WHAT will a world without Donald Trump look like? We might start by reading the Democratic Party manifesto (aka “platform”). Usually nobody bothers to read this, largely because a president – once in the White House – does pretty much what they want. But the official platform is as good a place as any to get the drift of what the Democratic base thinks.

There’s a major emphasis on the economy: “… children born in the United States are less likely to move up the income ladder than those in Canada, Denmark, or the United Kingdom. Women still earn just 82 cents to every dollar men earn, with even greater disparities for women of color … President Trump’s recession threatens to deepen existing inequities”.

But what to do? The answer is rather Corbynesque: “Democrats commit to forging a new social and economic contract with the American people – a contract that invests in the people and promotes shared prosperity, not one that benefits only big corporations and the wealthiest few … A new economic contract that raises wages and restores workers’ rights to organize, join a union, and collectively bargain. One that at last supports working families … by securing equal pay for women … A new economic contract that provides access for all to reliable and affordable banking …”

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Trade union rights? Reliable and affordable banking? Equal pay? An assault on “big corporations and the wealthiest few”? Now I rather doubt that Mr Biden will deliver quickly on these promises. But the very fact the Democrats wrote these commitments down is remarkable. Trump’s attempt to brand the Democrats as leftist radicals is not completely insane. You won’t get Keir Starmer’s next Labour manifesto railing against big business or the rich in such explicit terms – far less make a promise to raise wages and abolish Tory anti-trades union legislation. Or make state-owned RBS start reopening local branches.

With his feet planted firmly under the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, I suspect Joe Biden will be in no hurry to enforce equal pay (especially for black women), raise the minuscule Federal minimum wage (£5.51) to something decent, or take on Wall Street.

Biden’s big personal campaign contributors include Brad Smith (Microsoft president and board member of Netflix), Jeffrey Skoll (first president of eBay), Henry Laufer (Renaissance Technologies, one of the biggest and most secretive hedge funds on the planet), James Murdoch (son of Rupert), plus the cream of America’s high-tech billionaires. The neoliberal, globalists are back in power.

So where did the Democrats’ left-wing manifesto come from? There is a rising tide of radicalism in America, born of a generation-long flatlining of incomes, poverty levels double what you find in Europe, no end to the scourge of racism, and the steady loss of wealth and lives to endless foreign wars.

American capitalism is good at technology and rubbish at raising living standards, providing universal health care or improving the lives of ordinary people. The glaring gap between what America promises and what it actually delivers has radicalised a semi-socialist left as well as a Trumpian, nationalist right.

While Europe understandably has been preoccupied with The Donald, a Corbyn-style left movement has emerged in the US – the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), with upwards of 70,000 members. The DSA is nominally independent but in practice provides the Democrats with their activist base and youthful doorknockers. It was the DSA which animated the campaign of ageing radical Bernie Sanders to win the presidential nomination. When Sanders lost out to Biden, the DSA was split between those who rejected both the big parties, and those who saw voting Democrat as the only way to stop Trump.

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However, DSA activists were to the fore in the recent elections, at every level. High-profile DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) retained her Democratic Congressional seat in New York, with a thumping 70% of the vote.

Immediately, AOC turned her criticism against Biden and the Democratic Party hierarchy. She rejected the view advanced by some leading Democrats that support for Black Lives Matter had helped Trump, saying: “Anyone saying this after immigrant organizers delivered Arizona, Black grassroots flipped Georgia, Michigan going blue with a reality-bending 94% Detroit margin ... isn’t a serious person.”

AOC is demanding that Biden appoint progressives to his Cabinet or risk big losses at the 2022 mid-term elections, if disappointed black voters stay home. However, establishment figures are demanding Cabinet posts, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (“I am a capitalist to my bones”) who is angling to be treasury secretary. Also in the frame is former Ohio governor John Kasich, a Republican who campaigned for Biden. Speaking on CNN, Kasich warned Biden that: “Democrats have to make it clear to the far left that they almost cost him this election.”

All of which suggests that a Biden administration will be as split between left and right as Labour has been. This will extend to foreign policy. The Democratic manifesto has a lot to say on foreign policy, Biden’s long-time speciality.

It argues: “Rather than help Americans compete in the global economy, [Trump] launched reckless, politically-motivated tariff wars that have punished American workers, antagonized our allies, and benefited our adversaries. Rather than end our forever wars, he’s brought us to the brink of new conflicts …”

But what do the Democrats offer instead? Try this for size: “We will ensure that our military has no peer … Democrats will revitalize American diplomacy to ensure that the United States remains the world’s pivotal power … The United States should be at the head of the table whenever the safety and well-being of Americans is at stake ...”

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All of which sounds like a continuation of post-war American hegemony. True, there’s a commitment to “end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen” and being carbon neutral by 2050. There’s also an interesting commitment that “the people of Puerto Rico deserve self-determination” which the Scottish Government should take a closer look at. However, always remember that Biden is a foreign policy hawk, and this part of the Democratic platform document gives him free range.

For instance, the much-lauded commitments to combating climate change in the platform also serve as a justification for supporting “the most historically far-reaching public investments and private sector incentives for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of next-generation technologies”.

In other words, Biden’s America wants to dominate state-funded green tech and sell it to the rest of the world. Expect that item to show up in any US trade negotiations.

Biden’s election does not alter the fault lines in US society, nor in imperial America’s relationship with the rest of the globe. In some senses it exacerbates them. US television caught jubilant crowds celebrating Biden’s victory by singing the raunchy lyrics to “WAP”, a feminist hip hop song made famous by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Either the producers of the normally prissy US networks did not understand these lyrics, or they were conniving at the radical sentiments. WAP is about what men traditionally expect from women and what women really want – put very explicitly. It has become an anthem for young Americans, especially black women. If Biden wasn’t listening, then he’s in for a surprise.