The Case Against Biden, Elaborated

    They say that if you stay home on election day, your vote goes to Trump. In other words, if you don’t vote Biden, you are just an enabler of America’s neo-fascist elements, and you get what you deserve.

    But is that really the case?  

    When we examine the state of America’s highly undemocratic, dysfunctional, and borderline decrepit election system, we see that the reality is far more nuanced than this puerile statement would lead you to believe.

    Firstly, I think it is rather arrogant to pin the culmination of centuries of American white supremacy on a bunch of resentful non-voting millennials. This is especially true when we consider that previous generations – such as baby boomers – have played a key role in exacerbating the political divisions that plague America today. It is an inescapable fact that most politicians in office today are of that generation.

    Likewise, most active voters, business owners, and industry magnates are boomers. Power has only just begun to transfer to the succeeding generation. Many of us became of voting age literally just a few years ago.

    You can’t put the onus of righting the wrongs of American history solely on the shoulders of a group that has long been condemned as a scapegoat. This is self-serving, and narrow minded. It is also insulting, as many of us have dedicated what little time we have had to being politically active. We are actually combating the problems America currently faces.

    We have done more in some ways to combat the prejudices that cripple America than some boomers have done in their entire lifetimes. I know that reeks of hubris, but I seriously doubt that many boomers have really had to systematically combat the inequities and injustices of American society. They certainly have not had to confront (as we have) the gargantuan problems of pollution, fascism eroding democracy, and crippling financial inequality.  

    On top of that, many of us have had to fight for the things we care about whilst simultaneously contending with exponential student debt, declining standards of living, nonexistent healthcare, stagnant wages, terrible career prospects, and constant blame for problems we didn’t cause. (I speak here generally of course). 

    So, to say that the problem with America is that we youngsters are apathetic, or don’t work hard enough, is to greatly oversimplify a complex issue.    

    Secondly, the truth is that it really doesn’t matter for millions of Americans whether they vote or not. Their vote simply doesn’t count. There are the obvious examples, such as the millions of black, Hispanic, and minority voters who have been purged from voter rolls thanks to xenophobic voter ID restrictions. 

    There are also the millions of Americans who are restricted from voting due to other reasons, be it conviction of a felony, gerrymandering, redlining, a lack of polling places, or the fact that they simply can’t take off work to go and vote because election day isn’t a federal holiday.

    But beyond these more classist and racist restrictions on who gets to vote, there is also a far subtler way in which American voters are undermined in every presidential election: the electoral college. Thanks to this archaic and incomprehensible system, America doesn’t choose its president through the popular vote of its citizens, but rather through the vote of a set of delegates.

    These delegates ultimately decide who gets to be president, and they are disproportionately awarded to each state, with less populous states getting more delegates per capita than more populous ones. Thanks to this highly illogical allotment system, a presidential election can be theoretically won with around 21% of the popular vote. 

    None of us simpletons get to decide who our delegates are. Indeed, most of us don’t even know who they are. To make matters worse, they often are handpicked from state party elites.

    Because they are the deciding voters, they can swing an entire state decisively for the majority party, even if the majority party of the state won by a razor slim margin. So, if like me you are a registered Democrat in the state of Tennessee – or any other republican state for that matter – your vote functionally doesn’t count, and you might as well stay home. 

    Even if the Elephant Party seizes a majority by just a 2% margin, they win the entire state. The same is true in Democratic states for Republican voters.

    Thus, the more truthful assertion is that voting for any candidate other than Trump in a republican state – or not voting at all for that matter – will have about the same effect, meaning none.

To be clear, this isn’t a rationalization to vote for Trump.

    Trump is a terrible human being, and the epitome of all the vices of the American psyche. He is cruel, woefully ignorant, selfish, and comically insecure. His presidency has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster and has made it clearer than ever that America desperately needs a radical change in its political and social trajectory if it is to have a more promising future.

    But to say that the problems we now face are unprecedented or new is to ignore huge swathes of our history. Many Americans rightly reacted with shock and disgust at the White House’s recent decision to deploy covert federal agents to suppress BLM protests in American cities. This is certainly an egregious violation of civil liberties, but it is not unprecedented. 

    In fact, the US has a long and troubled history of deploying its security agencies to suppress certain forms of dissent.

