I’ve been having a spirited debate with a center-left leaning friend on Facebook, and I want to share/expand the conversation here because it’s important:
The Question: What do we do now that the Democrats have picked Joe Biden?
First let’s do a level set:
Our country is currently struggling for unity and effective collective action to deal with the most widespread global pandemic in our country’s history, 30% unemployment, and we just got hit with the largest civil uprising since the assassination of MLK following the murder of George Floyd 48 hours ago. Oh, and we have an election in 5 months.
Now choose a fighter:
Donald Trump is in the red corner. He somehow ended up in the White House after taking the Pokemon evolution path of:
1st form: Trust fund baby from Queens with a chip on his shoulder
2nd form: Tax & draft dodging local New York con-man and reality television star
3rd and final form: The WWE Years
A historically ridiculous, divisive political figure who used race-baiting, anti-immigrant rhetoric honed in the WWE ring to rally the lizard brains of an angry mostly white voter base, reeling from years of harmful neo-liberal/neo-conservative pro-corporate policy (NAFTA, endless war, opioid crisis, etc…) into a massive political movement, taking the Republican Party hostage on his way. He is our incumbent POTUS, buffoonish, brutish, cartoonish and balloonish.
Joe Biden is in the blue corner (like a boxing ring/octagon, there are more than 2 corners, but we leave the other ones empty because our system sucks). A DC lifer, Joe’s Pokemon evolution looked like this:
1st form: An unabashedly corporate member of Congress from Delaware. He has been around so long that he was friends with actual segregationists, and was even a featured speaker at his friend, racist historical superhero Strom Thurmond’s memorial. While in Senate, Joe was lovingly nicknamed “the Senator from MBNA”, and was best known for being the leading architect of the ’94 Crime Bill and the ’05 Bankruptcy bills that directly lead to the conditions that got our country into this pit of national pandemic/depression/rage in 2020.
2nd form: Obama’s Hype Man
Joe came into international prominence during his first evolution, which happened in ’08, as the old white, corporate, career politician that the pragmatic campaign team of a then young, junior senator Barack Obama added to the ticket to appeal to older, conservative voters who thought America might not be “ready for a black president”. Joe didn’t do a whole lot as Obama’s VP, but most remember him as a hype man type figure for our 1st black POTUS, something that effectively whitewashed his prior career as an architect of black pain.
3rd form: Weekend at Biden’s
Today he is a shadow of his rough-edged, but sharp and ring-ready ’08 self. His original final form was supposed to be lovable retired granpda, but he chose to shift into what he is today: a sunsetting senior, rapidly declining into a yogurt-brained, visibly exhausted old man, who his aides have hidden in a basement because they don’t want to risk him saying something racist/sexist/nonsensical. He is also now in the ring as the fighter that half the country have resigned into leading us out of COVID-19 and the largest civil unrest since the assassination of MLK.
That said, back to my conversation with my centrist-friend:
This is my take. I’m not a liberal. I’m a Leftist. That distinction is important. Not sure where you stand on the spectrum, but from where I’m at, I believe that the risk of people like me being complicit with Democratic leadership, and giving them our vote AGAIN without them giving in an inch on the issues that we stand behind, is that we are being passive, complicit, perpetuating, even accelerating the cross-party lines crony capitalist power grab that has been going on since Clinton.
Biden just puts a kinder face on it, like Obama did. The Obama ’08 campaign started as a populist multicultural youth movement, and then when he got into office, he broke up the band and opted to side with DC neoliberals. By the time he got out, we had escalated both of W’s wars, started 5 new ones, expanded W’s surveillance state, and prosecuted exactly 0 PDs after Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Eric Garner… Hope, check. Change, not much.
Change doesn’t come from opting for a slightly less worse thing. I’m voting 3rd party because of many reasons:
1) Joe Biden Doesn’t Care about [FILL IN THE BLANK] People: I can’t vote for someone who is so vehemently opposed to the political issues most important to me: single payer healthcare, non-interventionist foreign policy, repeal of Citizens United paired with a dramatic overhaul of campaign financing.
2) It Doesn’t Matter (in CA): My vote in California doesn’t matter anyway, as CA is blue every time. I encourage all leftists in California to vote Green. Howie Hawkins has no chance, neither did Jill Stein (who I voted for happily in ‘16), but that’s not the point. The point is that if you care about the last 50 and next 50 years, and not just the next 4, a viable and funded 3rd party could be a real ballot option for our children. If you’re on the right, I encourage you to research and get behind Libertarian Jo Jorgensen. In Trump’s words, “what do you have to lose?” If >5% of voters nationwide do the same, we have a shot at a viable 3rd party in 2024. For left-leaning CA voters like myself, we have a ton of leeway, as our margin will likely by > Biden +10. Your own results may vary.
3) Repercussions for 2024 (& President Don Jr): I believe that 1 term of Biden will lead to disenfranchisement of young & working class voters. Let’s face it, no one is excited about this man. He’s our candidate by unfortunate default via the most horrible 2020 timeline. When you have a candidate that the base is this unexcited about, someone who could barely fill a high school gym during the primary, you set up the stage for a massive ass beating from the Right in 2024. Joe has signaled to his own advisers that he will be a one-term POTUS, which throws out the incumbent advantage in ’24. No one talks about this huge electoral risk btw. I follow right-wing media (you have to know your enemy), and I believe that a Biden win (I still give it just a 40/60 chance) will end in little to no improvement for the working class, setting the stage for a united, even further radicalized Republican Party to win by a landslide in 2024, and I think Don Jr is going to emerge as their candidate.
(That last part is pure speculation, based on my crazy Leftist’s read of right-wing media, but y’all get what I’m saying.)