A Time for Choosing
By: Minnesota-Based Human
Tags: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, 2020

Since the start of this race I have been torn between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as my top choice for the Democratic nomination. The choice between the two was always difficult since they were so similar in many ways and each offered a bold and necessary shift from the status quo that we have been wallowing in for decades. This is not to say that there are not clear differences between the two, there are, they each bring their own unique strengths and weaknesses to the table. My plan has always been to ultimately support whichever one was most viable and able to defeat the centrist/status quo wing of the party, well it is now quite clear who that person is.

I am supporting Bernie Sanders and more importantly, I am supporting the movement behind him, which is larger than any one candidate. If 2016 taught us nothing else, it’s that movements are stronger and more successful than mere campaigns and Bernie has one of the great all-time movements with him. The last Democrat to have a real movement was Obama in 2008. Joe Biden, Bernie’s main opponent for the nomination clearly does not have an enthusiastic movement behind him. Sure, Biden can win some votes, but so many of those votes are half-hearted and based on the cynical calculation that now is not the time to take a risk on a candidate like Bernie and we must play it safe in order to beat Trump. Well I learned that lesson in 2016, I backed Clinton despite having strong sympathies with Bernie because I naively believed that the safe choice would bring about electoral success and ensure that the far right would not take hold of Congress or the courts. This of course backfired spectacularly as voters were and still are looking for real change and not the tired bromides of establishment politics.

This is the generational battle of our time. Young voters overwhelmingly support and love Bernie, older voters are choosing Biden as a sensible, oatmeal-like choice. Here is the thing, Democrats win when they go with the candidate that can harness the support of young people, when they abandon the young, as they did in 2016, they tend to lose. And don’t bother listening to anyone screaming about what happened to George McGovern in 1972 and how he was too far left and lost badly. For starters that was 50 years ago and more importantly, since 2000 the Democrats have lost each time they picked the safe choice (Gore, Kerry, Clinton). The one time they took a risk and went with Obama, the “radical” candidate with big risks and the backing of young people, they won big. The entire party’s older, wealthier establishment lining up behind Biden to stop Bernie will only further exacerbate the generational divide among Democrats and make Bernie’s supporters even more angry and demoralized, which will depress turnout. Biden might be able to defeat Trump, but I do not want to relive 2016 by putting forth yet another candidate who is a mushy moderate without a vision and a lifetime of bad votes and cozying up to the DC establishment.

So why am I personally backing Bernie? For me it is less about Bernie himself and all about what he is fighting for and who he is fighting for. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of things about Bernie, he has been a tireless and lonely fighter for the downtrodden and disenfranchised his entire career. He was in favor of marriage equality and LGBTQ rights long before most Democrats were even willing to talk about them. He has been a consistent voice of moral clarity in trying to keep us out of endless wars and call out excessive defense spending. To say nothing of his tireless advocacy for universal health care, getting money out of politics, debt-free college, combating climate change, civil rights, veterans care, criminal justice reform, higher wages, and empowering workers and their unions. Obviously, Bernie himself is an imperfect leader of this movement, he is 78 and can be a little gruff, but at the end of the day young people feel something about him deep down that they largely do not feel about anyone else and that is that Bernie is fighting for them. Bernie offers them real hope of something better.

Younger Americans, those of us under 45 or so, have had a very different experience with the economy than those who preceded us. Stable middle-class jobs, affordable health care, solid retirement plans, affordable housing, cheap college, and so much more were widely available (assuming you were white, and especially if you were a straight white male) to the Boomer and Silent generations. Millennials, many Gen Xers and now Gen Z have never lived in this world and in many cases, their path to achieving the same quality of life as their parents and even grandparents is significantly more narrow if not almost impossible. This explains so much about the rise of Bernie and Warren and their progressive agenda. Unfettered capitalism has been cruel to young people in this country, while older folks never had to face this many core economic challenges so directly (maybe aside from those in some rust belt communities). I mean if you don’t support Bernie or Warren ask yourself this, would you continue to support your candidate (Biden) if you didn’t have reliable & affordable health care or if you didn’t own a home or if you had a substantial amount of student debt?

This struggle is central to Bernie’s campaign and is exemplified in his recent slogan, which for me is the best campaign slogan there is, “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know as much as you are willing to fight for yourself?”

This is perfect, and gets to why I came to care so much about politics in the first place. It reminds me a lot of Paul Wellstone and that is a damn good thing.

Look I know, some people will still see Bernie as too risky. I get it, that whole fear of the “s-word”. Nothing I could say will convince people that socialism is not a scary thing, even though most have absolutely no idea what it means or that Bernie is not advocating actual socialism or anything other than Nordic-style social democratic programs that work quite nicely with capitalism. So Bernie has some risks, but do you think his risks are any worse than Biden’s? If so you should really take a closer look at Biden’s record and his campaign.

First off, Biden seems to be running the same strategy that Clinton used against Trump, which is to call him an unintelligent meanie while politely asking Americans to come together in support of some abstract notion of honorable norms without offering them anything compelling in terms of policy. Then there is Biden’s record, which offers Trump so many targets:

Repeatedly called for cuts in social security and medicare

Backed the NAFTA trade deal (PA, MI, OH, and WI will love this)

Was one of the lead authors of the 94 crime bill which helped explode America’s prison population and disproportionately harmed people of color

Voted for the Iraq War

Made it harder for people including those with student loan debt to file for bankruptcy

His treatment of Anita Hill at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings

You know, the usual stuff timid and defensive Democrats have been supporting for decades now. All of this and more will be used against Biden by Trump. The key takeaway here is that Bernie and Biden are both about equally electable vs Trump in November, and I would argue Bernie might even have a slightly better chance.

Even if Biden wins, his ideas are actually more implausible than Bernie’s. He believes he can get Republicans to work with him and he thinks we can cure cancer and of those two the cancer cure is much more likely. Imagine living through the Obama years and still thinking the Republicans will work with you on anything.

Okay, so now that I have said all that let me say the obligatory stuff, Biden is a decent human being who would be a much much much better president than Trump and if he is the nominee you should vote for him. Just never ever stop holding his feet to the fire, don’t fall in line, make him earn it every single day.

One final thing, Elizabeth Warren deserved so much better. She has run an amazing campaign and has put forth an endless stream of important policy proposals that along with Bernie and the rising left, will fuel this party and country for years to come. Some will want to blame Bernie for Warren’s failure to launch, but it was the Biden/Klobuchar/Pete wing of the party who never gave her a fair shot. This thing should have come down to Bernie and Warren and then we would have had a real contest of ideas and passion, instead of Bernie versus the “change is scary” folks. The media also played a fateful role in harming Warren, attacking her policies in ways they never did of the moderates, not to mention all of the sexist bullshit about likability and electability. It saddens me to not be a part of Team Warren, but as I said this is not about one candidate, this is about fighting for the vision this country needs.