Some of the positions of Biden going into this election:
Abolish the death penalty.
End cash bail as it disproportional punishes the poor.
End cocaine sentencing disparity as racist
Eliminate mandatory minimums
Scrap past marijuana convictions
Eliminate private prisons
Raise minimum wage to 15$/hour
Supports a government mandated 12 weeks of paid family leave for all workers
Two years of college free
Expand student debt forgiveness, including 10K of forgiveness for all student loans and complete forgiveness for all undergraduate loans from 2 and 4 year public colleges and universities, and other loan forgiveness and payment reduction plans.
Eliminate funding gap for k-12 schools based on location (essentially between white and non white/poor and non poor division) with specific first steps outlined to do so.
Increase teacher pay, especially in underfunded schools (poor and POC schools)
Plan outlined to get us back in on the Paris agreement and goal of switching to clean energy by 2035 with first steps specified.
Supports voluntary gun buyback (similar programs have had huge success in reducing gun violence in other countries)
Supports firearm registry
Supports universal background checks for fire arm purchase
Supports huge expansions of medicare and the creation of a public run health insurance option that everyone is automatically enrolled in if they lose other coverage. You would also be able to use this free option if you did not want to use employer coverage. He has moved left in a huge way since the pandemic came into full swing but most people just ignore it. There is a good chance that by the time we get to the point of implementation he could just go medicare for all.
Citizenship for dreamers (DACA)
Outlined steps for increasing the quality of life, access to resources, and autonomy of disabled people, including expansion and strict enforcement of non discrimination policies
Universal hazard pay for “front line” workers during the pandemic
Specific first steps outlined for reducing systematic LGBTQ discrimination
Large increase of taxes on the wealthy, including a direct wealth tax and increasing taxes on corporations, with short term proposals in place that include undoing much of the damage done by trump.
You will notice that a lot of these positions can be described as halfway progressive. As in they move in the right direction but stop short of the ultimate goal. Sure, we didn’t win the primary and get a truly progressive candidate in, but the strong showing of progressive ideals during the primary means that we strong armed the democrat party into compromising with us. We forcibly moved the Overton window significantly left, imagine if we did this election after election! We could force real change regardless of the presidential candidate that is ultimately chosen.
We are slowly winning, but in order for it to stick we have to demonstrate that progressives will reward the shift in our direction. We absolutely need to vote Biden in, as well as support democrats in the senate, congress, and local levels. We need to prove that progressives are a powerful political group that can make promises and deliver to those who compromise with us. This is critical for the long term viability of progressive politics.
Biden isn’t just damage control. We wont be sprinting towards an ideal world but we will be taking significant steps in that direction. Don’t throw away all the progress we made because you don’t like the names on the ticket.
