If Biden Loses, I'm to Blame
Here we go again
A friend of mine is calling out his progressive friends for saying they’ll vote third party in the 2024 presidential election. Basically, his argument is this. We know Biden isn’t perfect. He leaves much to be desired, notably in obvious signs of his mental and physical decline. But we also know Trump is a monster. And, since Trump and Biden are currently running neck and neck, at least in the polls, your only real “choice” is to vote for Joe against the monster.
In sum, a vote for a third-party candidate of deep integrity and strong character like Cornel West is really a vote for Monster Trump.
As I told my friend, telling people they’re making a big mistake by voting for a candidate like Cornel West is not the most effective way to win their hearts and minds. Telling them they’re throwing away their vote or that they’re really voting for Trump is hardly persuasive. In fact, it’s alienating and insulting.
If Joe Biden and the DNC want to win my vote, I want to see promises kept, progressive policies enacted, and corruption stymied and reversed. I want to see concrete results. I want changes in policy. I don’t want what Biden promised CEOs when he decided to run in 2020: that “nothing will fundamentally change.”
On so many issues, Biden has reneged on promises or otherwise failed to deliver for the working classes. He’s not a pro-union president. He hasn’t raised the federal minimum wage. He’s failed to deliver on student debt relief. There is no public option for health care. He’s approved oil and gas drilling in the most sensitive areas. Meanwhile, military budgets continue to soar as the Biden administration postures for a new Cold War with Russia and China. And I’m simply supposed to ignore this woeful record and vote for Joe because Trump is allegedly worse.
My friends tell me I expect too much from Biden and the Democrats. That they’re hamstrung by the Republicans. That Joe is doing the best he can. That I need to give Joe more chances. And so on.
But Joe Biden and the Democrats couldn’t even protect abortion rights. Barack Obama promised to codify Roe vs. Wade into law as his “top priority” but then abandoned his promise once he took office in 2009. Biden, of course, was his VP and has a long record of being critical of abortion rights. Again, however, we are told that Biden is the best hope for restoring rights that he’s never been keen on supporting, let alone protecting and extending.
If Biden loses in 2024, let’s be clear. It won’t be because some progressives voted third party. And it won’t be because of Putin or Russia or rigged voting machines or what-have-you. It will be because Biden simply couldn’t win enough votes in the right places. Because not enough voters believed in him. That’s not on people like me. That’s on Biden and the DNC.
You are 100% correct, Bill. I certainly didn't vote for Biden in 2020 because I wanted him to unleash a proxy war against Russia and waste tens of billions of dollars on weapons to kill and maim. Who gives a damn about whether Ukraine is a member of NATO? Does it make any difference in the lives of ordinary working men and women in the USA? That money should have been spent on combating climate change, increasing the federal minimum wage, free higher education, student debt relief, free child care, etc. Instead, Biden has shown himself to be an unrepentant Cold Warrior, stuck forever in a world where the US intervenes all over the world as it sees fit in order to protect its interests, no matter what. And in the process, Biden has brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Every 4 years we are told we have to vote for the Democrat to prevent the far right from taking power, and every time we are betrayed. A vote for Biden is a vote for permanent war.
It's like the old joke. They said if I voted for Goldwater we'd get a 10-year war in Vietnam. And they were right. I voted for Goldwater and that's exactly what we got.