Time To Fully Support President-elect Joe Biden
By: Ravyne Hawke
Tags: Politics, Democratic Socialism, Election 2020, Essay, Opinion

OPINION | POLITICAL

Time To Fully Support President-elect Joe Biden

We must all unite to save our great nation

Image by The White House from Washington, DC — V011013DL-0556

I won’t dilly-dally around here — I am a Democratic Socialist and a Progressive. I often vote for Democrats or Independents. My political views are more aligned with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the Squad (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan). My favorite Economist is Richard D. Wolff. And I would prefer to see our country (the US) ran similar to the Nordic European countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, as well as Greenland and the Faroe Islands) which are all social democracies.

As an aside, it really annoys me that socialism is a big, bad word here in the United States. Too many people confuse it with Communism, authoritarianism and dictatorships much like the former Soviet Union, China and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. While these countries claim(ed) to be Socialist, they were/are not. Instead of putting the power into the hands of the working class, they each consolidated power under the State and the ruler of the State. That is Communism, not Socialism.

With all of that said, I am also a realist. I know and understand there has been a lot of damage to the norms of governance in the United States under Trump’s four year term as president. He has led us close to the edge of Fascism and authoritarianism. And because of that, I recognize that the majority of the country wants to get back to center and normalcy. We can and will do that under President-elect Joe Biden. And he will have a full plate for the next four years. He has a pandemic to get under control, as well as an economy and an education system in shambles. He will need time to rebuild all of this while also building bridges with our allies once again. And he will need everyone’s support — progressives, liberals, centrists, and even moderate Republicans across the aisle.

So what can people such as myself do in the meantime? We can educate the public on what Democratic Socialism and a social democracy are. Give them examples by relying on the successes of the Nordic Europeans. Remind them that we already enjoy some social programs here in the US —social security, our first responders, public libraries, and highway systems to name a few. And we can run for offices on the local and state levels all over the country, helping to spread the ideas of free college education, free healthcare, and a Green New Deal that would benefit the lives of everyone on this planet. We need to spread love, peace and understanding. And we can do this by leading by example, using not only words, but deeds and actions. And finally, we need to work with — not against — liberals, centrists and moderates.

So while I would love to see the US become a social democracy as soon as possible, I know that the majority of the US needs to become familiar with what true socialism is and to no longer fear it. It can work along side Capitalism as it does in Nordic Europe, but just not the selfish Capitalism that works only for the upper one-percent as it does here in the US.

Finally, while I would have preferred a President-elect Bernie Sanders, I did vote for and I will support Joe Biden. And I encourage other Progressives to also support him. We are making strides with our social issues and we will continue to do so, but now’s the time to set the country back to center and normalcy and by throwing our complete support behind Joe Biden, I believe we will achieve that goal. We can go back to the in-fighting in the Democrat party over policies after President Biden reverses all that Trump left in disarray.

© 2020 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.