The great progressive communist ticket of Biden/Harris has seized power of the government with a wave of populist support that is poised to usher in the great post-capitalist society of which we’ve all dreamed! Not quite. Despite Trump’s rhetoric making Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sound much cooler than they actually are, most us realize Biden was a bare minimum upgrade from would-be Despot Don. We can actively argue about to what degree Biden is better, if at all, than Trump in either the short term or the long term or at the microlevel or the macrolevel. But the question is the same, regardless. Now what?

Some would have us under the impression that Biden’s victory was a necessity for any hopeful leftist movement in the future. That under Trump the very utterance of the words socialism or communism would have us taken off to one of Trump’s genocide camps on the border. During the election cycle I watched self-avowed socialists, communists and leftists stump with passion for Joe Biden to stop the evil man in orange. All under the auspices that we needed to halt socialist activist rhetoric, at least in the short term, to focus energies on the election of Biden. And those of us who refused to acquiesce to the calls for Biden support were warned that any critiques of Biden would serve to re-elect Donald Trump.

In the end it didn’t matter. At least at the presidential level, the polls were right. They predicted a relatively smooth victory for Biden and despite the nature of the way in which votes are counted, the polls were right. Biden claimed Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada by margins that were close to polling aggregates from fivethirtyeight and RealClearPolitics. In all instances the margins were outside of mandatory recount range (though Trump did pay for a recount to be performed in Wisconsin because of a strange rule Wisconsin has). Biden even won Georgia in a result that fivethirtyeight had predicted nearly dead-on. The only misses were North Carolina, and that likely would have gone the way it was predicted had the Democratic Senate candidate not been rocked by a sex scandal, and Florida. Both of which Biden was the narrowest of slight favorites in.

Did Biden perform so well because he was always going to or was it because of how hated Trump was, or because the liberals managed to rally enough socialists to keep their mouths shut until after election day? Does it matter? Biden has won. Handily. Despite Trump’s babyraging, there is little dispute about Biden’s electoral victory and his impending administration. So now what?

As far as the force for a socialist movement in the United States, at any scale, nothing has really changed. Whether Biden or Trump had won, the path forward would have, and still has, remained the same. Direct action, mutual aid, community organization. Some things under a Biden administration will undoubtedly have improved. The genocide occurring on the US-Mexican border will almost certainly be stopped; though detainment and deportations of children may continue. The US will likely get a better handle on the COVID-19 crisis, yet it almost certainly won’t take the efforts other states have taken to curtail the spread. It’s almost a guarantee that the worst effects of the inequity in resources and the inequity in healthcare will continue to befall Black and Brown communities in the United States. Biden was never a solution and whether or not he’s preferable to Trump in the eyes of a socialist movement is likely more of an interpersonal decision than objective fact.

What I would implore any left-leaners or left-sympathetics or even dejected leftists reading this is to re-engage with your efforts to make impacts in your community. Now that your monthly $20 donation to the Biden campaign is over, reinvest that into your communities. Hand out coats to the homeless to keep them warm. Work in your local soup kitchen one weekend a month. Hand out toys or board games to local orphanages or youth centers. There are some phenomenal games that can be had from the TESA Collective that’ll hopefully help make some young comrades.
Don’t waste $30 on donating to the DNCC for the Georgia Runoffs so the Dems can take a 50-50 ‘majority’ in the US Senate that’ll only be undone anytime Joe Manchin votes against something worthwhile. Or even worse, and even more likely, the Democrats use that majority to pass virtually nothing impactful on your life or the lives of those most in need. A group of friends of mine recently shared on social media that they managed to collectively raise $500 for the Georgia Runoffs. These are friends who fancied themselves as supporters of Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders at one time, and now they will stop at nothing to express support for the centrist Democratic Party spearheaded by ‘I don’t want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle’ Joe Biden.

Imagine what $500 could do for a family in need during the holidays. Imagine how many hams you could deliver for Christmas dinner, or brisket and latkes for Hannukah dinners or any number of pan-African dishes served at Kwanzaa for $500. A much better endorsement of socialism would be to work in your community and show those around you what a socialist looks like. Wear some socialist or communist apparel and give out blankets alongside copies of the Communist Manifesto. Or stuff the ABCs of Communism, The Principles of Communism, or any of the innumerable, much shorter, leaflets and pamphlets in the pockets of jackets that you give out (or, please, create your own version of this). Show these communities that socialists and communists will be there to help them when they are in need. Because the Democrats nor Republicans will be there for them. Take that money you would have raised for the Georgia runoffs, go into a local thrift store and buy every coat and blanket you can get your hands on. You’ll do immeasurably more good than donating to the Democrats or Republicans.

What I hope is that the immediacy of the peril you may have felt during Donald Trump’s presidency hasn’t subsided but rather that your realize that it is capitalism that has you in the crosshairs. That didn’t change by electing Joe Biden. Now that the election brouhaha is over it’s not time to put our heads back in the sand or make pithy statements on social media. It’s time to get back to helping our communities.