On the Moral Imperative of Returning to Principled Politics and the Problematic Nature of Unquestioning Fealty, Or: Fuck the DNC

The Democratic Convention last week was a joke. We the people are demanding systemic change and they have responded with nothing more than vague platitudes, useless aphorisms and toy blocks that spell BLM. Not a single policy proposal that would actually help anyone was even mentioned. This is unacceptable. In an act of what can only be described as desperation, they made a pathetic bid to the right, trotting out the cast of the 1996 RNC, buttressed by morally ambiguous corporatists like Bloomberg, while only allowing AOC sixty seconds to speak and not inviting Tulsi Gabbard at all. The message couldn’t be more clear: progressives and leftists are neither welcome in the party nor necessary to their strategy. They will use minorities as pawns and coöpt the work of activists while publicly disavowing us. Emotional theatrics eclipse the fact that they do absolutely nothing but enrich the coffers of millionaires and billionaires. Neoliberals love to appear virtuous without ever actually doing anything useful.

This isn’t a difference of ideology, it is class warfare, plain and simple. In the midst of the biggest public outcry against state-sanctioned police violence in our lifetimes, the DNC is running a ticket of two people who have built their entire careers on incarcerating minorities. In the midst of a devastating worldwide global pandemic, the DNC has nominated a candidate who does not support Medicare For All. In her speech to the convention, Kamala Harris acted out all the theatrics of compassion when she spoke about how Covid-19 disproportionally affects communities of color. If she is so cognizant of this fact, why does she not support Medicare For All? Anything short of that is performative nonsense.

Be real with me: Joe Biden is a terrible candidate. I can only surmise the Democrats actually want to lose this election once again. It’s the only explanation. If the definition of stupidity is trying the same thing but expecting different results, then why do we on the left allow them to keep attempting the exact same stratagem? Hillary Clinton lost what should have been the easiest election in modern history. Joe Biden is essentially running the exact same campaign, only lazier and more disorganized. Admit it: there is no argument for Biden that doesn't involve “he isn’t Trump,” In fact, in the 21st century, the Democrats have only won when they ran a candidate who appeared to be different, who ran on a platform of change. He, of course, turned out to be a corporatist shill like all neoliberals, and those of us with critical thinking skills aren’t fooled by Biden’s pathetic attempts to ride on Mr. Obama’s coattails.

Many liberals right now are talking about a “return to normal.” But normal is the problem. Normal is what got us here. Many thought it was cute in 2016 to say: “If Hillary had won, I’d be at brunch right now.” If you’re one of those people, just know you are a part of the problem. But you don’t have to be. Normal may have worked for middle-class white people, but for many marginalized people, particularly the millions who suffered abroad due to American military hegemony, normal was devastating and deadly.

To be perfectly honest, I feel like people like Pelosi and Schumer secretly enjoy having Trump in power because they get to look like the good guys, while actually promoting horrendous policies and remaining utterly unresponsive to the needs of the people. It’s the only explanation for how little they have done to oppose him and how ridiculous they look right now courting the attention of Republicans. They get to ride on empty, performative gestures like kneeling in Kente cloth, while actually signing all of Trump’s desires into law. They use identity politics, blended with fearmongering, to attempt to hide this fact but they don’t even do a good job of it. Their intentions are the same as Republicans. As many Americans struggle with unemployment, the loss of their healthcare or pension, and face eviction and homelessness, these major crises were not even addressed at the convention! Instead, they preferred evoking pathos and maudlin biographical narratives about Biden’s family. All of the speakers basically talked about themselves or Joe Biden which couldn’t have been more hubristic and out of touch with the reality that most of us are facing. And you expect me to vote for these narcissists?

To be clear, I don’t condone anyone voting for Donald Trump, but I will say that those voters were responding to the social conditions neoliberalism has generated for the past several decades now. The Trump phenomenon could be said to be a referendum on neoliberalism itself — the logical end-result of forty years of devastating policy. Joe Biden has spent his entire career creating the social conditions that gave us Donald Trump. This goes so much deeper than just voting the “Orange Menace” out of office.

Joe Biden is a rapist, and to try and bully victims of sex abuse to vote for him is violence. Anyway, he said himself that anyone who believes Tara Reed should not vote for him. I am inclined to take him at his word.

Kamala Harris threw transwomen in men’s prisons and denied them access to healthcare. To bully gender minorities into voting for her is violence.

