A “MEDIOCRE, milquetoast neoliberal centrist”. That’s how Dr Cornel West describes the new president, and he’s right.
It’s one thing to believe in a lesser evil. However, as Dr West reminds us, in this case the lesser evil represents all the root causes of the greater evil. Joe Biden is the true heir to the American Throne, where presidents are appointed by Wall Street, healthcare insurance companies and hedge fund owners.
On Wednesday Biden entered the Oval office to a jubilant “virtual” crowd: ding-dong the Don is gone! Or has he? Trump won the second highest presidential vote in US history, racking up 70 million votes, 5 million more than Obama in 2012. Even the Capitol Hill protesters couldn't trash Trump’s support: 90% of GOP-voters backed Trump’s performance as president, in a poll just a week after the incident.
Whilst Trump might retire, his base won’t and the conditions which created him will endure with Biden at the helm. Donald Trump grew like a nasty boil on a sick system. He is a symptom, not the cause, of what’s gone wrong in the US and most of the western world. There is one type of politics to blame for this mess: neoliberalism.
This ideology reveres competition at all costs and demands the outsourcing of public life to private interests, including democracy. In the US (and most other western economies) neoliberalism has created an endless loop of political and economic destruction.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon has a message for Donald Trump and Joe Biden on inauguration day
Neoliberal ideology discourages elected governments from interfering in market forces. Instead, it permits the big economic and social decisions to be made by corporations and speculators. If elected representatives can no longer actually affect ordinary people, then politics becomes less and less relevant to our lives.
Is it any wonder that millions of Americans voted for draining the swamp? Trump’s willingness to break from aesthetic and political convention mobilises the disenfranchised. Of course it’s ugly, but the Democratic Party establishment were gleefully complicit in his popular rise. Combine their elitism with the neoliberal destruction of American jobs, communities and unions and hey presto: You’ve got the ultimate blueprint for Trump’s White House entry.
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Will Joe Biden be able to reverse any of this? Does he actually want to? The new president was the chosen candidate of the 1%. Bankers, venture capitalists and private equity types backed Biden to the sweet tune of $74 million, topping both Obama and Trump’s donations from the financial sector in their presidential campaigns.
I’m not sure that will encourage him to take on the super-rich. And despite the saccharine "democracy has prevailed" headlines, it’s probably worth remembering Biden’s record as Obama’s VP: Immunity for white collar criminals on Wall Street, deporting 3m people, backing the disastrous and illegal war in Iraq and bungling the response to an actual right-wing coup in Honduras.
Will Biden's Covid-19 Relief Plan give us cause for optimism? Early headlines include adopting proposals from lobbying groups which will see the transfer of billions of dollars to the most extraordinary crime racket in history: American private healthcare companies.
Worryingly, Biden’s second priority is introducing domestic terror legislation, after the recent Capitol Hill spectacle. This could mean racial profiling, curbing civil liberties and curtailing protest. Biden’s calls for "unity" are disingenuous: You can’t just criminalise people as a way out of a crisis.
With the 1% firmly behind him, and protest increasingly difficult, forcing the hand of Biden’s government into concessions will be a difficult task. But it’s one that has to happen because the consequences are dire. Let’s start by remembering how Trump came to be and who Biden really represents.
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