Social Democracy Outlook:
April 01, 2024
Looking back over the last quarter—since the last or these digests—we social democrats can find cause for celebration, cause for dismay, cause for concern and even a little cause for dread. On the economic front, the U.S. has defied predictions to end the year in a remarkably strong position. Not only has the anticipated recession not occurred, but the job market is as healthy as it's been in recent memory, pandemic-spawned inflation has been brought under control by the Fed's skillful maneuvering, and the high interest rates deployed to fight inflation have likely reached their peak and should decline over the next year to more typical levels. Unfortunately, President Biden is receiving little credit for this rosy picture, with voters citing personal economic hardship (higher gas and food prices, high mortgage and other interest rates) and expressing, by large margins, greater confidence in Donald Trump on economic leadership (AP News).
President Biden has exerted himself to showcase his administration's work to strengthen the U.S. economy, add jobs and support domestic manufacturing, all within the context of the country's necessary transition to green energy (AP News). Funds from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, one of the administration's signature pieces of legislation, are finding their way into new tech (Reuters) and hydrogen hubs (AP News), support for domestic computer chip manufactuers (AP News), port renovation (AP News), upgraded rail capacity on the Northeast Corridor (Reuters), and the first of a national network of an envisioned 500,000 recharging stations being built in Ohio (Reuters). Biden has also requested $56 billion from Congress for extending pandemic-era subsidies to the teetering childcare sector, improving high-speed Internet access and funneling disaster relief to California, Florida and other hard-hit areas (Politico). Unfortunately, none of this real-world progress has penetrated the infotainment-informed minds of the average voter, nor reversed Biden's plunging poll numbers.
The fact is, President Biden appears to be in serious trouble going into the election year. Multiple polls show the President trailing Trump by significant margins in a head-to-head match-up (Reuters), and third party spoilers Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Cornel West will likely create further headwinds for the President (AP News). What's more, the coalition of young, women and not-racialized-as-"white" voters, long considered the Democratic Party's electoral insurance policy, is showing signs of serious fraying, with substantial portions of young, racialized-as-"Hispanic" and racialized-as-"Black" voters expressing support for Trump (Reuters). Meanwhile we await the Supreme Court for a ruling on whether "the bum" can be prosecuted on the 92 felony counts he now faces for crimes committed while in office (AP News). TSD was heartened by the $148 million judgement rendered against Rudolf Giuliani for slanders directed against Georgia election workers; it should give pause to anyone seeking to corrupt our democracy with false claims in future cycles (AP News).
Trump's candidacy, and the very real possibility—looking more than ever like a probability—that he will prevail in November's polling, constitute the gravest threat to our democracy. One of that democracy's chief weaknesses is the practice of gerrymandering, and a federal appeals court removed a significant bulwark against this practice when it ruled in November that only government officials, and not private citizens, can challenge voting districts; the case is certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court (AP News). On a more positive note, courts have sent voting maps in both Louisiana (AP News) and Wisconsin (Reuters) back to those states' legislatures to be redrawn, ruling in each case that the Republican-drawn maps dilute the voting power of racialized-as-"black" voters in contravention of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The 117th Congress remains as stalemated as ever. There is consensus that the national debt, which has crested $34 trillion, is troubling (New York Times), but Democrats (raise taxes) and Republicans (slash social democracy programs) offer starkly different solutions. And Biden's request for aid to Ukraine's democracy, under seige from Russia's invasion, has been held up by a Republican-controlled House seeking stiffer controls on illegal immigration as a quid pro quo (AP News).
Illegal immigration remains a weak spot for Democrats, with unprecedented numbers of unauthorized migrants crossing the nation's southern border and a half-million more crossing Panama's Darien Gap en route to the U.S. (Reuters). Even Democratic office holders, such as Eric Adams in New York (Politico) and New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (Reuters), are expressing their displeasure with the federal government's seeming inability to enforce the nation's immigration laws or handle the resulting influx of the undocumented.
