We Don’t Need the Presidency to be Progressive

No matter what kind of voter you are, this has almost certainly been a disappointing election cycle (unless you are an excited Trump voter, in which case you are the disappointment). If you’re a moderate democrat, odds are you were hoping for somebody a little more exciting and a little less senior than Joe Biden, and preferably with a better track record of actually winning elections. While more of the Democratic party as a whole support Biden, they are not very enthusiastic about that support.

And if you’re a progressive leaning voter then this election cycle is even more disappointing than 2014 and especially 2016. We have watched as truly progressive, practical candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro go ignored, never gain traction and are forced out despite exciting ideas and policy prowess. And while Sanders, the face of the progressive movement, had early success he has under-performed his 2014 results. After an exhaustively run campaign that included a hear attack, Sanders seems all but sure to lose to the bland, moderate Biden. At this point, the progressive movement that has swelled over the past five years seems all but doomed to another disappointing election cycle. But that view is based solely on the presidential election.

While it is the most high profile and important election happening this November, the presidential election is far from the only one happening. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 seats in the Senate are also up for election. While this cycle will be far more contentious, the 2016 cycle showed a huge boost for Democrats, particularly progressives and young, female or minority candidates. Sanders and Warren, who are progressive leaders in the Senate, now have more publicity and clout than any members just (maybe) short of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The progressive movement may fail to win the presidency, but it is far from disappeared.

All of this has left me asking, how important is it to have a progressive President in order to lead a progressive movement? Theoretically, all branches of government are equal, and progressive pushes from the legislature should be able to influence the President. In practice, we live in a country with an increasingly imperial Presidency, much more so after the Trump era. While a Democratic President may go about undoing Trump policy changes it is doubtful that they would willingly undo his gross power grabs. That, in addition to the fact that Republicans have already stacked the Supreme Court, even increasing the faction of progressives in the legislature will not be as consequential when they have to contend with establishment Democrats and far right Republicans to pass any legislation.

For reference, I looked back to the last major progressive movements, and progressive Presidents in our history. Spoiler alert: There aren’t many. The last truly progressive President would have to be Roosevelt. Not FDR, but Teddy Roosevelt. His path to the Presidency is was even more surprising and unplanned than if Sanders won the nomination now, and built on a similarly populist movement. Theodore Roosevelt was a relatively anti-establishment, or outside establishment, candidate. His election to Governor of New York was a surprise to the party, and his nomination as Vice President was meant to sideline him. The unexpected assassination of President McKinley is likely the only reason a truly progressive, populist candidate ever got into the White House. When he was there he increased his support, popularity, and power, by unapologetically going about his progressive agenda. He busted up big corporations to break monopolies and support worker’s unions. This is a policy that unsurprisingly has never really been pursued since, and we can see reflected in progressives ideals today. The next progressive President of William Howard Taft only won because he was endorsed by the wildly popular Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s return to run against Taft tore apart the Republican party, which may have some echoes today as well.

Now let’s look at the next Roosevelt, who is often used as the mold for progressive politicians of today. His New Deal helped build up unions, support workers and provide a wider social safety net than any country at the time. However, he did not exactly run as a progressive, and was not known for progressive policies until after the Great Depression hit. Before then he was very much of the Woodrow Wilson school of democratic elites. He also was far from progressive on social policy, being a strong defender of segregation and vocally bought into eugenics. However progressive ideas were gaining popularity among American voters and academic institutions leading up to the Great Depression. So when it hit, FDR seized on those ideas and became a champion of the poor and working people, who at the time made up a huge majority of Americans. He wasn’t forced to take up progressive economic policies, but relied on them to ease economic tensions and garner support.

This is where we can see the impact of progressive movements that force movement among establishment, liberal politicians. We can see a similar effect of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. LBJ was far from a progressive President, expanding bombings in Vietnam and dragging his feet and civil liberties legislation while he was pushing welfare and economic support. He was forced to propose progressive bills in the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, not by other legislators, but by grass-roots movements. As a result he has also solidified a fairly rosy image in history for liberals, despite doing as little as he possibly could for civil liberties until he absolutely had to.

What does all of this mean for the moment we are in? Can we force effective progressive change without a strong progressive presence in government? Well, we can assume that progressive elected officials would certainly help. If we got a Sanders or Warren presidency, we could expect to see trust-busting level policy and executive action that would impose higher taxes and resistance to monopolies in our very corporate controlled economy. Amazon, Google and Facebook would all face higher regulations while paying more back to the American people, and there would almost certainly be imposed campaign finance regulations that keep billions of dollars in dark money from affecting our elections. It is hard to see how much of any of that happens without that kind of revolutionary Presidency. But it is also hard to see how we get that revolution without a Biden/Warren administration that takes a tragic turn.

So the answer I am left with is that we can’t get large scale progressive change in a hurry. But we can make progress toward it. Having progressive and minority advocates in the legislature certainly helps in the form of more comprehensive policy in areas such as the environment or prison reform. However, the real movement comes from grass-roots movements and demonstrations that force the government into the future. If we want a higher corporate tax rate, or better police regulation, or an end to fossil fuels, we must hold the President (whoever they are), the congress and corporations accountable. Maybe we won’t get a revolution, but we can get change. And if we don’t have a President, we will still have a movement.