Democratic Power Unites Around Biden to Stop Sanders.

Biden Hugs Rep Jim Clyburn. Clyburn's Endorsement Breathed New Life in to Biden's Failing Campaign

"In truth, if Biden gets the nomination, it’s not because he won it so much as the fact that it was handed to him to stop Sanders." Tome Del Beccaro Fox

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a commentary about the US Elections titled: Have The Democrats Found Their Man? I was referring to billionaire Michael Bloomberg entering the field of Democratic Party challengers, or “contestants” as he called them in a revealing slip of the tongue, for the nomination for the party’s candidate for President in November.

We all know the answer to that question now and it’s not Bloomberg. Joe Biden, whose campaign was floundering, was lifted up from the canvas and given new life when Rep. Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, endorsed him in South Carolina on February 26^th.  And it paid off. Biden won South Carolina impressively.  Clyburn’s speech, “….was beautiful. He wasn’t just giving Mr. Biden an endorsement, he was giving him a template: This is what to talk about, this is your subject matter.”, wrote Peggy Noonan in the WSJ, 

In the political struggle that takes place every four years between different wings of the US capitalist class over who gets to govern society and reap the benefits, those that fund the Democratic Party breathed a sigh of relief as it was beginning to look like Sanders was unstoppable. They now have the man that can save them from Bernie Sanders’ “new Deal” platform and they believe can defeat Trump.

“What happened in the final days before Super Tuesday is unprecedented in American history.  Never before have two viable candidates, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who did well in recent primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire, dropped out just hours before Super Tuesday to throw their support to another candidate. Never before has a party establishment and many of its voters pivoted so quickly.” Tom Del Beccaro Fox News.

It is inconceivable that the revival of Joe Biden was not a “brokered” deal and the media played its part as following his victory in South Carolina and Clyburne’s brilliant speech, Biden received millions of dollars in free airtime. The Democratic Party is in crisis and in danger of fracturing completely; something had to be done. It was beginning to look like the final match would be a contest between Sanders the socialist and Trump, a contest most billionaires that the Democratic Party represents thought Trump would win although that is far from certain. These are desperate times and the more astute sections of the US capitalist class, although doing very well economically, fear it is temporary. Another four years of Donald Trump is not good for business. Capitalism needs a certain amount of stability and Trump thrives on the opposite. Politically, he's a disaster for the US bourgeois.

As one Republican strategist and money manager put it, “This is the moment my Democratic donor friends have dreamed of since Hillary Clinton lost. The battle for the soul of their party will be fought on the terms that both they and Mr. Sanders want: big-money power brokers versus a small-dollar socialist mob. WSJ 3-5-20

The US capitalist class has proven throughout its history that it is prepared to use any means, extreme violence if necessary, to maintain its power. A cursory glimpse at the settlement of the country and the war against the indigenous inhabitants shows that. Working people and the poor of the world are well aware of this as are many US workers, black workers especially.

Bernie Sanders’ platform is not socialist and there is no “Socialist Revolution” on Sanders’ agenda. He is, as the WSJ put it, an FDR New Dealer wanting to complete the New Deal 78 years later. He would be called a Social Democrat in any other country. His platform, somewhat similar to Warren’s calls for a national health system, taxing the rich, jobs, infrastructure spending, free education and so on. This is unacceptable to the US ruling class and impossible to achieve through the Democratic Party.

It will take a lot more than the ballot box to halt or slow significantly the capitalist offensive against the US working class. It will take a united movement in the streets, workplaces and communities. At no time does Sanders point this out. I never hear him talk of the potential power of organized labor and the working class as a whole being the force that can change society in a real way, a force that is the only force in society that can do this. His revolution amounts to placing the future of US workers and the planet in the hand of a liberal section of the US bourgeois and their Democratic Party, if enough people walk down to that voting booth and vote for the Democrat.

Sanders and the other left wing Democrats have vowed to unite behind the candidate the party chooses which will make the Democratic Party chiefs happy. Last time Sanders did this, supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, it split his supporters, many of whom went to Trump. What will happen this time is hard to say but such a move will certainly lead to a crisis within the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA leadership has put all its eggs in the Sanders’ Democratic Party basket, a mistake we stressed on this blog some time ago.

The US is a huge country, a continent really and this writer lives in a very liberal part of it. So it’s not easy to determine exactly what the mood is out there and whether or not the less than stellar Joe Biden can defeat Trump. My inclination is that he cannot and Sanders has more of a chance. I cannot imagine Biden not losing it in a debate with Trump and the more the mic is thrust in front of him the worse it will get.

It confirms the general crisis of US politics that we are faced with these choices. Without a party of our own, the working class has no political voice at all and it can’t be ruled out that another 100 million will refuse to participate. If Trump is re-elected he will wallow in the victory and be more confident than ever. His assault on US workers will intensify and the anger will continue to boil until it bursts through the surface of society in major way.

One thing Trump has done is make US politics exciting. I have never known a time when there is so much talk in the streets, the cafes and bars about the elections and it’s all based on defeating Trump, not a good reason to engage in politics. The response to Trump, the recent brokering of Biden’s rise will not go unnoticed. But for the money base of the Democratic Party, “Backing Mr. Biden became the last option to consolidate their resources and recover their slipping grip on political power.” Democratic Donors Have Their Candidate  WSJ 3-5-20

With Rep Clyburn’s endorsement and from what I understand, a possible Obama follow up, black capitalism is on board for Biden. How much of an influence these leaders have among today’s black youth and working class I cannot say but I am aware many of them have been totally discredited as has the election process itself, something common throughout US society. But between the degenerate Trump and the Democrats, many will hold their noses and take the lesser of two evils which is the usual option here in the US.

As the author of the piece linked to above puts it, the donors that fund the Democratic Party, “……feared losing control of their party to a socialist who didn’t need them and, worse, would make them his permanent scapegoat.”  

It shows how tenuous the grip of the US bourgeois on society is in some ways. Sanders, even if he were elected, could accomplish very little as the capitalist class has both parties and overwhelming control over the apparatus of government. The heads of organized labor are ideologically on board with capitalism and the worship of the market and at this point in time, the working class has not moved in to struggle in a major way.

Still, it does appear, especially with the removal of Bloomberg, that Biden may be their man. That in itself is a crisis. It seems inevitable given the phase through which we are passing that the Democratic Party will split at some point in the not so distant future. Meanwhile,  Kyle Smith in National Review warned the Democrats that:

“If doddering Joe Biden is your party’s best hope, your party might be in deep trouble.”

I think he’s right.