“Since 2008, neoliberalism might have been deprived of the feverish forward momentum it once possessed, but it is nowhere near collapsing. Neoliberalism now shambles on as zombie – but as the afficionados of zombie films are well aware, it is sometimes harder to kill a zombie than a living person” – Mark Fisher, 2013
So. The Democratic Establishment have thrown their weight behind Joe Biden. At the last minute before Super Tuesday, two of his most significant ‘moderate’ opponents dropped out and endorsed him. With a clear frontrunner, the Party’s big funders are opening their pockets. The result was a disappointing Super Tuesday for the left, and the death of the Democratic Presidential run.
In hindsight the Democrat Centre’s strategy seems obvious – field a handful of candidates with very-slightly-different USPs, and see which one sticks best. Once that’s determined, close ranks and keep out the Left. Pete Buttigeig struggled hard for the illustrious title as Centre Favourite in Iowa and New Hampshire; but it was Biden’s confident South Carolina win that pushed him over the line.
The graphics showing Bernie fighting a many-faced Moderate Kronenburg were hilarious, but this was always the plan. And in the highly individualised Presidential Race, the left was forced to fight political whack-a-mole, never sure which of the heads of the hydra would be the strongest. So, the enemy of the week went from Robot Pete to Snakey Warren to Bully Klobuchar – and the genial old Biden, whose campaign appeared to be going farcially poorly, was largely ignored by the Left’s attack dogs.
Biden is not genial. He has been behind some of the worst Democratic legislation of the past 30 years. He has an incredibly poor record on Race, Social Security, Foreign Policy, Immigration and the Environment. He is essentially corrupt. He is also, in no uncertain terms, in the middling stages of mental decline.
Recent videos have shown Joe Biden forgetting Obama’s name, confusing his wife for his sister, calling Super Tuesday “Super Thursday”, failing to finish the sentence “we hold these truths to be self evident” and beginning a speech by saying he was running for the Senate. Jesus, let me man retire!
Regardless of all this, Joe Biden is not standing for anything. Can you name a Joe Biden policy? Ask your friends, check his website – the best you will get will be means-tested word salad and reheated Obamaism.
Aside a few sad wonks, nobody is excited about Joe Biden’s policies . Nobody is excited about Joe Biden’s performances. Nobody is excited about Joe Biden’s record. He is an exceptionally weak candidate, a man who is barely there, a walking target for the Trump campaign. He has got as many votes as he has because of name recognition, a friendly media, and the myth of electability.
Joe Biden is the zombie of neoliberalism. His campaign is powered by the logic of the Third Way, the pessimism that nothing can ever change, that idea that elections are won from the centre. It is not that people are enthusiastically for Biden; it is that they do not believe anyone else will beat Trump. He is winning because the electorate have had their expectations floored, that they really can imagine no alternative – that things cannot get better, that the best we can hope for is a return to past ways. So effective has Capitalist Realism been that Biden can succeed without policies, without a campaign, and without a functioning brain.
Biden will lose against Donald Trump. If the seven years since Mark Fisher’s article have shown anything, it is that the Right have made an alternative to Capitalist Realism. It is fantasy – Border Walls that will never be built, British Hegemony that will never return – but it seems to work.
We should not forget, as the Centre likes to remind us, that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, that had her email case not been reopened by the FBI she may have won. But 2016 was a different time. Although she is uniquely unpopular, Clinton had a base who really believed in her, and a coherent and well-managed campaign. Though her policy would have been continuity Obama, it would have been fantastic had a female President.
Finally, and most crucially, Trump was not the sitting President in 2016. Through impeachment, tax cuts and general incompetence, there has been little evidence that Trump’s base has abandoned him – indeed, the only rumblings of discontent from his supporters was over foreign policy. Indeed, having avoided a major career-ending catastrophe in four years (this may be because everything is so crazy now that nothing shocks us), the scare factor that may have kept some voters away from Trump may have diminished.
Biden is neoliberalism’s candidate, but a Biden win at the primary is a win for no-one. Across the pond I am astounded by the short-termism of the Democratic elite. Surely they must know he will lose. There is no movement strong enough to carry such a weak candidate. They have fallen in behind him as a knee-jerk reaction, a pyrrhic and spiteful victory to stop a genuinely popular campaign.
The past thirty years have seen the neoliberals take positions of power of a lot of nominally progressive institutions. They are in the Democratic Party, as they are in Labour. Now that the tide has turned against them, we have seen they will exercise a scorched earth policy to retain their control, kneecap the Left and dampen radical enthusiasm. They will wait, wait for this wave of raised expectation to end, wait for us to give up our vision for a better world, then emerge as leaders of a crushing and dull polity.
themuddy.water.blog 