    In the 1920s and 1930s, officers from both the federal and state level arrested, assaulted, and intimidated scores of socialists and civil rights activists. In the 1960s, with the Civil Rights movement in full swing, these authoritarian tactics reemerged. Additionally, the FBI was deployed to spy on and harass Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.

    In 2001, in the aftermath of one of the worst attacks on US soil, the leeway for government surveillance was exponentially expanded, so that the NSA and other security institutions of the federal government could monitor the telephone and internet activities of all Americans. These developments coincided with the heightened militarization of America’s police forces, and the heightened usage of questionable law enforcement tactics such as SWAT raids.

    All these abuses of power came from administrations long before Trump was elected to office. Indeed, their precedent is what enables Trump to get away with what he is doing right now.

    So, what is the difference with Trump? The key difference is that he now deploys the mechanisms of oppression without any hint of subtlety. He doesn’t send plain clothes FBI agents to tap the phones of black Civil Rights leaders, but instead relies on heavily armed DHS agents in camo to gas, incite, and detain people out in the open.

    It is foolish to think that these abuses would stop if Trump were removed. They would simply go back to being less blatant, so people could feel less conflicted about their government again. Voting for Biden will not restore America, but it will restore credence to the misguided perception of America as a place that respects human rights, that values civil liberties, and that doesn’t spy on its own people (except when it does and hides it through secrecy and gag orders).

    The Last Week of Biden

    In early July, the Biden campaign released a set of progressive policy recommendations.

    These were the result of months of negotiations held by a Bernie-Biden taskforce. This platform was lauded by the press as a major step towards bringing progressives into the Democratic fold for the November election. They were sent immediately to both the Biden Campaign and the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee (more on them later).

    One highlighted part of these progressive recommendations were laws aimed at policing corporate behavior. 

    But barely two weeks later, Biden was on record walking back those legislative goals.

    Speaking at a teleconference fundraiser, Biden reassured Wall Street donors that changing corporate behavior “is not going to require legislation – I’m not proposing any”. This rejects the compromise reached by the joint task force, and even flies in the face of some of Biden’s own initiatives aimed at passing corporate accountability legislation (it’s on his own campaign website for Christ sake!).  

    Need I add that one of the notable attendees of that teleconference was Jon Gray, an executive from Blackstone?

    What, you don’t know Blackstone, the private equity corporation that bought up foreclosed African American properties in 2008, made them rentals, and then doubled the rent? (thus single-handedly exacerbating the terribly low rates of black homeownership and locking black Americans into an endless cycle of poverty? Did I mention he is a major donor for the Biden campaign???!)   

    Also, if you’re still convinced that the taskforce’s platform is a landmark ‘compromise document’, here is a list of the key progressive policies the list doesn’t include:

Medicare For All?	No.
Green New Deal?	Nope. But there is an accelerated timeline to reach net-zero carbon emissions (that sounds good riiiiiight? Accelerating always sounds raaaaad…)
Abolish/reform ICE?	Sorry…
Defunding police departments?	Nopity nopity nope!

 

    That’s Not All Folks!

    The Democratic Party establishment (you know, the one that supports Biden), has also been trying hard to show how much they care about the progressive agenda (re. they don’t). For starters, House Democrats shot down a proposed 10 percent cut to the Department of Defense’s runaway budget.

    Then, House Democrats folded on their proposal to extend the policy of an extra weekly $600 in unemployment benefits until the end of 2020. Millions of Americans are currently facing the threat of eviction, but Democratic House Majority leader Steny Hoyer seemed more concerned that an extra $600 per week would be a ‘disincentive to work’ for America’s poor.

    And to top it all off, the DNC platform committee – the committee tasked with determining domestic and international policy priorities for the Democratic Party – roundly rejected Medicare for all (America’s version of socialized medicine).

    In case you had forgotten, we are amidst a pandemic right now. The economy has contracted by 33%, and over five million working Americans have lost their health insurance. By the end of this year, that number is projected to jump up to 10 million. In total, almost 30 million Americans have lost health insurance SO FAR. Around 28 million Americans are facing eviction from their homes as of July.

