‘Build Back a Bit’ is a win
The Biden Administration exceeded my deflated expectations by passing three significant pieces of legislation in the last month. As a democratic socialist, all of the bills are inadequate and not even close to what is needed for the actual historical task of developing a functional social democracy. They are all afflicted with the Democrat-brain fixation on means-testing and narrowcasting benefits. They have an instinctive aversion to simple universal state-run projects paid for by taxes on the rich and corporations.
Drill down on the big dollar numbers thrown out in the press releases, and you’ll see that the bulk of the money is in the form of tax credits to “incentivize” private enterprises to do socially useful activities. Bernie Sanders was the only non-Republican Senator who did not vote for the Chips Act, because it places no performance standards on where all the money goes.
Most of the touted “historic” environmental benefits in the Inflation Reduction Act are in the form of tax breaks which may be used to do stock buybacks rather than make green tech. No strings attached to the free tax-payer money. The ideological dominance of the neoliberal capitalist model is so deep that most Democratic politicians can’t think outside of the box of throwing money at corporations and hoping that they do the right thing.
I think that Biden’s initial assessment of his influence on moderating the level of political hostility is proven correct. He claimed during the campaign that the Republican opposition to an old white guy like him just wouldn’t have the visceral quality of the white-hot reptilian-brained Republican rejection of every initiative, however tame and sensible, from the Obama Administration. It indirectly proves that racism is alive and well in the GOP base. OK, I’ll take my slice of bread, even though we need a loaf.
I will be denounced as a clueless bourgeois soc-dem in certain quarters of the left for offering faint praise for the Biden administration. The militant online left is loath even to grant a single credit to the Democrats at any time. They prefer to enjoy the ideological satisfaction of never getting their hands dirty by endorsing any actions by a capitalist party. The trade-off they’re making with this kind of cultural identity politics is to be irrelevant to the human endeavor of participating in electoral politics to forge the future.
I will give an ideological pass to the few hardy direct action anarchists who actually get off their couch, log off, and do mutual aid or labor organizing. But, if your political praxis is a vanity project of shaping your unique personal brand and has no expression beyond social media posting, I don’t have to pay any attention to you. You are just useless flapping lips. Pay no mind.
Breaking the power of the extremely online left gatekeepers is necessary to build a broad progressive movement that has an appeal beyond a few bohemian districts in SF and NYC who want to charge admission for joining their crackpot subculture. We will remain marginal as long as being a progressive is a cultural identity, like being fans of an obscure indie band. I reject their pretense of a political premise.
