of various young women have been buttressed by a formal charge of rape by Tara Reade, a former staffer. The #MeToo movement has essentially disgraced itself as establishment Democrats refuse to take Reade’s accusations as seriously as those of Christine Blasey Ford.

Biden was once a snappy debater but now has to be led through interviews by his wife, Dr Jill. Though he is being touted as some sort of progressive, his record is conservative. After serving as VP in an Obama presidency that failed to deliver on the change part of “hope and change,” Biden has been widely quoted as assuring wealthy donors that, “Nothing will fundamentally change.”

As with Clinton, Biden’s only strength is that Trump is generally worse. But the smartest comment to come out of the hectic stage debates was Andrew Yang’s, “Donald Trump is not the cause of all of our problems. We’re making a mistake when we act like he is.” In contrast to the dominant theme of the DNC primary, Yang felt that Trump is, “a symptom of a disease that has been building up in our communities for years and decades.” Yang eventually dropped out and endorsed Biden, reportedly in exchange for the promise of a cabinet position, so now Yang seems to be a symptom as well.

In the runup to the last election, the press could not stop covering what certainly seemed to be a reality show masquerading as a presidential run. Trump got the nomination, Trump won the presidency, and even the media couldn’t deny that all the free coverage handed to the Donald had played a part in his victory. But they’ve obviously learned nothing. Trump has wildly mismanaged the US response to the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu and the establishment press has rewarded him with hours of airtime to drone on about how well he and his people are handling the situation. Reporters try to criticize him without realizing that the public trusts them even less than they trust politicians.

Some pundits who have seen it all remind us that defeating a sitting president is always a tough task. Since Jefferson in 1804 incumbents have won 60% of the time, and the only incumbent loss in the 20th century was Ronald Reagan defeating Jimmy Carter, who was a very good man, but a very unpopular and weak president. But Biden is not at the head of a strong movement like Reagan, and Trump, though incompetent at many things, is not as obviously ineffectual as Carter.

Once elected, Trump very adroitly abandoned his promise of being a populist bringing change. Once he fired Steve Bannon and stacked his cabinet with military-types, Trump was essentially absorbed by the establishment, and even though he makes a lot of populist and anti-immigrant noise, he essentially has done the establishment’s bidding where it counts: tax cuts and corporate largesse. Joe Biden has never not been a tool of the establishment, and would certainly also do their bidding, if he can get elected, and would stop the harassment of the mainstream media. But he has to hope that Trump’s popularity really suffers from the enormous economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. By November, though, Trump could be taking credit for a world and nation returning to normal, or could be burnishing his image as commander-in-chief by managing a small war somewhere. Or simpler yet, as many left-leaning pundits have noted, Trump could simply use the pandemic crisis to appear to adopt some of Bernie Sanders’ proposals, beating the Democrats to the punch.

Biden can’t beat Trump; Trump has to beat himself.