    Now I can appreciate just as well as the next cynic that in politics we must sometimes push back policy priorities for the sake of holy bipartisan consensus. But this is a national emergency. I repeat, A NATIONAL EMERGENCY. These decisions couldn’t be more tone deaf (AND CORRUPT, AND SELFISH, GREEDY, ILLOGICAL…)

     “OK, so what?”

    You may ask. What is the point of not voting for Biden? Isn’t this rejection of our democracy just an abdication of your responsibility to maintain it?

    The entire point of this rejection is that we are not being listened to. Our voice doesn’t matter, because the political systems that are meant to represent us fail to, and those that we elect regularly neglect the social problems we suffer from. Time and time again, we are compelled to vote for the “compromise candidate”. 

    Of course, compromise is not bad in principle, since we never get everything we want in politics.

    But compromise should go both ways. When a candidate finds themselves in Biden’s position, it is imperative that they try to incorporate key progressive ideas into the agenda. But Biden has failed to do this, and has instead contented himself with sidelining progressives, and making token concessions that are mostly meaningless.

    To vote for Biden, most progressives will now have to completely betray the values and policies they advocated for and get squat in return. This situation epitomizes the persistent inability of Washington’s political class to connect with a younger and more diverse voter base.

    It is also a reminder that the voice that really matters to America’s current political elite is the voice of the 1%.  The richest of all Americans contribute billions of dollars towards lawmakers, think tanks, and lobbyist groups to ensure the laws that they want are passed. 

    Is it any wonder then that 90% of all laws passed in the past decade were aligned with the policy priorities of this billionaire class?

    And while we indeed have a responsibility as citizens of a democracy to remain engaged and informed, this isn’t the full picture. Civic responsibility is really a reciprocal relationship. Citizens should strive to become active and informed voters, but their government should also undertake measures to facilitate this.

    This can mean promoting better education, better access to healthcare, unemployment benefits, entitlement programs, etc. But at its base, it means that the consensus of the electorate must be honored.

    This is something that rarely occurs in the United States.

    For instance, multiple polls have shown that 92% of Americans support universal background checks for gun sales. Nevertheless, a lobbying group with just over 5 million members has successfully stymied all attempts to enact this policy for decades. Virtually every major political issue in America suffers from a similar roadblock.  

    If such a social contract becomes increasingly neglected or violated, the integrity of this relationship begins to deteriorate. Eventually, the act of compliance, of going on with a ‘business as usual’ routine, becomes illogical. When a system becomes sufficiently dysfunctional, statements like “all we need is to elect this guy who isn’t that great but at least he is not a fascist and maybe he will do a good thing” are far from reasoned opinions but are in fact relativist ruses. 

    Its akin to trying to raise full sail when the ship is on fire (and then quickly tearing the sails down because some "moderate" asshole in suburban Iowa might get upset).

    Of course, this argument completely ignores the fact that for millions of Americans, the United States has never honored this social contract in its 200+ year existence. Black and brown Americans have long been deprived the same rights, social status, and economic opportunities of whites, and they have been the target of brutal oppression for centuries. 

    For them, America’s civic contract has long been nothing but a fantasy.

    So, they have even less reason to vote for Biden, or indeed for any establishment Democrat since that establishment has been just as instrumental in hurting them as the one that backs Donald Trump.  

    More on Biden…

    The truth is that Biden and Trump are of the same ilk. They both belong to that exclusive club that neither you nor I am in. This is the elite club that really runs America. Sure, it’s ridiculous to say that Biden and Trump are the same since they clearly are not. As in all groups, some are smarter than others, some are better spoken, or more refined.

    In his typical bombastic style, Trump once claimed he would “knock the hell out of ISIS” and “take out their [the terrorists’] families”. Boasting in blasé fashion about a willingness to commit war crimes certainly is terrible. But while Trump may be a warmonger, Biden is a war-wager.

    He voted for the catastrophic Iraq War, though that’s not that special since most democrats did (that was a democrat-controlled Senate after all). However, Biden did a lot more than just vote for that war.

    He campaigned for it.

    As chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Biden was gung-ho for invading Iraq. And he translated his stance into action, choosing the 18 witnesses for the main Senate hearing on Iraq, almost all of whom were pro-war. These witnesses helpfully parroted the lies that Iraq supported and harbored al-Qaeda militants (the Baathists hated al-Qaeda), that Iraqis “would welcome the United States as liberators” (they didn’t), and that Iraq was or would be WMD capable (it wasn’t and isn’t).

