Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

She’s right. https://t.co/VtJweo9Q7N

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 15, 2020

Are people really debating, now, whether they're going to vote in November?

If you think it's worth debating at all, why not leave it 6 months?

Performative handwringing in the hopes of extracting concessions from the party of Michael Bloomberg.

pic.twitter.com/h9CIRElchr

— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) April 14, 2020

Setting aside that having to choose the least of two evils is a shitty situation to be in (but is very often the situation voters find themselves), and not wishing to downplay the seriousness of the sexual assault accusations that are dogging Biden, is he a bad enough candidate that another four years of Trump would be a better option? Is having, as you say, "the party of Michael Bloomberg" in power worse for the country, for its vulnerable people, for the world at large, than another four years of the Republicans? Is there any sense that a Democratic government would be easier to nudge in a progressive direction and hold to account than a Republican government, and would act in a less malign way? Is there or has there been any evidence in the last four years, and especially in the light of how the Coronavirus has been mishandled in the US, that the lesser of two evils might actually be substantially lesser of those two evils?

I realise this overwrought paragraph isn't as fun as a zingy tweet cut'n'pasted into the thread.

I don't think anyone believes that. It's a way of shootin' the shit during dark times.

Okay. I mean, I guess that's what it is, and I don't mean to "progressive-shame" anyone here. My own politics are progressive, and Biden definitely wouldn't have been my choice of candidate. But the choice seems quite stark, and I'm terrified of another four years of this.

And I guess for me the party of Biden is also the party of AOC and a thousand other bright lights who can take the government in a positive direction.

^Alfred otm and I may be very wrong but I highly doubt anyone here who lives in a swing state isn’t going to pull the lever for Joe.

he party of Biden is also the party of AOC

^^^ THIS. What I said last week about the Dems existing as a genuine coalition party at this point.

stevie, fine post but in

having to choose the least of two evils is a shitty situation to be in (but is very often the situation voters find themselves)

I think that "very often" needs to be "always."

Until we're actually voting up-or-down on a wish list that includes single-payer health care, universal basic income, abolition of private prisons, and (of course) firing billionaires into the sun? EVERY election will be lesser-of-evils for most people here.

Of course there will occasionally be candidates that we broadly like, and can happily vote FOR. But until they can attain and use real power, we will - all of us, pretty much always - be choosing among sucky options.

I hate the portion of tHe dIsCoUrsE that sometimes appears to equate "being okay with voting for Biden" as agreeing with the premise "better things aren't possible."

And I guess for me the party of Biden is also the party of AOC...

AFAICT there are way, way more Bidens than AOCs in the party.

^also v true. going to be wild as hell watching the party $$$ back conservative primary challengers to “squad” members/ justice dems etc

I can't imagine a scenario in which I don't "choose" between two evils. That's politics. It's like my complaining that hamburger meat is too fatty or something.

"Is there or has there been any evidence in the last four years, and especially in the light of how the Coronavirus has been mishandled in the US, that the lesser of two evils might actually be substantially lesser of those two evils?"

Saying things are evil is unnecessary. Look at the statements, and look at it coldly with no illusions and I see similar levels of arrogance, sleeping on the watch, China-phobia and racism, a reluctance to close business and in the call to get America to re-open Biden clearly doesn't get it.

What you'd get less off: less tweets and those bizarre conferences. That's optics.

A lot of people are going to die and starve and in both cases there are no calls for change in the number of people covered by healthcare and the kinds of investment so that, should a pandemic occur again, that people would feel the state has their back.

so... you're saying both are equally as bad as the other?

there are no calls for change in the number of people covered by healthcare and the kinds of investment so that, should a pandemic occur again, that people would feel the state has their back

I don't know what media market you live in but I started seeing a Biden TV ad yesterday that addressed exactly these points. Of course, he's Joe Biden, corporate sellout hack and serial sex abuser, so he's obviously lying and is every bit as cavalier about the lives of Americans as Trump, but you know, they made the gesture.

Oh good an ad

Then there's the whole Trotskyite thing where the worse things get, the better, because it will provoke a greater uprising from the masses, blah blah pendulum thingy.

It's not about the person, but about what they will and won't do and ultimately it's about outcomes.

Biden has yet to give an indication this might end less badly. And of course this is a pandemic today but next time it might be a climate related event. Has he even tried to dangle a carrot to the left on that one? xps to Stevie

temporarily breaking my self-imposed ban from politics threads to say don’t waste your breath arguing with someone who can’t tell the difference between Biden and Trump and who also cannot vote here

and who also cannot vote here

My ignorance about who most posters are/where they're located strikes again.

Biden is better than Trump but the difference is less stark than many would like to think.

It’s pretty fucking stark

yeah this is dumb

The problem with the 'differences are stark' 'vote for the lesser evil this time' yada yada yada is that it repeats the same cycle over and over. Every four years the can of anything getting better gets kicked down the road and we wind up with fifty years of declining real wages, rising inequality, mass incarceration, a student debt crisis drowning 1-2 generations, a looming climate change catastrophe, 20 years of brutal and criminal global war. Faced directly with a pandemic, the liberal party is as hamstrung with austerity and deficit hawking as the conservative party. The lesser evil doesn't just have no answer for any of that, he was a primary force in getting us to this place.

