don charles

On Voting for Biden: A Rant - #43

Hello Maiyah (and friends)!

Yes, yes, I’m aware this one is going to be political. Don’t burn me at the stake.

A lot of you seemed to like my last post “On Having a Diary”. Thank you all for the kind words recently, I appreciate the nice emails :)

{Note: today’s Silly Sh*t was recorded after a hike-run on Sunday. Enjoy.}

On Voting for Biden: A Rant

13min reading time

As many of you know, I'm a political junkie. That said, prepare yourself as I'm going to completely nerd out in this post.

Here are my beliefs. I am really "liberal” — but if I could choose a world to live in, it would be one based on voluntary association and an absence of a state. However that will most likely never happen, so in our current reality, I’m a believer of liberalism. MAGA friends like to call me a "commie", which is deeply concerning if what makes me a “commie” is me wanting single-payer healthcare, but whatever. Note: “welfare” isn’t a bad word.

But some of you reading this are Trump supporters, and that's okay, welcome to my little party... there's Budweiser in the fridge — and I hope you'll stick around to read this, but I'm going to be really addressing the liberal friend... friends... that tell me the following:

"I'm not voting." 

— "I am not voting, Don." Hmm, okay, why is that?; "Well, I certainly hate Trump, but Biden is not much better, I mean, it's basically two bad candidates, like, you know, I'm a liberal — but Biden supported mass incarceration in the 90s and he said 'you ain't black', and I don't know if I can check a little box on a piece of paper for such a guy," — hmm, gotcha, alright — well, here, I have a solution and it's really simple, very painless, and will only take about 2 or 3 hours depending on where you live (unless you live in a majority-black county, in which case... I heard Bojack Horseman has 6 seasons) — okay, ready?, great — so, what you do is make sure that you're registered to vote — okay? — then you go to the nearest polling place, or if you're really not vibing with this whole pandemic thing, you can go to the nearest dropoff box (unless you live in Texas, in which case you can tell Governor Greg Abbott to go fuck himself) — so, you're at the polling place or the dropoff box, and you fill out your ballot — and once you get to the last page, where you vote for the president, you're going to look at that list, skip Trump, go past all the nobodies, and bubble in "Joe Biden"...

… look, you probably want to stop reading, but please, hear me out: you have to understand the current crisis of liberalism in this country; the establishment Democrats in the United States don't really represent liberal values, and you probably just thought, "Uh, of course they do? Like, we/they support BIPOC, LGBT, transgender women of color, I mean, come on Don, of course they're liberal!" — and my retort is: okay, so if all it takes to be a liberal nowadays in 2020 America is be supportive of hot button social issues, then yeah, job well done! Mission Accomplished! — but here's the reality: the middle class has been completely destroyed over the last 40 years and wealth inequality is at an all-time high; and I'm not saying social issues don't matter, because they do!, all I'm saying is... fuck, there's rent to pay, I'm under my parent's health insurance, college friends are 50k in the hole, they can't buy a house, marry, have kids, or whatever the fuck because their state of living is utter shit and having a family is impossible in this job market — like, our school systems are shit, there's trash all over our cities, people are living on the streets, there's a bloated military that's all over the fucking world, like, I would never raise a child in 21st century America — Never. — and so what? What contributed to us all living in a mentally-ill, polluted, dirty, uneducated, sick, obese, anti-social, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" society?... in my opinion, I blame conservative fiscal policy. (We can call it “neoliberalism” in some cases; some deem it “moderate”, but in my opinion, what we call “moderate” is actually conservative compared to other countries).

It's been in play for years. Years. It started when LBJ left office and Republicans subsequently having a stronghold over the economy for almost 30 years from 1964 to 1992 (and yes, I'm ignoring Jimmy Carter; more on him later), and what Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and H.W. Bush enacted were conservative policies that crushed the American middle class and made the rich, well, richer... and it all ended in the 1990s. The End. — I'm fucking with you, it didn't end. It's still happening today.

