That high inflation can be a voting decisions influencer is understood in India. The polls ahead of the upcoming US midterms and the Senate candidates picking up the mood report that rising prices are on the minds of American voters, and — combined with the low approval ratings for President Joe Biden — could even make Democrats lose control of Congress on November 8.
If that happens, the question on everyone’s mind would be if President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump will run again for presidency. If they do, as is being talked about, few would expect President Biden to keep the edge he had the last time in 2020; his ratings have often dropped below Trump’s.
Democrats have campaigned on abortion rights, and have sought to characterise Republicans as extremists who would maneuver the government in a direction dangerous for democracy (on 6 January 2021, a violent mob of Trump’s supporters stormed Capitol Hill, broke into the halls of the US Congress, seeking to overturn a democratic election by preventing the formal certification of Biden’s victory).
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But annual inflation is running just over 8% in a country where inflation hasn’t been this high in 40 years or many voters’ lifetime. Biden’s failures to tame inflation (although it is now largely up to the US Fed to fight inflation) are said to be weighing on voters’ minds. Tight contests are expected in a few states that will ultimately decide which party would be in power in January.
The battle to win the American working class has been on since 2016, when Trump’s “build-the-wall” theme had ranked second to his emotional appeals of “jobs, jobs, jobs”. Promising them secure, high-pay manufacturing jobs, he had exhorted working-class Americans to hate liberals instead of bankers, to hate China instead of corporate America.
The overall thrust of the Biden administration’s economic policy has been to take on two of the biggest long-term threats facing the US: the rise of autocratic China, and the looming threat of climate change. The key tenets of Bidenomics have had pro-workers bias.
How sound the policy choices will prove to be, especially with the heavy dose of protectionism, and the undeniable contribution of the post-covid spending stimulus to high and stubborn inflation, is debatable. All the same, the Biden administration has gone beyond bombast and sloganeering, and has strived for a pro-labour record in its legislative agenda, trade policy and appointments, such as to the National Labor Relations Board, where Trump’s appointees have been replaced with former labour union leaders who are taking on the manipulation of labour union elections, and the underpayment of workers.
In fact, Biden has acquired a reputation for being one of the most pro-labour US presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unions, he said on his first Labour Day in office, were necessary to counter corporate power. When warehouse workers in New York City voted this summer to form the first-ever trade union at the second-largest US private employer, Amazon, the White House response was that the President believes every worker should have free choice to unionise.
The omnibus labour bill, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, Biden had campaigned on was passed by the House where the Democratic Party is in majority (but not the Senate). The Inflation Reduction Act seeks to lower prescription-drug costs for Medicare recipients, create infrastructure jobs, push green energy, and increase taxes on large corporations. The Chips and Science Act aims to tackle the microchip shortages and encourage US manufacturing.
The Biden administration’s trade policy that it calls “worker centred” aims to save American jobs, including by manufacturing-centred protectionism and with “Buy America” rules that require using American iron and steel for instance.
The number of private-sector workers in the US trying to unionise is growing. Besides at Amazon, workers are organising at Starbucks, Chipotle, Apple, Trader Joe’s.
President Biden’s signature economic bills, on infrastructure, semiconductors and the environment, contain plans to spend $1.7 trillion, with billions of dollars earmarked in subsidies and tax credits for American firms. The Economist magazine has called these policy steps beyond anything seen since Congress threw its weight behind America’s car and chipmakers in the 1980s.
The scourge of inflation, though, will test voters’ patience for Democratic Party.
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