From a political angle, lesser evilism just makes things worse because the candidates are prone to losing anyway.

At some point, it becomes reasonable to ask when we're going to lesser evil ourselves into oblivion and when it's okay to dig your heels in and take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future.

You can scream that this is not that point - but Donald Trump remains only the third or fourth most evil Republican President of my lifetime. (Which, obviously, still earns him a place hung upside by a lamp-post with his mistress, but he's not even the worst of the last 15 years.)

At some point, it becomes reasonable to ask when we're going to lesser evil ourselves into oblivion and when it's okay to dig your heels in and take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future.

what are the best examples of "take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future"? examples in which that worked and led to better things, i mean

Donald Trump remains only the third or fourth most evil Republican President of my lifetime

Show your work.

I think he's the most evil but also hands down the dumbest, which extends to his enablers which are inept in ways that guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney weren't. it prevents him from being as destructive I guess but then again I'm still trying to imagine a scenario in which a Trump presidency during 9/11 would have resulted in less than 2 million civilian casualties

Show your work.

Ronald Reagan, George W Bush - more evil in every way, in particular body count

HW Bush - more arguable but I'd certainly give Desert Storm and the Highway of Death the nod

huh -- I can't believe we haven't yet polled worst 20th century dictator.

what are the best examples of "take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future"? examples in which that worked and led to better things, i mean

From the left, it hasn't really been tried - that's the problem.

We know that falling in line hasn't worked.

yea we kind of need to agree on a definition of "evil" before we can really catalogue these fucks. I would argue that Trump letting 100,000 Americans die because of pettiness toward Obama/an unwillingness to let his administration "look bad" is something even GWB wouldn't have done

i am very, very skeptical about any accelerationism "plan"

xp

Because GWB's reaction to the crises of his time - you know, pre-9/11 intelligence or Katrina for fuck's sake - were so stunning? What part of a body count we don't actually know in New Orleans leads anyone to believe he would have handled a public health crisis any better?

I didn't say it was accelerationism - it's literally deciding on when to apply what little power individuals and 'the left' have. Lesser evilism is directly contributing to the acceleration of the world getting shittier.

If it helps you get by to convince yourself that the guy with 1.5 million Iraqi bodies on his souls is a better man than Trump, do you.

uh, i think they're both awful and dumb. it's interesting to try to compare them, i guess, but it's two different flavors of burnt plastic.

on the whole Lesser Evilism vs Accelerationism vs actually Lesser Evilism IS Accelerationism thing, i am very much sympathetic to the idea that having our choices reduced to the lesser of two evils, every single election in my lifetime, sucks. but that doesn't make it a good idea to throw in the towel on Biden and hope that everyone is so shocked but how bad that life sucks in the aftermath that they decide to become a democratic socialist.

but that doesn't make it a good idea to throw in the towel on Biden

I didn't say it did - I'm not electioneering for or against anyone. If you feel compelled to vote for the senile sex pest, go for it. Live your best life, you'll probably be dead before the ocean swallows Florida anyway.

But it's not unreasonable or immoral to decide that it's time to break that pattern.

how?

the Dems existing as a genuine coalition party at this point

where only one faction gets its way every. fucking. time.

Voters had a chance in February-March.

xpost.

I wouldn't lean too hard on the "voters coulda done it in the primaries!!!" given how much of the country didn't get to participate meaningfully in the primary.

not in my fuckin' state xp

yeah THAT

It's also not really relevant to this question.

If the Democratic primary voters - with absolutely no influence from the media or party leadership - rejected a progressive message in favor of mass incarceration and the needs of Citi Bank, that's just a sign that the left's votes need to be held hostage to achieve desired ends. Acting within the system didn't work, might as well try blackmail.

it might be useful to consider how the republican party moved to the far right, over the last 30-40 years, both as an example, and also as a cautionary tale. what you're suggesting sounds like the freedom caucus - which "worked", sort of! for people like mark meadows, i mean. i think the left needs a different path.

What would that path be?

ultimately i think you're right that the left needs to use its leverage, in the form of not automatically falling in line for the latest piece of shit joe biden-esque candidate. but doing it now, in the wake of the sanders/warren loss, just seems unorganized and improvisatory. i won't pretend to know exactly how it would work, but in order to succeed, progressive votes needs to be organized. what are the progressive demands for a vote for biden? who is making those demands? and what are the consequences for biden if he doesn't move further to the left? etc

here's an idea: start the primaries in the states with the largest population, then alternate with the smallest and do that down the line so that we get input from big and small america.

It is unorganized and improvisatory - but it would be in four more years or eight more years or etc..

You can't form the Committee To Not Vote For The Lesser Evil, appoint yourself arbiter of what will get your members to vote and go from there. You have to have enough voters with the fortitude to not do it in the first place and coalesce around that.

Step one is just telling people that it's okay to vote their conscience and that the people who tell them that voting for Gloria La Riva in California was the same as personally anointing Donald Trump President are assholes and liars. If you want to move things along, organize people to vote third party in safe states.