FOR DECADES the Democratic Party has performed elaborate sleights of hand—political bait and switch—to produce the “U-shaped” coalition that Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson discuss. That’s because policies and other actions taken to secure affluent suburban voters tend to come at the expense of poor and working-class voters, yet to make the coalition hold, the latter need to be sold a story about why the policies and actions were in their best interest. For Democrats, and Biden in particular, this has long meant portraying overly bureaucratized, means-tested policies as “redistributive” and pro-capital policies as “increased public investment.”
Bernie Sanders has shown how another way is possible. In the 2016 Democratic primary, he won key states like Michigan and West Virginia by taking on corporate power, treating basic needs like health care and housing as universal rights, and adhering to a consistent policy standard: if it was good for working people, he was for it; if it was bad for them, he was opposed. That commitment to public investment and redistributive policy constituted a real “U-turn” from the bipartisan neoliberal consensus. It is true that Biden has denounced trickle-down economics, stood by unions, and made important regulator y and legislative gains—surely, in part, as a response to the incredible popularity of the Sanders movement and Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump. But Biden has also failed to champion a genuinely progressive agenda, further entrenched austerity as the prevailing worldview, and stayed the course on the privatization efforts of his predecessors.
Take Medicare for All, an actually redistributive program that would generate large income gains for middle- and working-class people. In 2020 four of the six Democratic senators running for president cosigned Bernie’s 2017 Medicare for All bill—the first none other than Kamala Harris. But Biden disparaged the legislation as fiscally untenable and vowed that if it passed both chambers of Congress, he would veto it. Like Obama, he promised—and since has reneged on—a public option. As president, Biden has managed to seem less of an austerity hawk, in part by guaranteeing some forms of health care coverage and other vital forms of pandemic relief. But rather than make these much-needed programs permanent, he signed legislation kicking at least ten million people off their health care plans, including millions of children. He knew that doing so would send the health care system into disarray, but he went ahead with it anyway.