We cannot allow violence to subsume our politics. This requires that we gather our wits and return to the stakes of the election, the future of our democracy and the direction of our country. That should not, however, diminish the intensity of the debate; to the contrary, we should commit to making arguments as forcefully as possible to persuade voters with the power of ideas.
It is fortunate that on Friday in Michigan President Biden had already pivoted to policy, as he seeks to shift the debate from the hysteria over his age to America’s future, where the debate belongs. In that vein, Biden introduced something voters had not yet seen in this campaign: an attractive progressive agenda.
In laying out the first 100 days of his second term, Biden sought to surface issues that ordinary Americans care about deeply. The list of items he promised to address included: restoring Roe v. Wade; signing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act; expanding Social Security and Medicare; ending medical debt (“for pennies on the dollar”); raising the federal minimum wage; passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make union organizing easier; banning assault weapons; restoring the expanded child tax credit; making housing more affordable (by, among other things, building more housing units and stopping rent gouging); allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire for those making over $400,000; requiring billionaires pay a minimum 25 percent income tax; and securing the southern border while legalizing “dreamers.”
After rattling off that list of domestic policy items, Biden declared: “My first 100 days in a second term will continue to be all about the working people of this nation.” Biden so far had not given much detail about a second term, and he still has many more details to explain. Nevertheless, his turn to progressive policy reflects recognition that Democrats must present a positive, pro-middle-class and hopeful agenda.
In an interview on “Morning Joe” last week, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain previewed a new emphasis on a progressive agenda highlighting the difference between “the man from Scranton” and “the man from Mar-a-Lago.” He also told New Republic columnist Greg Sargent in a separate interview that “economic populism that was successful in the 2020 campaign … needs to be brought back with more vigor.”
Actual policy ideas are one way to reconnect with key parts of the Biden coalition — young people priced out of the housing market, working parents, hourly wage-earners and retirees, for example. Just as his student debt program provides real benefits to young voters, these second-term agenda items allow Democrats to highlight more positive action government can take for Americans. In essence, Biden is aiming to revive a tried-and-true contrast between the parties: Democrats as the party of the little guy, Republicans as the party of fat cats.
It was not too long ago that Republicans showed interest in presenting themselves as economic populists. Instead, they have continued down the road of tax cuts for the rich, undermining unions and opposition to programs that help ordinary Americans (e.g. student debt relief). The vision in Plan 2025 would involve cutting everything from regulation of worker safety to Head Start and rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act reduction limits on prescription drug prices. Polled individually, Trump’s policies are hugely unpopular.
Biden and fellow Democrats are betting they can remind traditional Democratic voters and independents alike why they do better financially with Democrats in power. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an acknowledged critic of Biden on some issues, sang from the same hymnal in an op-ed for the New York Times on Saturday:
Joe Biden wants to tax the rich so that we can fund the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes for the billionaire class. Joe Biden wants to expand Social Security benefits. Donald Trump and his friends want to weaken Social Security. Joe Biden wants to make it easier for workers to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. Donald Trump wants to let multinational corporations get away with exploiting workers and ripping off consumers. Joe Biden respects democracy. Donald Trump attacks it.
Biden has talked in the aggregate about jobs created, lowered unemployment, high growth and the rest of his economic accomplishments. But if he wants to engage traditional Democrats and independents, he will need to get much more specific about what he has done and what he will do. Expect him, for example to underscore the contrast between the Biden record and Trump record with regard to “left behind counties.” A recent report by the Economic Innovation Group found:
Between 2016 and 2019, annual job growth in these counties averaged only 0.4 percent, less than one-third the national rate. By the start of 2020, fewer than one-third had recovered all the jobs they lost during the Great Recession, which ended more than a decade earlier.
However, between 2020 and 2023, jobs in left-behind counties grew more than four times faster than in the four previous years — and nearly half of these counties have already regained all the jobs they shed during the COVID downturn. … Individually, employment now exceeds pre-pandemic levels in nearly half (41 percent) of all left-behind counties. In the three years after 2020, annual job growth in left-behind counties has been five times faster than in the three years before it.
Given that Trump aims to repeal many of Biden’s first-term policy initiatives, Biden can go to those left-behind places and ask: “Do you want to go forward or back?”
Until recently, the Biden campaign has sought to make the race almost exclusively against Trump and his agenda. As Biden shows his sea legs after a tumultuous two weeks and revels in a comeback narrative, he certainly will not let voters forget about that, as well as the right-wing Supreme Court’s deprivation of women’s constitutional right to control their body. But coupling that message with a positive, populist message, especially in Rust Belt states (where Biden’s advertising buys have not yet improved his poll numbers), may give the campaign some momentum.
This terrible moment can become a pivot toward constructive debate about policies. Now, more than ever, it behooves responsible politicians to engage substantively, making clear that violence cannot resolve our differences or be deployed to achieve political ends. Biden likes to say the problem (one of them) with Trump is that his ideas are old. By contrast, Biden will now try to persuade voters that even an octogenarian can push for bold, innovative plans for working- and middle-class Americans. That just might be part of the formula for getting his campaign — and our democratic process — back on track.
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