How Can We Think About Dean Phillips' Campaign Platform?
I see an agenda that reminds me of the Nordic center-left.
As someone who has consistently opposed President Joe Biden’s reelection effort, I have followed Dean Phillips — who announced a primary challenge to Biden in late October — with great interest since last summer when he started aggressively raising the alarm about Biden’s standing in the polls. Journalists and pundits are generally arguing that Phillips has supported all of Biden’s agenda in Congress so as to suggest the two men share the same politics, but having listened to many of Phillips’ events and carefully explored his campaign platform — Biden’s Web site doesn’t have one and his campaign is just floating a handful of modest policy ideas — I actually think the two men are promoting very different visions for the future.
Biden offers fairly boilerplate conservative Democratic politics — death penalty supporter, hawkish on Israel, opposed to widespread expansion of public health insurance, and support for unions — but Phillips, who hails from Minnesota, is offering voters what I would characterize as something close to Nordic social democratic politics, particularly those of contemporary Denmark. What do I mean?
On social policy and welfare state issues (e.g. health care, housing, child care, higher education, etc.), Phillips is firmly on the center-left and left. He supports single-payer health insurance, paid leave (including at least 30 weeks of parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child), affordable child care, free education from pre-K through college. Moreover, his housing policy criticizes “predatory investors” and the negative impact of Airbnb-type rentals on high-demand housing markets. For retirees, Phillips has called for enhancing Social Security benefits.
On crime and immigration matters, Phillips embraces order and security, not unlike the Danish center-left. His public safety platform calls for improving the quality and increasing the quantity of police. At the same time, he rejects capital punishment, a draconian punishment contrary to the contemporary human rights norms. His immigration platform calls for deterring irregular immigration and increasing legal immigration.
Phillips’ approach to the economy is liberalism. Every child born in the U.S. would receive $1,000 in what he calls “American Dream” investment accounts.
As President, I would work with Congress to create and pass an Invest in American Children Act which would seed all 3.7 million American children born each year with a $1,000 American Dream Account with a $500 contribution every year until they turn 18. The money will be invested in public financial markets, and students can learn the effects of compound interest, how stocks and bonds work, and how to manage money as they grow up – imagine our nation’s youth entering the workforce with upwards of $20,000 that they saw grow through the power off the market! When our children graduate high school, they will receive full access to their accounts and can continue to invest the funds or use them to start their lives as adults. Graduates completing a year of public service in programs like Americorps or the Peace Corps will receive an extra $10,000.
The money in American Dream Accounts will be tax-free, and can be used by future generations to buy a car, put a down payment on a house, and generally help them launch their lives. This low-cost program would help to close the wealth gap between rich and poor Americans as well as teach kids about investment as their invested money grows in the market.
Further, Phillips states in his economic plan that “smart public policy is both pro-business and pro-worker.” The congressman simultaneously supports a $15 federal minimum wage and cutting bureaucracy for small business owners and entrepreneurs. I suspect Phillips’ economic worldview may be close to Nordic flexicurity, which means a labor environment where employers can easily hire and fire to respond to changing markets and economic conditions, but workers are supported with robust social policies when transitioning between jobs. For example, workers — and their children — wouldn’t lose their health insurance when unemployed under Phillips’ Medicare for All proposal. Finally, Phillips’ outsized attention to addressing the cost-of-living crisis likely has bipartisan and cross-generational appeal — and reflects a politician who believes the state should discipline markets, not replace them.
I have long thought that U.S. Democrats might find success by vaguely copying the policy positions of Nordic social democrats — and I think, unintentionally, that’s what Phillips is doing here. On social policy matters, there’s a lot for former Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren supporters to like, but Phillips promotes his campaign platform with moderate, centrist language — common sense, problem solving, and equal opportunity — instead of a problematic democratic socialism discourse. Moderate Democrats, independents, and Republicans — whose support Phillips would need for an Electoral College victory — will appreciate concern for ending border chaos, improving urban security, and addressing cost-of-living matters. Funnily enough, I once had a prominent Republican tell me in private that he thinks “the Nordic countries basically get everything right.” So, I believe the “Nordic model” — delivered with a centrist, moderate voice from the Upper Midwest — could be tremendously appealing as a national political proposition.
Perhaps reflecting his substantial independence from both moneyed interests and Democratic Party elites, Phillips is promoting a campaign agenda that is distinct from Joe Biden’s politics and, arguably, novel for the U.S. electorate. It will be fascinating to watch how Americans respond.