Wayne O'Leary

Back to Politics as Usual

In the end, the revolution came up short. The built-in advantages of the Democratic establishment — in particular, a front-loaded primary schedule heavily weighted in favor of the conservative South, with a disproportionately Black electorate prone to vote in lockstep for party regulars — was too much for the Sanders campaign to overcome. Obviously, the South’s veto power over Democratic presidential nominees is now baked into the process.

As in 2016, the new “solid South,” which appears culturally averse to progressive Democratic candidates for President, gave centrist Joe Biden a probably insurmountable leg up similar to the one it gave to Hillary Clinton last time out. The race for nomination is not completely over; Super Tuesday’s consolation prize of California did keep the Sanders movement alive to fight another day. Nevertheless, it will be an uphill struggle the rest of the way for populist progressives.

The best realistic hope for a left-of-center candidate has always been to win on the first ballot in Milwaukee, either with an outright majority of delegates or a plurality close to a majority. A brokered convention going more than one ballot shifts the balance of power to the unelected Democratic super delegates, most of whom would never vote for a Bernie Sanders, or even an Elizabeth Warren, should her campaign still be viable.

Ironically, Super Tuesday was the reverse of the initial primaries and caucuses (Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada), where Sanders benefited from a split moderate vote. In the March 3 contests, it was the progressive vote that splintered. Warren, who couldn’t win by then, took just enough votes on the left away from Sanders to throw several close primary states to Joe Biden. Her 10% to 15% ballot share, which would otherwise in all likelihood have gone mostly to Sanders, was critical in several close contests outside the South.

There were, of course, other factors propelling Biden to the front of the pack, not least a series of obviously coordinated endorsements. Endorsements, which normally don’t matter in primaries, took on a key role this year for a fearful, uncertain Democratic electorate seeking guidance and reassurance. Clyburn in South Carolina, O’Rourke in Texas, and Klobuchar in Minnesota effectively eased Biden’s road to victory in their respective states. Voters there and elsewhere, who told pollsters they favored Sanders, walked up to the line and then couldn’t bring themselves to cross over.

South Carolina, which would have gone to Biden in any case (though not by the eventual margin), was in retrospect devastating to the Sanders campaign. A biased corporate media helped persuade Democratic voters that the early Sanders wins in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire were illegitimate because those venues lacked “diversity” and were therefore unrepresentative, whereas South Carolina, a deep-red state whose conservative-leaning Democratic Party is overwhelmingly (60%) black, was somehow more representative of the national party as a whole. Truly diverse Nevada, with its large Hispanic minority, apparently didn’t count.

And finally, the impact of the massively hyped and orchestrated pre-Super Tuesday coalescence of the party establishment, whose warring candidates suddenly discovered in each other the power of love (and in Joe Biden the power of patronage), can’t be underestimated. Democratic voters, spooked by Donald Trump and nervous about whether Sanders could win the general election, chose to cling to a known quantity and familiar verities. Call it a failure of nerve or excessive pragmatism, but the Super Tuesday electorate chose to play it safe rather than vote its true beliefs.

Barring another sudden reversal in the campaign’s tenor (which didn’t happen a week later on March 10), Democrats appear to have chosen their candidate — or, at least, a new prohibitive front-runner for the nomination. Donald Trump’s chances for reelection, already enhanced by the bungled impeachment effort, are looking better as a result. Assuming Biden is the one, Democrats have reopened their 2016 enthusiasm gap by picking a pedestrian standard-bearer; the ex-veep has shown himself an uneven debater, a lackluster campaigner, and someone without an inspirational message or a compelling vision.

Though marginally to Hillary Clinton’s left, Biden comes across as a similarly baggage-laden establishment figure promising to take the country back to a pre-2016 normalcy, as if the last several years never happened. His assumption is that, Thomas Wolfe notwithstanding, we can go home again, that disgust with Donald Trump, especially if he mismanages the pandemic and the faltering economy over the next several months, will be enough to allow a return to what centrist Democrats yearn to do: reconstitute the Obama years, which are currently bathed in a rosy hue of nostalgia.

In the short run, it may be enough. Biden will use what’s worked for him in the past, the positive power of empathetic personality. With former rivals galore at his elbow, many having shelved their premature progressivism for cabinet consideration, and the political donor class once more footing the bill, we’ll be treated to variations on the following: “Hi! I’m Joe. Here’s the deal (no malarkey) — I’m comfortable as an old shoe, and I can out-smile the Cheshire Cat. God love ya!”

It will only be if the issueless Biden campaign of purported “evolutionary” change is forced into specifics that it may stumble. I’m reminded of the Robert Redford film “The Candidate,” in which Redford, as successful first-time Senate candidate Bill McKay, turns post-election to his manipulative campaign manager, played by Peter Boyle, with a plaintiff query: “What do we do now?”

The fact is the Biden presidential run is woefully short on cutting-edge policies and programs; it’s geared to unseating Trump and little else. There’s nothing in the way of Warren-style progressive wonkery or Sanders-style movement fervor. Biden and his supporters want one thing: the defeat of Trump. After that, they’ll be making it up as they go along.

There’s one caveat to this scenario. Bernie Sanders could remain in contention and force a brokered convention, with Biden leading in delegates, but falling short of a majority. Should that be the case, Democrats may need a third option to bridge party differences, someone progressive enough to hold on to the younger, more restive Sanders contingent, but moderate enough to not alienate the older, more change-averse Biden crowd — someone like, say, Ohioan Sherrod Brown.

Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2020

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