According to recent polling data, former Vice President Joe Biden has a two-to-one lead over his next closest rival in the Democratic primary contest, Bernie Sanders. According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, Biden has 34 percent support from registered Democratic voters compared to 17 percent who support Sanders. This will surely embolden those in the establishment wing of the Democratic Party who claim that a moderate, centrist figure like Biden stands the best chance of defeating Trump next year.
Of course, this is completely contradicted by the outcome of the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton’s association with the failed “New Democrat” policies of her husband and, above all, the corrupt Washington status quo of state capture by corporate and financial interests played right into Trump’s hands. He was able to (falsely) portray himself as an outsider standing up for the common man who, as an uber-wealthy billionaire, was not subject to these malign special interests. Of course, this was from the beginning, a transparent con job; once in office Trump has shown himself to be every bit as beholden to corporate and financial interests as any of his predecessors – whether it be his appointment of corporate crooks to positions within his administration or his shameless pandering to business interests via deregulatory legislation. In such a context, unless the Democrats offer a genuine progressive who really does represent an alternative to both Trumpism and the stale neoliberalism/imperialism-lite of the Democratic Party establishment, Trump may well be able again to channel enough disaffection amongst the benighted masses of Middle America into another narrow electoral college victory.
