infographic by Jake Johnson
COVID-19 deaths
Unemployment Filings During COVID-19*
DOW Jones Industrial Average
100,000 75,000
30,000
50 million
6%
28,000
40 million
5%
26,000
50,000 25,000
30 million 20 million
22,000
18,000
4% 3%
24,000
10 million
20,000
0
COVID-19 estimated Fatality Rate*
Feb Feb Feb Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr Apr Apr May May May 10 18 24 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 4 11 18
0
2% 1% 0%
*Includes Pandemic * estimated based On total cases/deaths Unemployment Assistance
Of course, the President is not a big-government Keynesian. He still wants to shrink the government, privatize and cut the bureaucracy, cut taxes on business and the rich, etc., etc. He is a conservative through and through. But the danger in his rhetoric is precisely in the parts where he breaks from conservative orthodoxy. Trump got a shocking amount of support from union households in 2016. A federal employee union endorsed Trump the same year. When organized labor feels burned by free-trade Democrats that (they believe) are intent on outsourcing their jobs across the ocean, what do they do? Who do they vote for? This is the danger in neoliberalism. Liberals have pounded on the free-market drum for so long that there is no mainstream party that endorses pro-government policies, much less European-style social democracy. Even Hillary Clinton wanted to lower Medicare eligibility to age 55 in 2016; Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee, only wants to lower it to 60. This is meant to pass for “pro-government” policy. If the Democratic Party can’t get its act together, and declare loudly and forcefully that the government should work for the people, not business and billionaires, right-wing populists will fill that void. If Democrats will not support universal healthcare, labor unions, and fair trade agreements, right-wing populists will fill that void. Bernie Sanders has identified many of the problems that Trump voters care about: a government that doesn’t care about them, an economy that is crushing them, and a country that seems to be leaving them behind. The Democratic Party is no longer the party of FDR, and it hasn’t been for quite some time. The question now is whether they will go back to their roots, or continue the way they’ve been going. If they choose to remain the party of NAFTA and welfare reform, they will cede the mantle of “populism” to right-wing demagogues. Neoliberalism only works for the haves; it’s time for Democrats to start working for the have-nots. THE PACIFIC SENTINEL
25
