Yeah, I know. Joe Biden wasn’t your first fucking choice. Or your second choice. Or your third, fourth, or fifth choice. Or your sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth… what were we talking about?
Oh, right. Joe Biden sucks. Joe Biden sucks in ways that only misogyny makes you think Hillary Clinton sucks worse.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
I’m not asking anybody to endorse Joe Biden. I certainly don’t. Joe Biden’s fingerprints are all over the racist War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs that I’ve dedicated my life to opposing.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
There is so much not to endorse about Joe Biden besides the drug war. You can probably recite the list better than I — Crime Bill, Anita Hill, trade bills, Bankruptcy Bill, Iraq War, WMD lies, being creepy — and I agree with you 100 percent.
Joe Biden encapsulates all the worst aspects of the Democratic Party since 1980. He’s the personification of the lesson Democrats took from three straight electoral ass-whippings in the 1980s: Adopt the other party’s race-baiting policies on crime and welfare, but dress it up with some folksy charm. Ignore that majorities of voters in the 1990s didn’t vote for Democrats.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
I felt like you do now, way back in 2000. I actually voted for Ralph Nader. I was voting in Idaho, so it made no difference. But looking back on the eight years of George W. Bush, featuring 9/11, Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and an economic collapse, looking at twenty more years of runaway climate change, boy, do I wish we could have had a President Al Gore.
Now, looking at far greater damage done to our country in four years of Trump than eight years of Bush, boy, do I wish we could have had a President Hillary Clinton.
But I’d rather have a President Gore than a President Clinton.
And I’d rather have a President Clinton than a President Biden.
See where this is going? Every time the greater evil wins, the next lesser evil is a greater evil. Because greater evil moves the needle further into evil.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
Imagine where we’d be if eight years of President Gore could have been followed by eight years of President Obama. Imagine who might be the Democrat following sixteen years of Gore/Obama and how he or she would be building on their accomplishments.
If we didn’t let a Republican in after every Democrat, maybe the Democrats wouldn’t be so busy rescuing the country that we could move the party further to the left. If Democrats were reliably winning all the left, they wouldn’t have to tack center.
All we do by denying Democrats our vote is to teach them there are no votes in the progressive pond, so they’d better cut bait for the fish in the moderate pond.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
Also, there is a flaw in Joe Biden that actually makes him one of the better centrist candidates progressives could have hoped for: he is the quintessential Washington DC politico.
- In the 1980s, when being tough on drugs was all the rage, there was Biden demagoguing the issue.
- In the 1990s, when being tough on crime was all the rage, there was Biden, demagoguing the issue.
- In the 2000s, when being tough on terror was all the rage, there was Biden, demagoguing the issue.
In other words, Biden will be more of a follower than a leader. An engaged progressive electorate that contributed to his election can sway him, just like the engaged conservative electorate swayed him then.
That progressive electorate cannot sway President Donald Trump, however. Not one bit.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? If by now you cannot see Donald Trump as the greatest threat to the continued existence of the United States of America as a constitutional democratic republic governed by the rule of law, I’ve wasted all my time typing this.
I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan. Living through those eight years, I thought, “there could never be a GOP president as awful as this one.”
Then George W. Bush said, “hold my beer.”
Then Donald Trump said, “lightweight.”
I cannot even imagine what the next worse GOP president would bring. Margaret Atwood did, though.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
I know. You feel like you can’t endorse Joe Biden by giving him your vote. You cannot let slide all the terrible things he did in the past.
Was anything he did as terrible as what a re-elected unimpeachable Trump will do?
Like replacing Justices Ginsburg and Breyer with 35-year-old Federalist Society-approved conservatives and packing the federal bench with the same?
Of all the terrible things I can say about Joe Biden — and there are many — I cannot say he’d pick judges like Brett Kavanaugh and the ABA-rated “unqualified” conservative hacks who’ve never even taken depositions. I cannot say he’d choose a cabinet full of lackeys dedicated to destroying their cabinet offices’ missions.
We’re at the point now where ideology isn’t even as important as choosing someone who would appoint functional officers to government positions.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
Maybe you can admit Biden is better than Trump, but still so awful you can’t endorse him with your vote. Maybe you live in a solidly red or blue state, as I did in 2000, and figure Biden will or will not win the Electoral College without you.
If this were 2000 or 2016 again, I’d be tempted to agree.
But Donald Trump changes all the calculus. We need to not only defeat him; we must defeat Trumpism. Trump is the only president in my lifetime for whom I have seen his voters fly a flag with his name right below Old Glory.
You think they’re deplorable now? Trump re-elected after being impeached and blowing the coronavirus response would boost their insufferability to near New England Patriots-fan levels.
Trump needs to not only lose resoundingly in the Electoral College, he needs to have a massive popular vote disadvantage — greater than Hillary’s +3m in 2016, or Obama’s +5m in 2012, something like Obama’s +10m in 2008 — to signal to all the MAGA they are a shrinking minority who ought never be allowed near the corridors of power again. Make racists afraid again.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
In our electoral system, the only way you can make the Republican lose is to vote for the Democrat. You can choose not to vote, or to vote third party, or to write in Bernie, but none of those things help make the Republican lose.
Joe Biden is now the only tool at your disposal for removing Donald Trump. Don’t even bother arguing, the math is not on your side. You can not vote for Biden if that makes you feel better than removing Donald Trump, but be aware that’s exactly what you’re doing.
I wish that our extreme left were as practical as their extreme right. Do you think Evangelicals were thrilled about endorsing a thrice-married, charity-cheating, pussy-grabbing, daughter-fondling, casino-bankrupting, university-frauding, contractor-stiffing, porn-star-raw-dogging, con man who doesn’t know “Two Corinthians” from “Two-and-a-Half Men?”
Not one bit. But if that’s the tool that unlocks a Roe-overturning 5-4 Supreme Court, a church-favoring federal bench, and maintenance of the straight white Christian supremacist status quo for another generation, then that’s who the Evangelicals vote for.
They seem to get how power works. They didn’t write in Jerry Falwell, Jr. to make themselves feel better, to not endorse the wickedness of Trump, to teach the GOP a lesson. Now Trump knows he can’t win without them.
Biden doesn’t know he can’t win without progressive votes until he’s won with them.
Vote for Joe Biden anyway, goddamnit!
In summary, Joe Biden sucks, but you should vote for him anyway, because he’s the only tool we have to remove Donald Trump. Then work like hell to push President Biden to the left. Biden will be amenable to reducing gun violence, mitigating climate change, legalizing marijuana, providing universal health care, making college affordable, and much more of the progressive wish list, so long as there is a popular movement behind them that forces him to, especially if he has a Democratic House and Senate to bring the legislation to his desk.
At least, the chance of that happening is greater than under a re-elected unimpeachable Donald Trump.
Finally, it’s not about your feelings. This is literally about saving the nation. Suck it up, hold your nose, cross your fingers, and vote for Joe Biden, anyway, goddamnit, because Trump is evil and RBG is old.
