As Biden’s Cabinet takes shape, progressive groups plan for a post-Trump future

As Don­ald Trump con­tin­ues his increas­ing­ly pathet­ic attempts to over­turn the results of the Novem­ber 3rd elec­tion, Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden is pow­er­ing ahead with the tran­si­tion process – the most impor­tant part of which is choos­ing a team to help him gov­ern for the next four years.

Even before his elec­tion vic­to­ry, the spec­u­la­tion around who would be in the Biden team was intense, and the slow roll-out of appointees in the past few weeks has served to amp up the expec­ta­tions, opin­ions, and debates sur­round­ing the process. Most big media out­lets have focused their cov­er­age on the racial and gen­der diver­si­ty of the team – and most­ly have giv­en Biden glow­ing reviews.

CNN praised Biden’s moves to “cre­ate a diverse admin­is­tra­tion,” while the New York Times has praised the Pres­i­dent-elect for help­ing to break racial barriers.

Biden’s dri­ve towards a diverse admin­is­tra­tion is way more than mere win­dow-dress­ing, no mat­ter how hard the cyn­ics try to por­tray it as such.

The forth­com­ing admin­is­tra­tion will include so many bar­ri­er-break­ing indi­vid­u­als that it is worth list­ing a few of them:

• The first female trea­sury secretary
• The first woman of col­or to lead OMB
• The first Black Deputy Trea­sury Secretary
• The first Black woman to lead the Coun­cil of Eco­nom­ic Advisors
• The first Lati­no Health and Human Ser­vices Secretary
• The first Lati­no Sec­re­tary of Home­land Security
• The first female Direc­tor of Nation­al Intelligence

Biden spent his elec­tion cam­paign try­ing to achieve care­ful bal­anc­ing act: on the one hand, he hint­ed to pro­gres­sives that his would be an “FDR-sized” pres­i­den­cy; while on the oth­er, he wooed bicon­cep­tu­al vot­ers by giv­ing estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans like John Kasich and Col­in Pow­ell promi­nent spots at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion. As a result, many pro­gres­sives were simul­ta­ne­ous­ly hope­ful that they could gain key Cab­i­net spots and fear­ful that Biden might appoint Repub­li­cans (as a point­less olive branch to the Par­ty of Trump).

But it seems that Biden is tak­ing nei­ther route.

The vast major­i­ty of appointees rep­re­sent a return to the Oba­ma years.

While that is obvi­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ing for those who have been hop­ing to see bold change, most pro­gres­sive strate­gists see this as about the best we could expect from Biden – giv­en his fix­a­tion with “reach­ing across the aisle” – and a good deal bet­ter than the ini­tial cab­i­net Barack Oba­ma assem­bled in 2008–2009.

The best we could expect from Biden is, how­ev­er, nowhere near good enough.

This is most clear­ly seen in Biden’s nation­al secu­ri­ty team, which is packed with mem­bers of “the Blob,” D.C.’s immov­able for­eign pol­i­cy establishment.

Dur­ing his time in the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion Antho­ny Blinken, the future Sec­re­tary of State, favored poli­cies like the coun­ter­pro­duc­tive U.S. inter­ven­tion in Libya and the con­tin­ued sup­ply­ing of weapons to Ben­jamin Netanyahu’s gov­ern­ment in Israel despite its human rights abuses.

Mean­while, Avril Haines (Biden’s pick for Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence) over­saw the Oba­ma administration’s glob­al drone assas­si­na­tion pro­gram and, more recent­ly, sup­port­ed the nom­i­na­tion of a Bush-era tor­tur­er to lead the CIA.

John Ker­ry, Obama’s sec­ond Sec­re­tary of State, has been named Spe­cial Pres­i­den­tial Envoy for Cli­mate, despite the fact that he has claimed that the cli­mate cri­sis will be solved by the unreg­u­lat­ed pri­vate sec­tor that remains wed­ded to dirty fos­sil fuels. The list goes on and on.

Although Biden has not nom­i­nat­ed any Repub­li­cans, his team has been crit­i­cized as too rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Wall Street and the cor­po­rate elite.

Antho­ny Blinken and Avril Haines have spent the Trump years as prin­ci­pals at Wes­t­Ex­ec Advi­sors, a con­sult­ing firm for weapons man­u­fac­tur­ers (Haines also worked for the dystopi­an night­mare that is Palan­tir Tech­nolo­gies). Defense nom­i­nee Lloyd Austin sits on the board of Raytheon.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cedric Rich­mond, who has been tapped to lead the White House Office of Pub­lic Engage­ment, rakes in fos­sil fuel mon­ey despite his dis­trict being one of the worst pol­lut­ed in the country.

Also con­cern­ing are the appoint­ments of two for­mer exec­u­tives of the asset man­age­ment jug­ger­naut Black­Rock (a major investor in fos­sil fuels).

How­ev­er, Biden is nowhere near fin­ished fill­ing out his Cab­i­net, and con­tin­ued pres­sure on the Pres­i­dent-elect from pro­gres­sives appears to be working.

Although it seems like stan­dard-bear­ers like Bernie Sanders and Eliz­a­beth War­ren are out of the run­ning (despite both lob­by­ing for Cab­i­net jobs), the sur­prise nom­i­na­tion of California’s Ator­ney Gen­er­al Xavier Becer­ra – an advo­cate of Medicare for All, staunch defend­er of California’s envi­ron­men­tal laws, and scourge of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try – to be Sec­re­tary of Health and Human Ser­vices shows that Biden is inter­est­ed in pro­gres­sive representation.

With major roles such as labor, inte­ri­or, and edu­ca­tion sec­re­taries still up for grabs, pro­gres­sives should con­tin­ue to lean on Biden hard.

Ulti­mate­ly, it doesn’t mat­ter how­ev­er many Cab­i­net posi­tions pro­gres­sives are able to secure. For all his stat­ed inter­est in emu­lat­ing Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt, Biden is the Com­man­der-in-Chief, and he’ll set the direc­tion.

Faced with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Biden admin­is­tra­tion that will too fre­quent­ly drag its heels on the bold change the U.S. bad­ly needs, what can pro­gres­sives do?

The answer is sim­ple: use our pow­er wher­ev­er we can find it. Like the Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus’ influ­ence in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. While the Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the House shrunk this year, the los­ing incum­bents were most­ly par­tial pro­gres­sives who hold neolib­er­al or even right wing views on a host of issues.

On the oth­er end of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic polit­i­cal spec­trum, pro­gres­sives look set to actu­al­ly expand their pow­er. Fresh­men Jamaal Bow­man, Mondaire Jones, Marie New­man, and Cori Bush are all replac­ing more con­ser­v­a­tive Democ­rats – while the afore­men­tioned House Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus (led by Washington’s Prami­la Jaya­pal) is restruc­tur­ing to become a more cohe­sive leg­isla­tive force.

Pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions spent the last four years build­ing infra­struc­ture to defeat Trump and those who enable him. Soon, those orga­ni­za­tions will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chan­nel their time, tal­ent, and trea­sure towards push­ing the new Biden admin­is­tra­tion to embrace the pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy direc­tions we need.