"Wait, hold up —"

"...are you suggesting that the Democratic party has been playing with conservative fiscal policy for years? Years?" and the answer is yes, yes they have; ... it began, I believe (feel free to attack me on this) in the 1992 election with the Democratic Leadership Council (which evolved into the New Democrat Coalition that currently, as of today, has 106 members and is the 2nd largest congressional caucus); they came up with the idea of, "Hey, Reagan got all those white working-class folks, and those were our guys! We need those guys to win! And we haven't been back in business in the last 3 presidential elections," and you know what they did?, they figured it out: get a slick, charming guy from the South who kisses black babies on the campaign trail and you gotta homerun with Bill Clinton:

And so Clinton did his thing: cut taxes on poor people, raised taxes slightly on rich people, passed welfare reform, and did a lot of other stuff that's questionable; didn't matter, won re-election! — and he and a bunch of other Democrats got their wins by following a new way... or, as they called it, a Third Way: "so here's the plan Uncle Sam: we're going to be socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative and we're going to win votes and hold office by taking the path toward the middle — the middle road — the center, because as Republicans keep moving their positions further to the right, we're going to be smart about it and be in the middle," and that's what the Clinton administration did for 8 years; cut to Obama — "no, Obama was like a liberal-liberal, not one of these Third Way guys_..._ right?"... sorry — Obama led a Third Way administration (remember: centrist — socially liberal, but fiscally conservative), —  think of an alternative Clinton administration, but just a little nudge slightly to the left. And social media. — yes, in regards to social policy, Obama didn't pass a 1994 Crime Bill or NAFTA or proposed intervening in Bosnia... but he did renew the Patriot Act, defended the NSA, and did:

[...] ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during [his] presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
— The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

And look — Obama was cool. He knew his shit. But I don’t think he did enough. You know, it’s funny: Republicans (and conservatives in general) throughout his presidency called him a “socialist”, or a “far-left radical”… when he didn’t really enact left-wing economic policies that could’ve built back the middle class. The guy wasn’t radical — he didn’t hike the corporate tax rate to 50%, or passed tuition-free college for all, or pass wealth caps. In his own words:

“The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican [...] I mean, what I believe in is a tax system that is fair. I don't think government can solve every problem.” — Barack Obama in a TV interview (The Hill)

“But the Obama years got us out of the 2007 recession, we got healthcare... gay marriage!", yes, yes, and yes, he did... but! (you're going to hate me, so here’s Obama track record on the economy) — Obama supported the 2008 Bank Bailouts; "I don't believe you...", hmm okay: here's a video of Obama literally defending it with Bernie Sanders, a vocal critic of it, in the background; the next step was his 2009 Recovery Act, which was modeled off of Keynesian economics — a normal American model of stimulating the economy during a recession; it has been used many times before by both Democrat and Republican administrations, so, you know... it was nothing groundbreaking or crazy that Republicans made it out to be in the early 2010s — and yes, he got us healthcare... that was modeled off of a bipartisan bill from the 90s that had its base in a "health insurance marketplace" with an "individual mandate" — From the 90s to the late 2000s, its history can be traced back to conservative policies that were eventually experimentally implemented by Massachusetts then-Governor Mitt Romney... yeah, that guy... and his social policy on gay marriage?, I mean, that was such a fucking close call: a 5-4 split on the Supreme Court?, and Obama not really moving the needle on gay rights? (okay, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell was a big fucking thing, but aside from that) — I don't know if he can take credit for gay marriage, even though he always supported it, and many other social issues; overall: yes, he raised taxes slightly on rich people to pay for Obamacare and increased budgeting for food stamps and some subsidies, and a few things here and there, but the bottom line is this: wealth inequality got worse under Obama. Again, I think Obama did an okay job… but didn’t do enough. (I mean, you can definitely blame the gridlock he had on the Republicans in Congress… but still.)

