What Should Leftists be Doing on Nov. 4th?

[Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters]

By Alexia Underwood

As Nov. 3 approaches, we’re asking organizers, activists and authors four big questions about how the election outcome will change their work and the future struggle for change.

Bhaskar Sunkara is the founder and publisher of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto, which was published last year and released in paperback this summer. His book includes a brief history of socialism abroad and in the U.S. up until the 2016 election, and also offers a prescriptive guide for leftists who want to challenge capitalism in the U.S. and create a democratic socialist alternative.

We spoke last week about the upcoming election, and whether his thoughts on how to push for progressive change have shifted in light of the current political landscape. Here are the main takeaways.

If Trump wins, what should the left be planning to do on Nov. 4?

If Trump is elected, which, in my mind, is very unlikely … I think it will be through these mechanisms of minority rule. So the Electoral College, possibly the Supreme Court … And I think it will point to the need in the U.S. for the left to continue to push liberals in the direction of institutional reform.

But fundamentally, I don't think you could build majoritarian support just in favor of institutional reform by itself. There needs to be a galvanizing majoritarian demand. So our message is, "We'll fight for jobs and health care by any means necessary, and that includes, obviously, Supreme Court–packing or getting rid of the filibuster, whatever else." I think that in the U.S., the only big majoritarian demands that we have — and that we're capable of building a program around — is Medicare for All.

If anything, it's been getting too little emphasis after the Bernie Sanders campaign. This sounds like an overstatement, but it might be the most popular demand ever … and it seems to me that that's just a great place to start.

What about if Biden wins?

Under a Biden administration, we have to be willing to be [the] opposition from day one. Or at least to create a separate pole so we're not just the left-wing Bideners, but we are representing a different set of politics. Obviously, we're not as vehemently opposed to Biden as we are to Trump. But I think unless you establish this independence, you just make it so that every little bit of anti-establishment energy is monopolized by the right.

I think it's important that there is an outlet for anti-establishment energy on the left. Because ... we know that Bidenism can't last forever. And we want to make sure that when it does fall apart, when it doesn't deliver the goods, that we're not just seeing a return to some type of Trumpism.

I feel it's really important for us to speak to those people who are angry and alienated and also just dropped out. But the way we do it is not by adopting the most radical rhetoric possible. Because I think what we're finding in this campaign is that Americans actually really liked the rhetoric of Joe Biden. He's not on the far left in terms of his rhetoric. He's not extremely populist in his rhetoric … It's like dignity and respect, we need to respect each other. We need a society that's more respectful of people, particularly those who are historically oppressed … and we're trying to divert to bread-and-butter issues in part because we know — or we hope at least — that there's a progressive majority in America. And this progressive majority believes in fairness and equality.

Whereas on the left what I worry about is that people just think we need to take liberalism and heat it up, make it more fiery for it to work. Instead, what we need is to make it more effective and also more radical in its programming, not necessarily its rhetoric.

What happens in the case of a contested election?

Compared to most people, I tend to downplay the possibility of Trump seriously contesting the election, other than by drawing [in] the Supreme Court and trying to throw out the ballots and things like that. ... I think the real crisis is a much slower moving crisis of legitimacy of the systems. It's in part rooted in the combination of increased polarization and an extremely dysfunctional political system. So in most countries, political polarization, even in very [tight] races — it's completely fine because they have parliamentary systems and it just leads to big swings in one direction or the other.

But in the U.S., we have a system where we're going to have basically a permanent divided government, which will cause dysfunction.

Right now, you're seeing more and more Americans who want the government to do stuff to improve their lives. But the government has been unable to deliver the goods. Not even just unwilling, but even among Democratic Party politicians that want to do things, they're finding themselves stymied. Either way, this whole potential crisis points toward the need for more institutional reform.

What should people be doing regardless of the outcome of the election?

I think it's really important that we start pushing on Medicare for All. In part, because that will actually make something like a real public option more viable, even in the short term. And it’s a way we can differentiate ourselves from Biden and Trump.

We don't want to alienate ourselves from the many millions of people who are going to vote for Biden over Trump in swing states, or whatnot … [but] you still want to maintain a distinct profile. And that's why I think it's a great litmus test for this crop of Bernie grad politicians. During key moments of progressive reform, we've used litmus tests like that to distinguish between different wings of the party … and I think we need a bloc of Medicare for All Democrats. That way it becomes less about aspect and rhetoric and it just is very clear.

I feel like right now, it's like the Bernie moment has almost been forgotten. … It's going to be a landslide, and it'll really vindicate the Biden approach. But I think that Biden is going to win because of Trump's unpopularity, and because of his rhetoric and his stability and familiarity rather than his program. So I think it's a matter of having a more radical program.

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