Joe Biden’s Crime Bill devastated communities of color. Under that and similar legislation, Kamala Harris incarcerated nearly 2000 black people for petty marijuana offenses and then laughed about her own history smoking weed. To bully people of color into voting for them is violence.

Stop using the “lesser of two evils” argument. This is a well-known fascist political strategy that serves only to ratchet the entire Overton window more and more to the right. Fascism is very good at carving out a niche within liberalism, because of the “paradox of tolerance.” When you repeat the “lesser of two evils” trope, you are playing the game for them.

Another common argument has been about Supreme Court appointments as if Biden isn’t going to appoint some absolute oligarch like Jamie Dimon or Larry Page. They’ve been making such a shameless appeal to the right-wing this whole time, why am I to assume they won’t put a Republican in that position anyway?

Perhaps the most compelling argument for Biden, which even progressive heroes like Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky are making is something about how we can encourage Biden to move leftward once he’s in office, even though he has never shown any signs of being responsive to his constituency. No politician becomes more radical once they are in power. It simply doesn’t happen. Bill Clinton ran as a populist and then very quickly shifted gears once he was in power — Obama ran on the idea of change, but showed himself to be even more of a simp for Wall Street than any of his predecessors had been. Joe Biden isn’t going to be persuaded to radical leftism when he takes office and anyway, why is it my job to help a 70-year-old man learn how to be progressive? If you have relied on this argument, please tell me: what exactly do you plan to do to make this happen? I am very curious to know your plan of action, because I suspect most of you will merely return to a lulled state of complacency, eager to get “back to brunch.”

All the liberals are scrambling right now, trying to shame actual leftists into voting for their candidate, but If the strategy is to garner votes from disaffected Trump voters, why aren’t libs trying to strong-arm the Republicans right now instead of coming after progressives? They will give exactly zero concessions to the millions of leftist and progressive voters, show their outright disdain for us, and then blame us for not voting for their corporatist puppets. Maybe, instead of blaming individual voters, you should ask what needs to be done to win us over in the future. No one is owed a vote. A vote has to be won.

Let’s be clear: one president can’t singlehandedly destroy our culture — the culture has been ill and dying for as long as I can remember. Nancy Pelosi has been in power for 33 years. Biden has been in power for 47 years! But they want us to believe that a man who has held office for less than four years is the source of all of America’s problems? Trump is certainly a fascist, and yet fascism isn’t going to end at the polls in November, regardless of which of them wins. Biden certainly shows quite a bit more decorum than Trump, but the difference between Biden and Trump is largely that: one of manners and personal conduct, rather than actual policy. Can you seriously name any significant ways in which they are different from a policy standpoint? It would seem that an aesthetic repulsion is the only thing most liberals are fixated upon.

Biden doesn’t support the Green New Deal and will almost certainly approve more pipelines, more fracking, funding for “clean coal” (a misleading euphemism), and basically be in the pocket of the petrochemical industry. As global climate change threatens to be the most insurmountable and existential threat we will face in our lifetimes, this is unacceptable and cannot be allowed. I fear the advancement of environmental destruction much more than I fear the current occupant of the White House.

Biden doesn’t support Medicare For All. As I’ve already discussed, this is insane as regular Americans are struggling to navigate a pandemic such as the world hasn’t seen in over a century.

There will be no forgiveness of student loan debt despite the millions of people who basically have no hope of ever owning a house or even a car as they are suffocating under disproportionately daunting debt from merely doing as their Boomer parents expected of them.

Evictions will proceed as planned and thousands or even millions will face homelessness as we are plunged into economic and social chaos.

Children will remain in cages at the border, the very same cages that were built under Obama. Democrats love to pretend that Trump is the reason for ICE. He is not. BLM activists will continue to be beaten, tear-gassed, and struck with rubber bullets (again, a very misleading euphemism). Many of the liberals feigning outrage at the current violence against people exercising their Constitutional rights were conspicuously silent when Obama ordered the selfsame violence to be used against the Occupy Wall Street movement.

There are even certain direct comparisons one could make where Biden could prove even more dangerous than Trump. For example: Trump’s First Step Act liberated thousands of the prisoners who were incarcerated under Biden’s Crime Bill. In terms of foreign policy, Trump has leaned more towards isolationism rather than aggressively carpet-bombing half the world like Obama, Bush, Clinton, other Bush and Reagan did. And if you’re a kid in Afghanistan, why do you care if the bombs are dropped by Team Red or Team Blue? Trump is a wildcard. Who knows what he will do. Biden on the other hand is a neoliberal. I know precisely what he will do: further decimate the working class and pursue endless warfare abroad. I think a fair assessment is that Biden may be less harmful domestically, but will end up harming a lot more people overseas. Again, this is not an endorsement of Trump but rather to say: the situation is so much more nuanced and labyrinthine than simply: Trump bad Biden good.