Those are the facts. Obama. Bill Clinton. Al Gore. Hillary Clinton. All these administrations (and would-be administrations if we abolished the Electoral College) have been centrist administrations: socially liberal, fiscally conservative. And the middle class and the state of living in the United States has only gotten worse since the 1990s.

Which brings me to Joe.

Joe Biden... is the ultimate centrist candidate, and if you're a conservative and are tired of Trump — this is your fuckin' guy, like, I cannot stress enough how middle-of-the-road he is, and liberal friends, I understand: looking at his voting record and his positions over time, he is the least "left" person in the Democratic party — but you need to know this one thing... you're not voting for another Obama, or even a Hillary Clinton, or an Al Gore, or a Bill Clinton. You're voting for a Jimmy Carter —

— you see, Carter was this "outsider candidate" in the 1976 election, and Republicans were in a shitshow with the Nixon administration; so Americans didn't know who would be the Democratic contender... and Carter said, "Guys, look at me!" and Americans said, "Holy fuck, let's vote for this nobody, I'm so fucking tired of establishment politicians," and so they did — what did the Carter administration do?: 1) "No" to a national health insurance infrastructure, 2) Iran Hostage Crisis and other crisis shit, 3) nothing. He got nothing done. —Yeah, he got a small stimulus passed, but... meh... overall, his presidency was dismal and really unremarkable, and on top of that, he believed in conservative fiscal policy, something that older "New Deal Democrats" at the time hated (again, admittedly, he still didn't do a lot). But what does this have to do with Joe Biden?:

Yes… this is an actual gif that his campaign made. Go here for source: https://gph.is/g/ZyYXKmO

Like Carter, Biden is a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Democrat that is here to fill the void of the great Republican fuck up of 2016. They fucked up. As they always do. In 2016, Americans supported Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. Republicans, who struggled to get their shit passed for 8 years under Obama, thought, "If this is our fucking ticket to getting those tax cuts passed, deregulate America, and help my rich friends... then fuck it: Make America Great Again!" And in one full sweep, the entire Republican Party was behind Donald Trump.

Cut to 4 years later of dismantling democracy:

And he’s right.

(source)

But! — Some Americans and Republicans realize how shitty the Trump Administration is — Republicans, in secret, are saying to each other, "What a fucking moron," — but they need Trump to get their shitty bills and deregulation passed, hence why there was no major Republican figure that dared go against Donald Trump — it's political suicide; so what are Americans thinking?: "Who can save us? ... Ah, that's right: the Democrats." Because, you know, you only have two fucking choices in this country: Red or Blue?

“But who? Who’s going to be our Carter that will save us from the Republicans?”

Not Bernie, not Warren. "Too radical," they said — not Pete, and not Harris. "Not known enough," they said — so who? Who? Who is the safest option for the Democratic nominee? Who is going to win those white working-class voters that we lost in 2016 to Trump? ... Joe Biden.

... And you know what I hear? 

FRIEND
(sigh) 
"They're both bad candidates. What to do?"

...

DOES IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW?

Look, you're not voting for FDR here, or an LBJ... Biden is a guy who'll steer us back on the Third Way track. Yes, I wish I could be voting for a truly liberal candidate; I wish we had more than 2 parties in this country; I wish my vote counted as an individual and not to a congressional district; I wish for lots of things.

But what we got in front of us, right now, is all we got. Okay? So, here are the rules: there's an Electoral College, and your vote only counts if the district gets enough votes. That's the rules. It's shitty, I know, but deal with it. And if you don't like Biden — sorry, but grow up. You can vote for the centrist who will have an "okay presidency", or you can not vote and let Trump win again. You know, Trump_:_

I could go on. But if you need more convincing, then I don't know what to tell you.

Vote for Joe Biden. Please.

…

The Democratic party is still in the midst of being full of centrists, but it's cracking. You see a little bit of it today, but give it time. I personally believe that by the late 2020's, we will see some form of the 20th-century "New Deal" Democrats making a comeback. True social liberalism will return. But between now and then: Hang in there.