Progressives on the rise

As was revealed during the primaries, there is a battle for preeminence underway within the Democratic party between the more traditional centrist wing, personified by Joe Biden, and the energized progressive wing, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

The desire to defeat Donald Trump was so strong, this battle was temporarily suspended in order to unify behind Joe Biden, who was judged to have the best shot at winning back the rust belt voters needed to secure electoral victory. This is precisely what happened.

With the election now over, expect the progressive wing to push aggressively to see their proposals adopted and enacted by the incoming Biden administration.

What would these policies look like? As a point of reference, consider some of the trade proposals advocated by progressive Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren: No country which provides domestic fossil fuel subsidies could enter a free trade agreement with the US. Any country desiring a trade agreement with the US must have a national plan in place to meet their commitments under the Paris Climate Accord and this would have to be verified by an independent commission. And multiple commissions would be established to investigate claims of labor violations in other countries. If these commissions concluded that any violations existed, the US Government would be obligated to initiate dispute settlement. These conditions would apply not only to future trade agreements – existing trade agreements would be renegotiated to reflect these requirements.

Obviously, President-elect Biden will not adopt the progressive wing’s policy recommendations across the board. Compromises will be inevitable and expect the more extreme proposals to be watered down or dropped entirely. But given the dynamism of the progressives and their growing influence within the party (the loss of Democratic seats in the House will actually strengthen the hand of the progressives – the Democrats who were ousted were by and large moderates) it’s more than likely that Biden will be compelled to take a few steps in their direction on trade.