Why I Have No More Patience for Anti-Biden Progressives
By: Tim Libretti
Tags: Politics, Equality, Society, Economy, Election 2020

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Back in 2000, my car’s back bumper proudly displayed a sticker that read “Bush-Gore: For a Democracy-Free America.” My attention had been captured by the ticket of Ralph Nader and Winona La Duke, running as the Green Party candidates. Nader in particular talked about the world in common sense ways, about how the vast resources we have could actually be used to serve people. Common sense, indeed, but not at all common in our political discourse. Politicians did not speak with the intricacy and depth he did, nor did they talk about all the basic ways the country could be returned to the people. I remember, for example, Nader talking about how the government funded medical research at universities that led to breakthroughs but then how the researchers owned or sold the patents to private companies who then charged consumers exorbitant prices for prescription drugs, the invention of which our tax dollars had funded.

It all made sense. How could the majority of Americans not find this guy compelling and eye-opening, if he had a large stage? I saw change on the horizon. Not immediately, though. I didn’t think he could win, but I thought this ticket could garner 5% of the vote, which would have guaranteed the Green Party an automatic ballot spot in the next presidential election and given time for a real third party alternative to gain momentum and traction in the electoral arena as a real viable alternative. Geez, I and thousands of others were paying 10 bucks a ticket to attend Nader’s rallies, and the arenas were packed. This could be a movement, I thought, an electoral movement.

And I had no faith in the Democratic Party. They colluded with the Republicans to keep Nader out of the major televised debates. This disgusted me and gave credence to my bumper sticker. Neither of these parties practiced, much less seemed to believe in, democracy. Sick.

Moreover, I got real tired of hearing how Nader was taking “Gore’s” votes, as if Gore was entitled to my or anyone’s vote. Shouldn’t he earn people’s votes by developing policy platforms that actually addressed the serious issues voters actually faced in their lives, and not just think he deserved our votes because he wasn’t George W. Bush? Again, Gore’s smugness and arrogance disgusted me.

Looking back, with 20/20 hindsight, I’m not sure I can say with the same confidence that the election of Bush over Gore wasn’t rather consequential. While I viewed the Clinton/Gore regime as an affront to working people, women, and people of color and viewed Clinton’s support for NAFTA as unforgiveable, I do suspect a Gore presidency would likely have not resulted in the endless wars the Big Oil affiliated tag team of Bush and Cheney pursued, disproportionately impacting the working class and people of color. And Gore might actually have initiated significant measures to address climate change, the effects of which also disproportionately impact the working class and people of color.

If someone said I could go back in time and change my vote, and that vote would make the difference in electing Gore, I’d have to say I’d do it. I don’t believe my saying “no” to the Bush/Gore ticket is going to bring about fundamental social change any more swiftly. Mass organizing and action is most effective in this regard., and why not have a better alternative in office while movements do their work outside and around the electoral process? I do think change can come through our electoral processes. The Affordable Care Act was one of the largest downward distributions of wealth in U.S. history. And typically, with great voter turnout, 60% of eligible voters elect our president. Imagine all eligible voters participated? Candidates would have to vie for those votes and create platforms that appealed to this mass of voters.

It does matter who is in office responding to the pressure movements can bring to bear. We see now, for example, that Joe Biden and the Democrats are far more open and responsive to the Black Lives Matter movement than Trump, who simply reacts by increasing racial repression and stoking the fires of white supremacy.

The typical thinking from those progressives who eschew Biden and downplay the differences between Trump and Biden, claiming them to be equivalent stooges of corporate America, is that if things get even worse, then exacerbated suffering, austerity, and inhumanity are somehow more likely to spur some kind of revolutionary mass uprising.

We will have to think about that. While not uniformly, Democrats have historically been more inclined to support organized labor and the organizing of labor. They have been more inclined to advocate for civil rights — not perfectly, but there has been receptivity, especially when it comes to Supreme Court appointees.

In any case, let me be clear that I am not apologizing for the Democratic Party or valorizing it as key engine of social change historically. Al Gore would not have eliminated racism; he would not have had a radical racial agenda; he would not have had an anti-capitalist agenda. And yet keeping us out of war and addressing climate change are ways of addressing the quality of life for the working class and people of color.

Maybe I’ve gotten softer politically as I’ve grown older, but I have stopped thinking in terms of the lesser evil and been turning that around to think in terms of what election outcome is most possible and will bring more good, rather than less evil, to people, even if not enough good to fully correct insufficiencies and injustices, and also give us a better orientation for the future. I don’t think that making people’s lives worse will create more fertile conditions for fundamental and revolutionary transformation in the future.

So what does all this mean for November 2020? Will the results of this election be without consequence? That is, will it not matter for U.S. society, in all its dimensions, whether Trump or Biden wins? And will not voting, opting out and saying “no” to candidates who don’t align with a more radical redress of the American system, somehow help fuel a movement or produce a candidate that can accomplish a radical restructuring of this system?

Trump has made clear he aims to abolish democracy and squelch the voice of voters. The Democratic Party, galvanized by Stacey Abrams, has fought hard against voter suppression. This in itself is a big deal.

Biden would reconstruct the public sphere that Trump has destroyed. He will try to make health care more affordable and accessible; he will take steps toward addressing climate change, rather than denying it; he will respond to our overwhelming public health crisis, rather than denying and inflaming it.

The differences are rather stark. While far from bringing a radical overhaul of the unjust structural, political, and social inequalities in American society, the Democrats promise a recognition if not full achievement of democracy and leave open the future possibilities for increased democratization of U.S. society. Trump has been and aims to keep foreclosing on those possibilities.

The moment is a nervous and terrifying one; and I have no patience for progressives who, in holding fast to some principle and offering no immediate alternative, abet the inhumanity and violence of the Trump administration that every day effectively murders more of us.