Biden, the Democrats and a Time for Healing
I wrote in 2009 that the United States was not one nation, but two, and that the forces of populism were animating those two very different notions of what it meant to be American. Fueled by Bernie Sanders from the left and Donald Trump from the right, the two poles of populism have deeply influenced the base of both great American political parties since 2016. At those poles, are irreconcilable views regarding not only what it means to be an American, but who is and who can’t be; and with that totally divergent views over the direction and emphasis of public policy.
Joseph Biden emerged from this tumultuous year victorious in perhaps the most important presidential election since 1860. Biden has pledged to lead the nation on the path of healing in the aftermath of fissures over response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crisis in policing fostered by the execution of George Floyd.
Focusing just on race, the discourse on healing and racial reconciliation is well-known in racial justice advocacy work among progressives, but it is not a routine part of policy debates around Capitol Hill. The last presidential initiative on race, that of Bill Clinton in 1997-98, occurred in the absence of national racial turmoil, was plagued by Clinton’s impeachment, and in any case sat on the shelf without any follow through.
John Judis (The Populist Explosion) has argued that, since the 2008 Great Recession, political elites must craft a new political consensus that tends to the needs of middle and working class constituencies who were hurt badly. White middle and working classes have been Republican since the 1960s. They tend to see Black and Brown people who “take” government “handouts,” and immigrants who “take” jobs as their enemy in a zero-sum economy. The Republican Party, always the party of big business, is now also the repository of “disgruntled white people.”
Indigenous, African, LatinX and Asian Americans of all classes have grouped around the Democratic Party. The party was able to shepherd civil rights legislation through Congress in the 1960s with Republican help, against the opposition from its own Southern wing. As Southern segregationists and whites elsewhere moved to the Republican Party, Democrats have been the stronger of the two parties on race and civil rights issues.
Pragmatism --- doing what works with a spirit of innovation facing unchartered territory --- is an American cultural value and the hallmark of the way our political system works. Politically, it requires finding a center where the moderates of the left right, and most Americans, can broadly agree on policy direction.
Joe Biden has pragmatic political instincts. He talks of healing and rebuilding a political center in the wake of a Trump presidency which was not concerned about that political center, or national unity. As a typical populist, he favored his “real Americans” against of the lazy or opportunistic Black and Brown “takers” who support Democrats. The bad news is Trump won over 47% of the popular vote and 57% of the white vote after four years of racist rhetoric and executive orders.
Biden cannot tack to the middle without the multiracial base of the Democratic party. He must see which moderate Republicans will tack with him to create that broad political center, but he mustn’t go too far to find common cause with a party who’s base includes white nationalist. In a recent column David Brooks said that the future of both parties lies in a multiracial working class base. The Democrats have a huge lead in that regard, because that’s already who it’s base is. Moreover, polls consistently show that most Americans support universal health care, more aggressive action on climate change, and policing reform to curb the use of excessive force in Black and Brown communities. These are Democratic Party issues. So in the pursuit of pragmatic reforms, it’s Republicans who’ll have the farther distance to travel.
Democrats should be hardheaded, but at the same time, willing to compromise a little to nudge things a little to the left in terms of policy outputs. As for healing to bridge the cultural divide, that would be great. But the incentives for people funded by big monied interests and tied to our electoral cycle don’t run toward directing legislation, budgets and staff time to “healing conversations.”
Actors in civil society have already taken the lead closer to the ground to engage in face-to-face racial reconciliation in real communities where people live. Two outstanding examples of this kind of work are Repairers of the Breach and the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Project.
Repairers of the Breach was founded by Reverend William Barber in North Carolina. It works from a religious foundation through faith-based organizations to foster interracial understanding and a moral common ground. Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation is a program of the Kellogg Foundation, which takes a more secular approach to the same issues. Both of these initiatives are national in scope, and they are an example of many other more localized projects of this kind currently underway. If Biden and Harris are serious they will tap into these kinds of efforts. Perhaps this work could be charged to a revitalized Community Relations Service in the Department of Justice. Or, as many communities, including some local governments, have declared systemic racism a public health problem, the Department of Health and Human Services might take on a healing project.
Healing, particularly along racial lines, is important to address if we are to reunify into one nation this century. But if national level actors can’t muster the resolve to do it, local actors must take up the project make strides in every corner of the country, and change our national discourse and our national destiny from the ground up.
Repairers of the Breach
https://www.breachrepairers.org/
Kellogg Foundation, Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation
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