We need to reject Joe Biden. He represents everything wrong with the “civility"-first faction of Democratic elitism that’s been in charge of the Party for the last thirty-plus years. The kowtowing to power, the emphasis on “bipartisan” compromises no matter how damaging they may be to the services we all agree are good and necessary and pay for through our taxes. Biden isn’t the devil; he just never realized that’s who he was making deals with. He was a convenient mark for the real bad actors. We needed better, to resist corruption and evil. He should have been replaced decades ago, yet here he still is, and here the national Democratic Party is yet again rallying around an amoral elitist because they sense their power’s being threatened by the grassroots. If this election comes down to Biden and Trump, then we’re left with Trump the fascist, or Biden the weak-willed opposition coopted by the fascists.
Bernie Sanders is still in this race. If you haven’t yet, please vote for the only person remaining who understands the insidiousness of power, and whose plans we desperately need to begin reversing the ever-widening gap in power and control between the public and the oligarchs.
If you’re not convinced Biden was so bad, or his presidency wouldn’t be such a disaster (if not the nightmare that a second Trump term would be), read Nathan J. Robinson’s latest essay in Current Affairs, thoroughly debunking Biden’s tenure as decent:
Because you are a Democrat, I assume you believe in things. You deplore racism, sexism, and inequality. You believe that people shouldn’t die because they can’t afford healthcare, you are disturbed by needless destructive wars, you think climate change is real and urgent, and you think Democratic social programs like Medicare and Social Security are vital for keeping seniors comfortable in old age. You think the criminal punishment system can be harsh and excessive, that a woman’s right to choose is paramount, and that corporations shouldn’t take advantage of vulnerable people. Perhaps you wouldn’t describe yourself as a socialist like Bernie Sanders, but you do see how life for working people in America can be brutal and unfair, and you think it’s the government’s job to do something about it. The question, then, is which candidate can be trusted to best live up to your values, address the social problems that concern you, and fight for the things that are right.
The reason many of us are so turned off by Joe Biden is that, over the course of a many-decade career in Washington, he has let us down on the key issues when it matters most. Joe Biden has shown himself to be fundamentally weak, unreliable, and dishonest. He gets taken advantage of by Republicans, and he seems more interested in making friends than advancing Democratic ideals. Biden, ultimately, is truly “just another politician”: a guy who will give you a warm smile and then sell you out behind closed doors, a person who will make terrible decisions and grubby deals and then cover them up with lies. He adopts a “middle class” image but sucks up to the rich and powerful, and has contempt for ordinary voters and their concerns. He’s a man with little integrity or moral character, whose choices in office have caused a lot of people a lot of harm.
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Why would Biden do these things, you might ask? He clearly didn’t desire for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to die, or for old people to suffer. But here’s an important thing to understand about Washington: The worst human consequences of political decision-making don’t come about because of outright malice, but because of indifference, self-interest, and ignorance. Politicians repeat facile dogmas about the need to “control the deficit” or “get tough on Saddam” without thinking about what the real-world effects of their actions are on the people whose benefits are cut and whose country is invaded. Insiders like Biden (who has been in Washington since 1972) are out of touch with what the world looks like for the people their policies affect. They listen only to the opinions of those who surround them, and those people are often self-interested lobbyists and donors. Someone like Biden is more interested in protecting his own position than on how his votes could impact people like you.