    As we now know, the Iraq war proved to be one of the most disastrous foreign policy actions in US history, claiming 4,500 American lives, and killing as many as a million Iraqis. We have Biden and his fellow sabre-rattlers to thank on that score. 

    And thanks to the deadly spate of drone strikes which were ramped up during the Obama administration, Biden could very well be complicit in heinous war crimes. In other words, while Trump talks about bombing families, Biden has bombed families.

    It’s just that unlike the dumbass in the White House, Biden has enough sense not to play that up as a plus.  

    Thus, to use Trump’s lunacy to rationalize voting for Biden is to indulge in a cocktail of moral relativism. “Biden isn’t as bad as Trump, right?”

    I mean, sure, he isn’t a fascist, but is that much of an endorsement? 

    Not a Panacea

    Biden simply isn’t the answer to America’s woes. He is far from a panacea for any of America’s problems, and in certain instances he was one of the main architects of the social problems America currently struggles with.

    He comes from a very particular stock of Washington politician. He is of the same swamp, if you will, filled with other creatures that are similarly opportunistic and spineless. As a congressman, Biden has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no issue with using racism, sexism, or other dirty politics to advance his political career, and he has made a hell of a lot of money in the process.

    The corruption that plagues our system – and that enables Trump – is the same corruption that made Biden a household name. Biden has reached one of the highest perches of DNC power thanks in no small part to his willingness to game this broken system.

    As a Senator, Biden worked tirelessly to institute mandatory minimums and other policies that have exacerbated America’s mass incarceration crisis. All the while, he employed thinly veiled racist language and scare tactics to argue for these policies. 

    At the same time, the then Senator opposed and then supported busing depending on the prevailing winds of political expedience.

    Though he saw nothing wrong with the federal government forcing state judiciary systems to adopt the autocratic laws of our bloody war on drugs – such as mandatory minimums – he now balks at the idea of using the federal government to support local #defundthepolice initiatives.

    Biden was also an unapologetic supporter of the anti-abortion Hyde amendment, and only recanted his support for the controversial law recently. Between that and his bungling of Anita Hill’s Clarence Thomas testimony, his handsyness with women and girls, and his unresolved rape allegation, Biden’s record on women is less than stellar.

    And yet, some Democrats seem convinced he will be the next FDR. Why? That would constitute a paradigm shift in virtually everything Biden – a committed centrist – stands for.

    Why on earth should we trust Biden to do anything to combat these problems, especially when he has given absolutely no indication that he has any intention of doing so? His history and career in no way supports this delusional assertion.

    Biden’s proposed solutions for America’s lack of socialized medicine, its rampant wealth inequality, its exponential student debt, and its oppression of black and brown people have been woefully inadequate, or nonexistent. We are simply expected to take Uncle Joe’s word, and ‘hope’ that he will enact at least some of the sweeping changes progressives campaigned for, even though neither his political career nor his 2020 campaign suggests anything of the sort.

    Unfortunately, none of what I’ve said really seems to matter to many Democrats. They have decided that anything – even voting against their own best interests – is worth it if it gets the angry orange man out of the White House.

    This to me is simply insanity.

    And it is a grim portent for the future of our society as one that is free, rational, and equal. It shows how many Americans are perfectly willing to allow the effective decline of our society, and the continued suffering of millions simply for the sake of eliminating the moral conflict that Trump elicits within them. 

    Voting for Biden won’t make any of the problems of the Trump presidency disappear. The problems we face predate this presidency.

    Instead, millions of Americans seem content with pushing those problems to the foreground, where we don’t have to worry about them, and don’t have to address them.

What a Fucking Shame.

 Share this article, and leave a comment! All engagement is good engagement, if you squint hard enough. Write us at contrarypedant@gmail.com with your (angry) thoughts!   

FURTHER READING

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/07/covid-19-democrats-medicare-for-all?fbclid=IwAR1eQRQxd3Z_aELh-HOqQwvz1Ax6yZ0oqZOIzT29hgNw3VcykclCALvJYPQ

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/henrygomez/joe-biden-strom-thurmond-eulogy

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/07/joe-biden-wall-street-donors-blackstone