The Progressive Populist Today Blog: 2020-11-08

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Editorial: Take the Win, but Keep Fighting

Is America a failing nation? If so, we hope Joe Biden can stop the bleeding and stabilize our democracy.

No sooner had the Associated Press declared Joe Biden had enough votes in Pennsylvania to put him over the 270 electoral count needed to make Donald Trump a one-termer, than detractors began to belittle the accomplishment.

Democrats didn’t get the “Blue Wave” blowout in the presidential race that pre-election polls suggested was coming. House Democrats lost several seats, which will reduce their majority in the next Congress, and Democrats’ hopes of regaining control of the Senate faded. It appears likely that Sen. Mitch McConnell will remain as majority leader, with an effective veto over Biden’s cabinet appointees and any federal judicial nominees.

It took four days after Election Day for Democratic mail-in ballots to make clear the former vice president would flip Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin in the Upper Midwest, to rebuild the “Blue Wall.” Mail-in ballots also turned the Trump tide in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

Trump still refuses to concede and intends to appeal to the Supreme Court to set aside the election, even though his lawyers have turned over no evidence of fraudulent voting by Democrats. As comedian John Fugelsang said, “It’s not over until the last lawsuit is laughed out of the last courtroom.”

Don’t minimize the accomplishment that Biden got more than 78 million votes, the largest total of any presidential candidate. He needed them as Trump drew more than 72.7 million votes. That placed Trump second on the all-time list, which we attribute to 40 years of Republicans undermining public education. Also, since the Reagan administration did away with the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Republicans have seized control of commercial talk radio, particularly in rural areas, so you can drive up I-35 from Dallas to Minneapolis and never hear a good word about Democrats on talk radio. It shows in election results in states along the way.

We still find it hard to believe 72 million Americans decided, “Yeah, I want for more years of Trump running America like one of his businesses,” but the important thing is that Donald Trump ended up as the big loser. And after watching Trump lie about the mail-in ballots being “illegal” and “fraudulent,” anybody who is still proud of voting for that bloated con man and chronic liar should examine their consciences as well as their gullibility.

Democrats picked up two Senate seats, as former astronaut Mark Kelly beat interim Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona and former Gov. John Hickenlooper beat Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, but in Alabama Sen. Doug Jones (D) was swept away in the Trump tide by former Auburn football coach and political newcomer Tommy Tuberville.

Other Senate pickup opportunities faded as polls showed Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon (D) ahead of Sen. Susan Collins heading into the election, but Collins finished 7.7 points ahead of Gideon. Polls showed former North Carolina state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D) leading US Sen. Thom Tillis in the weeks leading up to the election but Tillis was leading Cunningham by 1.7 points a week after the election with ballots still being counted.

Cunningham conceded to Tillis Tuesday night, and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) had 57.5% of the vote, with mail-in votes still being counted a week after the election, against Dr. Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon and former commercial fisherman, so Republicans will have 50 seats in the Senate.

That leads the leadership up to Georgia. which will have two runoffs Jan. 5. Sen. David Perdue (R) got 49.7%, 1.8 points ahead of Jon Ossoff (D) but Perdue needed 50% of the vote. In the second race, Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) finished first in a 20-person field with 32.9%, ahead of interim Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), who got 25.9%, and US Rep. Doug Collins (R), who got 20%.

There was infighting among House Democrats over why they lost at least eight incumbents, with centrists blaming progressives for pushing far-left views while progressives blamed centrist party leaders for resisting policies that would appeal to workers, such as expanding Medicare to cover everybody and passing a Green New Deal to create jobs and save the climate.

We think Democrats were lucky to gain 40 seats in the 2018 surge, unseating many Republicans in suburban districts. This year, Trump said Biden and Dems were pushing “Venezuela-style socialism,” would “defund” the police and would let suburbs be overrun with BLM and antifascist protesters. It’s nonsense, but it may have spurred Republican turnout. However, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the GOP would regain many of the House seats they lost in 2018. A week after the election, Democrats had 218 seats, a bare majority, with 16 contests remaining to be decided.

Biden has not embraced his “mandate” to promote a socialist agenda. Instead, he is determined to work on a bipartisan basis with Congress. His work will be cut out for him with McConnell, who has styled himself as the “Grim Reaper” of progressive legislation. If Mitch declines to cooperate, Biden can use executive orders to undo damage done by Trump and he can make temporary appointments.

Biden’s top priority is to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, restore the integrity of the Centers for Disease Control and return the US to the World Health Organization. He’ll rejoin the Paris climate accords, which Trump quit because he believes climate change is a hoax. Biden can reinstate executive orders protecting DREAMers. And he can reinstate environmental regulations that Trump’s lobbyist-run agencies gutted to accommodate polluting industries.

Biden also needs an attorney general who will investigate criminal wrongdoing in the Trump administration, including establishing who was responsible for delaying the US mail, which is a crime, even if it isn’t involved in sabotaging an election.

On Nov. 10, the Supreme Court heard a case brought by Republican state officials and the Trump administration to finally destroy the Affordable Care Act. At stake is affordable health insurance for millions of Americans and coverage for pre-existing conditions for millions more during a pandemic.

If the court trashes the ACA, 20 million Americans could lose their insurance, increasing the ranks of the uninsured by 70% and wreaking havoc on the health care system. Senate Republicans will finally have to come up with a health insurance alternative.

Meanwhile, if McConnell blocks passage of a major stimulus bill to help people who have lost their jobs during the pandemic and keep the economy going, Democrats should make sure the public blames the Republicans for the failure in 2022 — as they failed to do in this election.

In his victory speech Nov. 7 in Wilmington, Del., Biden renewed his commitment to unifying and serving all Americans at a time the nation is deeply divided along partisan lines. “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal,” he said. Left unsaid is that, if Republicans reject healing, 2022 will be the time to clobber.