The big news of the autumrn on the environmental protection front was the convening of COP28 in Dubai. For the first time in the history of these annual United Nations – sponsored conferences to address global warming, the final declaration included a commitment to end the burning of fossil fuels worldwide (AP News). A key element of that effort will be the international climate fund, designed to help poorer nations most affected by climate change to cope with rising temperatures, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, and in retooling their energy economies; Donald Trump has, of course, signalled that he will reneg on U.S. pledges if elected (Reuters). Meanwhile U.S. production of gas and oil hit record levels in 2023 (The Guardian), and the multi-year U.S. Climate Assessment warned that all regions of the nation are already experiencing deleterious effects of climate change, with temperatures set to rise by 3.8 degrees Farenheit by the next century if current trends continue (AP News). Against this backdrop the Republican-controlled House has passed legislation cutting the Environmental Protection Agency's budget 40 percent to its lowest level in 30 years; fortunately the Senate is certain to block the measure (The Hill). In more positive developments on the natural environment, the City of San Antonio will be installing solar panels at 42 City-owned sites this spring: on rooftops, at parking structures and on shade canopies (Governing). The EPA has announced a proposed rule which will require the phasing out of all lead drinking water pipes in the nation over the next ten years, following on $15 billion in funding for lead pipe removal under the Biden-sponsored Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (Reuters); and the Biden administration Forest Service has adopted a plan to preserve old-growth forests (AP News). Following a similar agreement with the State of Delaware, major chemical manufacturers will pay the State of Ohio $110 in restitution for the release of toxic "forever" chemicals into Ohio waterways (Reuters).
One of the biggest stories of the autumn, and a big win for social democracy, was a resurgence of organized labor, with a number of successful strike actions carried out by American workers. Unionized workers at the big three auto manufacturers (Reuters); at Kaiser Permanente (Reuters); Hollywood writers (Reuters) and actors (Reuters); and both pilots (Reuters) and flight attendants (Reuters) at Southwest Airlines achieved significant gains in compensation and work conditions. New York State successfully sued Uber and Lyft for wage theft and other violations of their drivers' rights (Reuters), and the California legislature raised the state's minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour (PBS).
Other developments relevant to the social democracy project included the inauguration of Care Courts in California, a program intended to address the state's serious homelessness problems (The Hill), and an intitiative before the Prince George's County, MD, Council to put real teeth in community police oversight boards (ACLU). The Affordable Care Act, perhaps the greatest advance for social democracy in our times, saw record enrollment (NPR News); Donald Trump has pledged once again to scuttle the program providing affordable health insurance to 40 million Americans (AP News). Also on the health front, the U.S. House has passed legislation requiring medical providers to publicly post prices for procedures (The Guardian). Dramatically increased truancy in the nation's school since the pandemic is causing concern; and on the international front (The Hill), a new study finds that respect for the United States abroad has risen significantly since Joe Biden took office (AP News).
Along with immigration, two other wildcards, not strictly related to the social democracy project, are roiling politics in the United States. The battle over abortion rights has moved into a new phase, with emphasis on securing the right of residents of abortion-restrictive states to travel to other states for the procedure, and on exceptions for health and other reasons (Reuters). And Israel's invasion of Gaza, after Hamas' October 7 attack in Israel, has opened cleavages in the American Left, creating problems for President Biden and other proponents of social democracy (Reuters).
On the politcal scorecard, red Kentucky's incumbent Democratic governor Andy Beshear turned back a Republican challenge to gain another term in office; but Republican Jeff Landry will replace term-limited Democrat John Bel Edwards in Louisiana's governor's mansion (AP News). And the announced retirement from the Senate of West Virginia's nominal Democrat Joe Manchin spells trouble for the Democrats' razor-thin advantage in that body; he is almost certain to be replaced by a Republican from the Trump-majority state (AP News). The international outlook for social democracy was similarly mixed, with nationallist, right-wing, Trumpish candidates taking the reins of power in the Netherlands (AP News) and Argentina (Reuters), while Polish voters ousted a right-wing government in favor of Euro-centric social democrat and former EU president Donald Tusk (AP News).
