Written by Mary Anne Wentink
President Trump continues to reference “the Manifesto,” a document officially known as Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations, a 110-page agreement signed by Joe Biden to garner the support of Bernie Sanders and his adherents and still accessible via the Biden campaign website. In other words, this agreement is still in force and both explains and identifies just how far left the Democrat Party has lurched since the Obama Administration.
RWCSDC’s On the March August 2020 edition included a list of specific recommendations from this document, which has since been published to the RWCSDC website as “Joe Biden’s Plan for America.” This list was compiled by the Trump campaign and emphasizes immigration issues, an important but relatively small part of the original document. Since August, we’ve had a chance to go through the entire document and prepare some observations of our own.
The document addresses six major issues: Climate, Criminal Justice, Economy, Education, Health Care, and Immigration. Arguments are split into two sections that can be roughly described as assumptions and recommendations, each addressing each issue in turn. In short, there are 12 individual essays, each supposedly concentrating on a single issue. Unfortunately, they do not. Virtually every essay refers to each of the topics in varying degrees of complexity, further confused by an extensive use of jargon, catch phrases, acronyms, and complaints specifically directed towards the Trump administration. This level of obfuscation is necessary to hide or at least obscure some of the more outrageous recommendations, but several things come out loud and clear:
- “Climate change is a global emergency.” Strangely enough, despite that declaration at the very beginning of the document, a call to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, and the identification of several, extremely costly measures to achieve zero emissions, most of the climate discussions quickly veer into the following conclusions.
- America is a racist country controlled by greedy corporate executives and the “rich.”
- All phases of the American experience – including the six named issues – have been specifically designed to hold back or otherwise harm people of color, and, to a lesser extent, all American wage-earners.
- The Democrat Party and unionization of all sectors of the American economy are the American people’s only protection from corporations and corrupt corporate executives and, of course, President Trump.
- It is the Democrat Party’s intent to correct all perceived ills, not only within America but throughout the world via unionization, intra- and international commissions, treaties and outright grants.
Of course, much of this is left unsaid – only intimated again and again by internal references that would leave the uninformed to believe that the United States is a huge conglomerate or medieval fiefdom forcing its people—and especially people of color—to work in dangerous conditions for starvation wages within heavily polluted environments to die early and leave huge unpaid health bills to be paid by their already burdened and undereducated children.
The cure is stated repeatedly, often using COVID-19 as a case in point:
- Forced unionization both in the public and the private sectors.
- Universal healthcare – document speaks of a public option that would cost little or nothing and provide everything to all, including undocumented immigrants – an option that would undercut and bankrupt all private insurance, assuring single-payer, governmental healthcare for all.
- Universal education in a fully unionized setting in which private charter schools are abolished, public charter schools are subsidiary to the public school system, and all public colleges and universities are free. Curricula will provide “holistic, deeper learning… responsive to cultural and linguistic diversity” and standardized testing will be banned.
- A complete restructuring of our criminal justice system to root out racism and eliminate the causes of criminality via various social welfare and social justice programs. Cash bail will also be banned.
- Retooling and upgrade of all existing structures and industries to meet zero-carbon emission goals.
- Punishment of corporate executives held responsible for pollution, unfair banking practices, various drug violations and other described “crimes.”
- Increased refugee and family-based immigration with a path to citizenship for all, including those currently living here illegally.
- Various giveaway programs including the forgiveness of student loans, universal broadband, land grants, and/or tax and debt forgiveness to people of color.
- Free housing, health care, education, and food for all.
Not quite a “worker’s paradise,” but the aim is clear:
A new social and economic compact that at last grapples honestly with America’s long and ongoing history of racism and disenfranchisement, of segregation and discrimination, of economic exclusion and political suppression, and invests instead in building equity and mobility for the communities of color and Native American communities who have been left out and left behind for generations.
Does that sound discriminatory? Be advised “that race-neutral policies are not a sufficient response to race-based disparities” and reparations will be provided.
Despite some calls for increased taxation, nowhere is there mention of exactly how these expensive programs will be financed. Some corporations and corporate executives will be fined out of existence, but the document presents cradle-to-grave promises maintained by a beneficent government to provide social justice and universal equality in cooperation with trade unions, educators and climate change scientists. In other words, creating a communist economy.
This is what Joe Biden has promised Bernie Sanders, so no wonder the man is hiding in his basement.