Donald Trump is a racist, an imbecile, and a megalomaniac, but he is not the source of America’s illness. Every single election in my lifetime has seen moderates relying on the same arguments to scare progressives out of voting outside of the party. “Now is not the time. This election is too important.” But when will the time be? If not now, when? When are we finally going to say enough is enough? In what world is more of the same going to produce different results? Obama’s presidency was a disaster, but I’m supposed to go along with extending this agenda simply because Trump is scary? A president serves four or eight years. What’s truly scary are career politicians like Hatch, Pelosi, or McConnell who have been in power for my entire lifetime.

There are little substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans at this point in our history. Trump is a monster, but Biden is a puppet for the very same corporate powers that got us in this mess. When he loses this election, progressives will be blamed for fracturing the party once again, but who is really the divisive one here? They can’t be completely unresponsive to the suffering of the masses, utterly blind to systemic injustices, and then blame everyone else when they don’t win, expecting all of us to step in line as though we owe them something.

I believe everyone should vote as their conscience dictates. If you sincerely believe in voting for Biden because that’s what you believe is the best choice, I will not shame you. If you sincerely believe in voting for a third-party candidate because that’s what you believe is the best choice, you should not be shamed for that either. I’m gonna have to ask liberals to stop ridiculing everyone who doesn’t see the world in simplified dualistic terms as they do. A vote for Gloria LaRiva is not a vote for Trump. This false equivalency is yet another scare tactic used to bully voters and it’s emotionally manipulative. A vote for Trump is a vote for Trump and a vote for LaRiva is a vote for LaRiva. People often shrug their shoulders and say a two-party system is simply the system we have, as though that were written in the Constitution somewhere. Here’s a hot take: it’s only a two-party system because people keep voting for these assholes.

Those of us that have been working for systemic change for a long time are glad you are finally becoming politically engaged, but to condescendingly tell us how to vote when your own political engagement never actually extends beyond electoral participation every four years is absurd. Maybe you should try listening for a change.

The logical next question, is a classic leftist question: What then must we do? To begin with, you need to start thinking beyond electoral politics. Vote for Biden or don’t, I honestly don’t even care but don’t let that be the end of your political involvement, and don’t act like the election in November is this huge moral imperative. It is not. For someone who only participates in presidential elections to chide someone who actually engages in community organizing and direct action because they didn’t choose the same candidate is the epitome of arrogance, and honestly, just makes you look ridiculous.

Biden supporters act as though having principles is some sort of personal indulgence, but if we do not hold politicians accountable they will continue to move further to the right, further towards fascism and will only stand to serve the interests of their billionaire donors without any sort of reckoning to the needs of the people. Trump should be defeated in November, sure. He’s a terrible person and he doesn’t deserve to be in the White House, by any stretch of the imagination, but why are liberals so willing to sacrifice any moral decency to get there? We need something to vote for, not merely someone to vote against. Any criticism of Biden is decried as an endorsement of Trump. Why is the Trump fear enough to exempt Biden from any personal accountability whatsoever?

As Briahna Joy Gray very aptly observed in her recent article “In Defense of Litmus Tests,” the idea that anything short of unconditional fealty to Biden is a vote for Trump, “removes our ability to affirm the values which will remain important long after the election is over.” Instead of shaming voters who feel disenfranchised by the entire electoral process, what if you started shaming your representatives and senators for not supporting the important issues that liberals claim to stand for? Do you even know who your congressional representatives are? Have you ever communicated with them directly? “Vote Blue No Matter Who,” basically sent the message to Democrats that they didn’t need to be responsive to the problems of average Americans and they could just continue serving the interests of their billionaire donors. We need to be doing everything we can to push Biden towards adopting the sort of progressive policies that Mr. Sanders avowed. Direct action has historically proven to be more effective than electoral politics. We need to make clear to politicians that they are owed nothing; they are supposed to be working for us, and if they cannot be responsive to our needs and demands, then we will not continue to vote for them. If we stand for nothing and there are no moral objectives left, then what good is winning the white house at all? If we ask for nothing, we shall receive it in abundance.