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Jacobin Radio

Jacobin Radio: Robert Brenner on the political economy of the 2020 election

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Suzi talks to Robert Brenner about the political-economic dimension of the 2020 election, the country, and the pandemic – and what it means for the battles ahead. The corrupt and hated President Trump was defeated, yet millions more people voted for him in 2020 than in 2016. He was undone by the raging pandemic that he tried to minimize. COVID 19 wreaked havoc with an already weak economy, creating widespread economic hardship. Because Trump failed to deal with the pandemic or extend economic relief, the economic crisis threatens to get much worse. Had Trump handled it with decisive measures, we'd just be dealing with the regular features of a declining capitalism, instead of far more catastrophic ones. The Biden/Harris ticket ultimately prevailed because it meant an end to Trumpian chaos and destruction -- and represented genuine hope for compassion and decency. There's much to unpack, and we get Brenner's analysis and perspectives.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman,

0:09.0

Wiesman, very pleased to be with you after the election was announced.

0:17.0

And we're just having one guest for the day and that is Robert Brenner. He's with us again.

0:22.0

He is a professor of history at UCLA and

0:25.4

author of many books including the economics of global turbulence and the

0:29.8

boom and the bubble among other works. His latest article in New Left Review 123 for May June

0:37.1

is called Escalating Plunder.

0:39.2

And it's the story of how the economic aid package for the pandemic increased the upward redistribution of wealth of recent decades.

0:47.0

In other interviews that we've had right here with Robert Brenner, he's developed his ideas on what he calls the long downturn and the way the finance

0:55.4

sector, corporations, and the very wealthy have rigged the economy to their benefit.

1:00.6

Today we're going to look at the political economy of the 2020 election. Yes, it's over.

1:06.2

It was called on Saturday, November 7th for Joseph Biden. It's an historic election in so many ways taking place against a worldwide

1:15.8

pandemic that is escalating by the day in the United States with more than a quarter

1:21.1

million deaths that increases by about a thousand a day.

1:25.4

The election saw record voter turnout with 100 million mail-in ballots and another 60 to

1:31.5

65 million in-person votes.

1:35.0

Trump fared far better than expected.

1:37.6

It was very close, and he has thus far refused to concede.

1:42.4

Also, in terms of historical significance, California

1:45.8

Senator Kamala Harris is the first female vice president and she's also the

1:51.5

multiracial daughter of immigrants with a Marxist

1:54.4

economist father and a Jewish husband and while the Biden Harris ticket are

...

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