The democratic choice

“The future belongs to the socialism which is democratic, to the democracy which is socialist… The question as to what position social-democracy should occupy in the political fight, can be answered easily and confidently if we clearly understand that socialism and democracy are inseparable. Socialism and democracy are not identical, but they are simply different

Trump has become the pariah of the world community in this battle against the vagaries of climate change, repealing all the regulations designed to prevent pollution and create an environment of clean water and air, which were in place when he took office

expressions of the same principle” – Wilhelm Liebknecht, on the Political Position of Social-Democracy.      

By Vijaya Chandrasoma

The results of the first three Democratic primaries in Iowa, West Hampshire and Nevada seemed to indicate that Senator Bernie Sanders was the front runner as the Democratic Party nominee to challenge President Trump for the Presidency of the US in November, 2020. However, Vice President Biden’s impressive win by over 30 percentage points in South Carolina makes him a viable opponent. 

As a result of these results in South Carolina, billionaire Tom Steyer is rumoured to have dropped out of the race. No doubt many others will follow his lead after Super Tuesday, 3 March.

Senator Sanders, who has been remarkably consistent in his ideology of Democratic Socialism since the 1960s, may be causing a turn in American politics strangely similar to that caused by Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2016, the Republican Party showed a disdain for politics as usual. The Republican slate of boring candidates, like Bush, Cruz and Rubio, especially their lacklustre performances at the Republican debates, which were dominated by Trump, moved the Republicans away from the ordinary to the change that Trump promised. A change that exploited the white American fear of a brown invasion from the South. His larger than life campaign of monumental lies and racist slogans appealed to an electorate hell-bent on maintaining the Anglo-Saxon and white privilege they had enjoyed for centuries. 

The election of an African American for the first time to the office of the Presidency in 2008 provided excitement to the more liberal section of the electorate and the minorities. I remember Jon Stewart, the outstanding satirist/comedian of his day, saying, just after Obama was elected to the Presidency, “At last, we are who we say we are”. He was wrong. 

Among a majority which remained largely silent till Trump came along and stoked their worst fears, resentment turned into hatred paradoxically because of the significant success of the Obama administration. Obama had inherited the economic and military mess left by the reign of error of George W. Bush. Over the years, he took measures that changed the economic landscape of the country, in spite of every obstacle placed in his path by a Republican Congress. In fact, Mitch O’Connell, the leader of the Senate, then and now, said, after Obama’s first inauguration in 2008, that “my only job was to ensure that Obama was a one-term President.” He was wrong, too.

When Obama left office after his second term, the economy had been growing for six years, unemployment numbers were at their lowest levels, growth that Trump immediately took credit for himself. Then he proceeded to improve the economy by eliminating the environmental protections that Obama had enacted to ensure that pollution would be kept at its lowest levels.

The Democrats face a similar choice in 2020: maintaining the status quo of the centrist policies of a Biden, or to swim with the current of radical change, espoused by Senator Sanders. A path America was headed for until Reagan’s drastic tax cuts for the wealthy and the myth of ‘Trickle Down Economics’ destroyed a thriving middle class. 

Luke Savage of the Democratic Socialist magazine, Jacobin writes: “Ever partisan for personalities rather than policies or principles, the Democratic Party and its media surrogates plainly expected a traditional primary contest auditioning competing centrist brands ahead of November’s scheduled season’s finale. In Nevada, both collided suddenly and violently with the realisation that their world may be in fact be coming to an end; that huge numbers of Americans find their self-serving narratives unconvincing….”

The decisive results of the South Carolina primary show that Senator Sanders is by no means certain to win the Democratic nomination. The collision between the centrist and the democratic socialist brands, represented by Biden and Sanders, respectively, continues. Super Tuesday will provide a more definitive answer.

The major issues facing the American electorate in the November 2020 elections are:

Healthcare

Trump will redouble the Republican Party efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with no plan to replace it. Over 27.5 million (8.5%) of Americans are still without any health insurance whatsoever today even with Obamacare, and its repeal will throw millions more without health insurance. Of course, Donald Trump has a “beautiful” plan which will insure more people at lower rates, which he has promised to unveil after the 2020 election. Sure he does. And sure he will. 

The centrist Democrats propose an extension of Obamacare, which will keep the industry in the voracious wiles of the Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries. Senator Warren offers a more comprehensive plan, though short of the universal healthcare system espoused by Senator Sanders. The most popular question asked is how universal healthcare is going to be financed, but no one questions the cost of the current healthcare system, with billions in profits made by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. A new Yale University study shows that Sanders’ plan will save $ 450 billion and prevent 68,000 deaths per year.

Climate change

Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, signed in 2016 by every nation in the planet under the aegis of the United Nations, dealing with reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. 

