How to Win a Green New Deal Under Biden

But Biden still has miles to go. His plan does not ban fracking. He is yet to support publicly owned utilities. The details of his vow on environmental justice are sparse.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt led this country through famine and economic depression with the New Deal, he did so because he had no choice. The United States was desperately in need of transformative change. Progressives organized their power and laid the groundwork for a period of reduced economic inequality and 20^th-century American renewal. Biden himself has spoken on this parallel between his position and FDR’s. It’s a promising sign his administration is open to similarly progressive policy: a 21^st-century Green New Deal.

For all of its unprecedented policy achievements, the New Deal had serious failures. Black, Latinx and Asian Americans did not receive the same social benefits that white Americans enjoyed. The Works Progress Administration encroached on indigenous land. The new Federal Housing Administration deepened city segregation. But the core idea of it was revolutionary.

In a moment of national crisis, the New Deal did not aim to return ​“back to normal”; it recognized normal was the crisis. The New Deal built the country as a broad and progressive social improvement project, with agencies created to serve and raise the standard of American living. Many of these programs still exist, like Social Security and food stamps (now known as SNAP). The New Deal redefined the purpose of government to build back better.

A Biden presidency gives us the opportunity to do the same, to kick off a new era out of the devastation of Covid-19 and climate change. We must push his nascent Green New Deal to grow into our transformative and full vision for a livable future.

Our New Deal must be just; it must ensure already marginalized folks will not be excluded or harmed. Biden’s plan pledges to do that, but it’s a just start on the long road to repairing historical injustice. If we, as young people in the climate movement, pushed Biden into an unexpected champion of climate policy, then we can do anything.

Biden will not transform this country on his own, but we have already proven we can push centrist politicians through good organizing and a strong message. Biden must be pressured, but it is undoubtedly possible. If we elect Green New Deal champions to every level of government, activate more people into the movement and strengthen our organizational coalition, we will become the indisputable majority.

The possibilities of what we can achieve under Biden, as an organized and effective movement, are only limited by the constraint of our own imaginations. The only thing that can stop the 2020s from becoming the decade of the Green New Deal is ourselves.

Go vote. Then let’s keep moving.

This article is a response to ​“The Climate Movement’s Difficult Fight Ahead If Trump Wins” by Mattias Lehman.

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