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DEMOCRATS HAVE MOMENTUM BUT ELECTION COULD BE CLOSE  
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Paul Garver
August 28, 2024
Chartist
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_ The Harris-Walz ticket is polling well, and the atmosphere of gloom
and doom that had beset both the Democratic Center and the Left has
given way to cautious optimism. But the MAGA base remains intact, and
the election is still close. _

Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris and Governor Tim
Walz speaking at a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale,
Arizona, (Wikimedia Creative Commons Licence : Credit Gage Skidmore)

 

US President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek a
second term disengaged the locked gears on the vehicle that seemed to
be conveying Donald Trump to inevitable victory in the November 2024
election.

The centrist Democratic Party had been acting like a deer paralyzed by
the headlights of the speeding MAGA (Make America Great Again) chariot
with its swollen orange buffoon at the wheel. Ominous tracking polls
suggested not only that Trump would win a substantial majority in the
Electoral College, but that the collateral damage could deliver
Republican majorities in both the Senate and the House. Together with
the existing far right supermajority on the US Supreme Court and
Republican control of most state legislatures and governorships, the
stage was being set for the establishment of a blatantly pro-corporate
White Christian Nationalist and anti-democratic regime. Unlike after
Trump’s surprise victory in 2017, the far right actually had a plan
for governing that would cement their proto-Fascist regime in place
for decades to come. The Project 2025 document
[[link removed]] published
by the right-wing ideologues of the Heritage Foundation lays out that
plan in gruesome detail.

As a sitting President, Joe Biden has done a credible job on most
domestic issues. Stymied from achieving his most ambitious goals on
social legislation, relief of student debt and energy restructuring,
by Republicans and maverick Democrats in Congress or by right-wing
judges, Biden nonetheless accomplished enough in his pared-down
domestic programme to win re-election in normal times.

However, Biden was beset by serious personal issues that hampered his
ability to run effectively on his record. He was never a good
communicator, seldom venturing forth in unstaged press conferences or
direct appeals to the public. His growing physical frailty came into
sharper focus with his disastrous performance in the June debate with
Trump. 

The frailties of old age can be mitigated, and mental lapses reduced,
by good geriatric medicine and lots of exercise and preparation (I
speak from personal experience as an 84-year-old with my own senior
moments).  But, like 72% of all Americans, I could no longer believe
that Biden was vigorous enough to withstand the rigors of another term
as US President, nor to campaign effectively as leader of an anti-MAGA
coalition. Donald Trump is nearly as old, but his aggressive bullying
narcissistic demeanor is that of a spoiled two-year old brat, not a
dotard.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) never much liked Biden, in part
because the Democratic Party leadership rallied to his candidacy in
the 2020 Democratic primaries to block the ascendant Bernie Sanders. 

Like most of the American Left, DSA opposed Biden’s backsliding on
refugee policies and his approval for certain fossil fuel pipeline
projects.  But denunciation of the Biden presidency only broke out
into a fever pitch with his largely unconditional backing for
Netanyahu’s genocidal conduct against civilians in Gaza and the West
Bank.   DSA joined the overall pro-Palestinian movement, playing an
especially crucial role in helping to organize the campaigns in
multiple states to persuade Democratic primary voters to vote
Uncommitted rather than for Biden, and in successfully campaigning
within several major unions for a permanent ceasefire and an end to
military aid to Israel.

The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) helped organize the
pro-Palestinian encampments on several university campuses.  DSA
elected officials in several cities across the country continue to
advocate pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) resolutions on
Palestine.

The final push to pressure Biden to drop out of the Presidential race
came not from the Party’s Left, but from major Democratic donors,
and from Centrist Democrats terrified that their own reelection
campaigns in “purple” districts were endangered with Biden at the
head of the ticket. Sanders and AOC, along with most of the Squad,
have been focused on trying to persuade any Democratic candidate (now
officially Kamala Harris) to campaign on a more clearly pro
working-class and progressive platform, including cutting off
unconditional military aid to Israel.

When Biden finally made his decision to withdraw from the presidential
race and endorse Kamala Harris, the sigh of relief from most Democrats
and Leftists was palpable. However, DSA’s first official response
was grudging and more vindictive than welcoming.
(Statement-on-the-end-of-joe-bidens-presidential-campaign
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Not surprisingly, DSA elected officials at the national level have
been targeted by pro-Israel lobbyists. Crippled by drastic
redistrictions to remove most of his African-American constituency,
Jamaal Bowman lost his seat in a congressional district outside New
York City to an opponent heavily funded by the American-Israel
Political Action Committee (AIPAC).  Bowman was also the target of
negative campaigning from ultra-left sectarians within national DSA,
who regarded him as insufficiently pro-Palestinian, though New York
City DSA did endorse and canvass for him.

On August 6, another incumbent Squad DSA member, Cori Bush, a working
class African-American nurse and Black Lives Matter activist, narrowly
lost a Democratic primary in St. Louis to an opponent heavily funded
by the United Democracy Project, associated with AIPAC.  Despite
strong fundraising from the Justice Democrats, phone banking by the
national Working Families Party, and the united canvassing and phone
banking organized by local and national DSA, she could not overcome
massive negative campaigning against her that ignored her strong
support for Palestinian rights, the real reason for AIPAC supporting
her opponent.

However, DSA played an important role in the campaign to persuade
Kamala Harris to select Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her
vice-presidential running mate. Young activists from DSA launched a
social media campaign against the selection of Pennsylvania governor
Josh Shapiro, primarily because of his denunciation of the
pro-Palestinian campus encampments and positions favoring private
charter schools.   Shapiro had the support of much of the Democratic
Party establishment and mass media, and was considered the
front-runner because it was thought that his candidacy would help the
Democrats win the battleground state of Pennsylvania. But Tim Walz
already seems to be an excellent unifying choice for the Democratic
Party. He has been an effective governor, winning major gains for
working class people in Minnesota despite a very slender legislative
majority. Walz also “speaks American”, in a way that should be
accessible to alienated white male dudes, particularly in rural areas
of the Midwest, who are not necessarily prone to vote for women of
color.

The first reactions from the young DSA media activists to Harris’s
choice of Walz as a running mate were quite positive (comment on X
[[link removed]]). Those whose major issue is
Israel/Palestine will of continue to demand a clear and effective
break by the Biden/Harris administration from the genocidal and
aggressive policies of Netanyahu.  This will be the major focus of
protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The 30
Uncommitted delegates have already decided to vote “Present” all
that is allowed by the DNC rules, but they each chose to nominate a
child, woman or man who had been killed by the Israeli offensive in
Gaza. DSA will support the large Palestinian diaspora communities in
the USA in what are hoped to be large non-violent demonstrations
outside the Convention.

At the time of writing, the Harris-Walz ticket is polling well, and
the atmosphere of gloom and doom that had beset both the Democratic
Center and the Left has given way to cautious optimism with the
evident rallying of the Democratic base.  Without a faltering Joe
Biden to pillory, the Trump-Vance campaign now seems like the deer
transfixed in the headlights. But the MAGA base remains intact, and
the election may still be so close that the structural advantages
Republicans have in the Electoral College might still allow the
Supreme Court to tip it to MAGA.

_Paul Garver is a member of Democratic Socialists of America._

_Chartist is the bi-monthly political magazine of the democratic
left. In honouring the Chartists of the 19th century, our idea of
democratic socialism is as much about the political movement and means
of mobilisation used to advance political ideas as it is about the
ideas themselves. Chartist seeks to provide a space for those who
subscribe to this broad ideal._

* Harris-Walz
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* Democratic Convention
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* DSA
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