Month: October 2016

By Arun Gupta (October, 11, 2016)

 

It’s over for Trump, so what happens next?

 

No modern presidential candidate has overcome a 4-point gap in October, and that was the margin before the tapes. The latest poll, NBC/WSJ, has him 11 points down in a four-way match, 14 points in a two-way match. There is noise in the data as it shows much of the drop is with self-identified Republicans. Some will likely return to the fold, but it appears college-educated whites and white women are now turning decisively against him.

 

If a double-digit gap holds then things get interesting. If Trump draws less than 40%, then that would likely flip both chambers to the Democrats because ticket-splitting is relatively rare. This would give Clinton a rare two-year opportunity to push through some modestly reformist legislation.

 

If the Democrats take back Congress, we will likely see an increase in the minimum wage. The battle will be over $12 or $15 an hour, with the Clintonistas and their “progressive” allies trying to block the $15 push, as The Intercept reported today. The other key issues around the minimum wage will be the schedule of increases, and exemptions, particularly for tipped workers, teenagers, disabled, agricultural workers, and immigrants.

A Democratic majority Congress would provide another opportunity for big labor to push for card-check legislation, but the neoliberal Clintonistas would fight it tooth and nail. The last big item on labor’s agenda would be an infrastructure program, and this is where it gets interesting. There would be a lot of conflict and horse-trading between labor, big environmental groups and sectors of capital over a mini-Green New Deal that might halt the accelerating rate of climate change if we are fortunate, but certainly not take the necessary steps to begin to reverse it.

 

Then there is immigration reform. This is even more complex, but there would be a push to legalize everyone covered by DACA and DAPA, but that covers only about 4.5 million undocumented immigrants. That leaves 6.5 million without legal status.The Clintonista M.O. is for complex half-assed reforms with a guest-worker program, an arduous “path to citizenship,” and increased enforcement and border militarization.

 

Some plan for student-debt relief and debt-free higher education is also likely. With Bernie Sanders going all out for Clinton, there is little doubt this was promised to him as was indicated at the DNC. Sanders will emerge as one of the most powerful figures in the Senate’s Democratic caucus, but I imagine any student-debt plan will also be complicated rather than a simple comprehensive fix. There was reports from a few months ago that Elizabeth Warren went all in for Clinton with the apparent understanding Warren would get some veto power over Wall Street executives being put in charge of financial regulation. Warren will also likely demand tougher regulation of Wall Street and more stringent rule-making around consumer financial issues, particularly debt, which is not a minor thing.

 

The most complex question of all is healthcare: Public option? Medicare for all? Or just patchwork fixes? Once again, the cautiousness of Clinton and deference to the ruling class makes any comprehensive and simple solution unlikely.

 

Obviously, there are many other important issues from policing, drug policy, and criminal justice reform to trade and foreign policy. Clinton is an enthusiastic supporter of U.S.-backed wars, coups, and interventions. But stopping this is pretty much up to the left. Unless activists can strengthen and revive solidarity, anti-interventionist, and anti-imperialist movements that can bring large numbers of people into the streets and creatively cause nonviolent disruptions, there is unlikely to be any attempt to rein in Clinton’s fondness for drones and despots.”

 

These are some of the battles that would break out if the Democrats take back both houses of Congress, and which the left might, *might* be able to intervene in and push leftward if organizations can figure out where the fault lines are, who to mobilize, where and when to mobilize, and how to create the type of disruptions that would force elite interests to offer bigger concessions.

 

And, yeah, I would love to see far more radical actions and policies implemented. But the left is far too weak and fragmented. It needs years of base and capacity-building before it could really flex muscle on a national scale beyond episodic outbursts.

By Arun Gupta (October 9, 2016)

Trump is toast barring something unprecedented like Clinton being forced from the race. He has a slim chance to staunch the bleeding, though not really recover, if he trounces Clinton in the debate Sunday night. But that is unlikely given a) that a town hall format plays to Clinton’s strengths and will showcase his weaknesses; b) his refusal to do debate prep and the likelihood the audience will be hostile to him and; c) he is likely completely disoriented at this point by the all the odious revelations from Friday.
With nothing left to lose, Trump is likely to double down on stoking the nativist hysteria he has cultivated for 17 months. He and his followers already have a burn-it-all-down mentality, so it makes sense for him to now try to undermine the legitimacy of both Clinton and the electoral process (don’t call it “democratic process”). If it wasn’t for the numerous tapes and recordings that surfaced yesterday, as well as the expose of Clinton’s Wall Street speeches, the big news might have Trump feeding rumors that Obama is ordering the Border Patrol to allow “illegals” to “pour into the country so they can go and vote.”
This is after numerous comments claiming the election was being rigged and calling on his supporters to engage in voter suppression. He pivots to these threats and lies when he is down in the polls and now that he is flaming out he will go all in.
Trump, a teetotaler, has always been drunk on power, and now he will go on one last bender. Don’t expect this hysteria to end and congressional Republicans will be happy to welcome the xenophobes, racists, and misogynists back into the fold so they can use them to try to hamstring the Clinton administration.
But the white nationalist movement has likely peaked for now, and he has discredited the Alt Right. That they won’t be working the levers of power is a huge relief. And they will likely descend into infighting, quasi-random white-male terrorism, and go to seed as more organized forces will concentrate on the state level and feeding bizarre anti-Clinton, anti-immigrant media conspiracies that worm their way into the mainstream.Democrats are poised to take back the Senate and have an outside chance to build a firewall to withstand the inevitable losses they will suffer in the 2018 midterms when they have 23 seats up for election and two independents who caucus with the Democrats (Maine and Vermont), while the GOP has only 8 seats to defend.
As for the left, it has distinct advantages if it can patiently organize militant movements that can make gains around policing, structural racism, climate justice, immigrant rights, healthcare, anti-imperialism, and income and wealth redistribution.  Showing that political, policy and social gains can be achieved will win more people to the left. But that militancy can’t lapse into collaboration with, or a defense of, the Democratic Party. And there will be significant clashes between the Left and big labor, mainstream environmentalists, and establishment feminist, LGBT, Latino, and African-American organizations.
But this is all welcome even exciting because this is the essence of politics, the fight for social power and conflicting visions of how society should be organized and function.

Never forget that Clinton and the Democrats are the enemy. They just present different threats and opportunities.
While we can envision some of the road ahead under a Clinton administration, much is unknowable. The paths we take depend on careful planning, creativity, foresight, and a refusal to ever compromise the principles of on solidarity, justice, and equality, and an unwavering belief in our collective ability to create a better world for all.

A final thought: Voting as an individual act is inconsequential. It is the mass aggregation of votes that has the potential to influence the outcome. At this point, it is game over for Trump, barring something truly extraordinary. So vote or don’t vote. If you do vote, vote for whomever you want wherever you live. It doesn’t matter anymore. My analysis was always based on what is happening on the ground, not the armchair ossified reading of history that passes for analysis on much of the left. The real question is not what you do in the voting booth on November 8. It’s what you do every day for the next four years after the election.