Trump has become the pariah of the world community in this battle against the vagaries of climate change, repealing all the regulations designed to prevent pollution and create an environment of clean water and air, which were in place when he took office. Over 80% of Americans and 97% of the world’s scientists believe that climate change is caused by human activity, and represents the greatest threat to the planet unless contained immediately. Trump calls it a “Chinese hoax”. 

Every Democratic candidate, including Sanders will re-enter the Paris Agreement, and take immediate steps to reduce and ultimately eliminate reliance on fossil fuels. 

Gun control

There is virtually no gun control in the US today. Guns, even military style killing machines, are freely available to the “sporting” Americans at gun shows and your friendly neighbourhood retailers. In fact, Trump recently repealed the restriction to deny the purchase of these killing machines to felons, domestic abusers and mentally disturbed people. 

90% of the American people favour common-sense controls like background checks and a minimum waiting period before purchase. To no avail. The Second Amendment is closely guarded by the National Rifle Association lobby, with large bribes to our “incorruptible” President and venal Republican senators.

There were 41 mass shootings in the US recorded in 2019, resulting in 211 deaths. Over 11,000 people were killed in gun violence last year.

As I am writing this article, there has been yet another mass shooting in Wisconsin, Milwaukee where six people were killed, including the shooter. I predict a mass outpouring of “prayers and thoughts” for the families of the victims, the only Republican remedy for gun violence. Until the next mass shooting.

Income/wealth inequality

According to a 2015 report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF): “Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time. In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and the poor is at its highest levels ever.

The US federal minimum wage has remained at $ 7.35 per hour for over a decade, while workers’ productivity levels have increased to over $ 22 per hour. 

Trump does not believe in increasing the minimum wage as he says it will weaken US competition in foreign markets. The reverse, however, has been proved to be the case, that an increase in the minimum wage will put more money in the pockets of lower wage earners. The poor spend any extra money purchasing goods and services which will benefit the markets, whereas the rich tend to save any benefits they receive in wealth and income tax cuts. 

Every Democratic candidate proposes to increase the federal minimum wage to $ 15 per hour; and to impose more equable income and wealth taxes where the rich will pay their fair share for the general welfare for the community.

College education/student debt

Costs for college education in US universities have increased exponentially over the last four decades. In the 1980s, the costs of private and public college (in today’s dollars) per year were $ 17,600 and $ 8,200, respectively. Today, these costs are $ 48,500 and $ 21,300, respectively.

 45 million students have a total debt of more than $ 1.5 trillion; the average debt is $ 35,000 per student. 

Many young people today are thinking twice about embarking on a four-year college education, as some doubt that they would have the earning capacity to repay their student debt.

Under Trump, no assistance will be given to ease the burden of student loans, which will ultimately end in a society without the necessary tools for gainful employment. Suits Trump, who once famously said, “I love the poorly educated”.

All the Democratic candidates propose relief for students who want to pursue higher education. More progressive candidates, like Sanders, propose forgiving of all existing student debt; and free education, up to and including four-year college. These policies would bring the US in line with educational standards in many of other developed countries. 

Who is going to pay for all these benefits? The vulgarly rich, of course who will have to manage without that 10th yacht and their 4th jet. Opponents of Democratic Socialism ignore the fact that trillions in Wall Street bailouts, nearly $ 1 trillion in oil and gas subsidies, the $ 1 trillion in Trump’s recent tax cut to the wealthy, the billions in farmer bailouts, benefit only the super wealthy, also represent Socialism.

Coronavirus and other pandemics

The US Center for Disease Control says that the spread of Coronavirus to the United States is inevitable, the only question being when, not if.

Trump’s immediate response: Appointing Vice President Pence as the point person to handle the crisis. A good choice, Pence will pray and bore the virus to death. Trump, on the hand, relies on miracles and warm weather and is more concerned with the plummeting stock market which may adversely affect his re-election chances than the spread of a deadly virus.

There are many more problems facing the US government. The recent Middle East Peace Plan unveiled by Trump, with no consultations with the Palestinians; his acts of recent aggression against Iran; his refusal to show complete support for Ukraine in their war against Russian invasion; his trade wars; his complete failure in stopping the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea; and his strange “friendship” with President Putin, who is acting completely against the interests of the United States. These are just a few issues which threaten the security of the United States. 

Trump enjoys an approval rate of 45%, which, unbelievably, increased after his impeachment trial. If the American people are fooled once again with his lies, his paranoid narcissism, his racism, his dictatorial ambitions and his fawning alliance with Putin in the November 2020 elections, the US will be hit with a plague that will make the Coronavirus look like a case of the sniffles, and will result in the death of its much vaunted democracy.

As former USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev once predicted: “We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within…… We will take America without firing a shot”.