Now that Bernie Sanders has suspended his campaign and endorsed Joe Biden, there is no active leader for the ideas that Bernie was running on, and so the question each of his campaign's supporters must ask of themselves is, What now? I don't have a definitive answer but I can chronicle where I am at this moment in time, April 2020. In the midst of a pandemic that has distanced Bernie's constituency from him and from each other making his second place campaign untenable to pursue, in the midst of the first administration of a president emblematic to the nth degree of the rot at the core of the American system of governance and economic distribution, the alternative to Bernie and to Trump is essentially a parody of the slick, self-dealing two-faced Washington Establishment insider who gave us the kind of world that made Donald Trump's presidency possible; whose only campaign promises so far have been to veto Medicare for all if it ever comes before him, to try to do better on the unsolicited nuzzling and that “nothing will fundamentally change.”
Biden might be marginally less bad than Trump, but I am finding that I don't feel like justifying the margin. Watch the video of Joe Biden speaking in favor of the 1994 Crime bill, or any of the various times he courageously parades before the cameras his willingness to cut your retirement income and health benefits in order to balance his budget as his paymasters command him to, or his cavalier way with the facts in the buildup to the war and beyond as he makes his donors' case for sending you and your brothers and your sisters to die, to be maimed and to kill millions of Iraqi citizens in order to assert the interests of billionaires, and riddle me this: if this is the candidate you feel we must have in order to defeat Donald Trump, what exactly is your problem with Donald Trump? This guy was Donald Trump before Donald Trump was Donald Trump but instead of a mere blatant grifter, he was the less blatant kind. Like Trump, he knew how to force his way into a voter's drawers, but in contrast to the dull simplicity of Trump's agenda, Biden was actually a gifted deliverer of the goods for his donors. Is it the success at screwing you that you love about Joe? Is the reason you had to defeat Bernie that Donald Trump was talking a good game but when the lights came down, just not keeping it up for shafting you to the extent that you knew you could count on from Joe?
In case it's not clear, the switch from Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden is not easy for me. I am not fully on board with it. Bernie Sander's endorsement, an inevitability by his own account from day 1 of his campaign, might be a bridge too far for me to cross with him. As of today. Bernie had famously described his campaign as a movement of "Not me. Us." -- in effect, circumscribing the perimeters of his leadership to the extent that it should surprise no one that some of us are prepared to continue his campaign without him. That said, I greatly appreciate the leadership he has provided and do not begrudge him his choice. And I don't rule it out for myself in November. Today, I have concerns.
For one, I'm having trouble believing Joe Biden will defeat Donald Trump. With his horrendous record, with his staunch refusal to stand for anything that a reluctant voter could be motivated to get behind, in his current state of deterioration, he must be the worst democratic candidate I've ever seen in my lifetime. Is this a joke our democratic elite are perpetrating on us all? Is there a method to the madness of cramming him down our throats? Rest assured, his weaknesses are like catnip to Trump's messaging team.
If Biden can't win, the only reason to vote for him if you're not a democratic operative -- to defeat Donald Trump-- is gone.* For all but Biden True Believers (if any exist), a mere vote for Biden is a wasted vote. Therefore, it seems to me, you might as well vote your conscience if you're going to vote at all. If your conscience bids you to vote for the lesser evil with the best chance of winning (however remote), vote for Joe Biden. If you cannot bring yourself to participate in the supreme farce that this 2020 Presidential election has become, stay home or leave the choice blank. (I suspect this option will win in November.) If you're feeling spiteful and nihilistic, you know what to do.
The real dilemma is for those who prefer their vote to count in a substantial way. Given the premise that Biden will not win, and assuming Trump is not an option, substantial may mean merely voting to signal support for change that is not on the ballot of either party likely to win in November. Where does this vote go? At this stage, it means writing in Bernie Sanders or making a lonely choice among third party alternatives. The Green Party-- the traditional place where leftist votes go to die-- is as good a choice as any, has name recognition, and at least has a platform that lines up completely with my own aspirations. If they're smart (which has yet to be demonstrated), they will understand the historic and unique opportunity that Joe Biden prevailing as the Democratic challenger in the middle (or at the end?) of the Age of Trump affords them. At this moment in time, there is no better reason for a leftist to vote Green than to help build a unified voice for true change, for policies that are urgently needed to make a difference in real people's lives and to urge immediate action to mitigate the inevitable effects of capitalism on the planet. If the Green Party were the relocation of the "Not me, Us" movement**, imagine an unignorable surge in polling for presumed Green party candidate Howie Hawkins in the polls. Will the Green party step up to make a clear case for itself as the home for the collective voice for revolution? It remains to be seen.
With no clear place for leftist votes to go, there is still time to hope for the single possibility that would bring both change we can believe in and victory in November: that upon close unprotected exposure to Senator Sanders from inside his campaign, Joe Biden and his team become infected with a fever for the fervor and begin to feel the Bern. The relative susceptibility of a Democrat to progressive change is the reason Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky urge the Biden option in light of present circumstances. Behind my anti-coronavirus mask, I'm not holding my breath.
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* If Biden can and does win in November without the left as many of his apologists desperately want to believe to be the case (when they're not busy preparing to blame Biden's loss on Bernie supporters), then voting for Biden will do nothing to advance the left's cause anyway. True or not, it's an engraved invitation from Biden's camp for the left to look elsewhere.
** And not a place for Jesse Ventura to park his perennial presidential vanity project as is rumored to be under discussion.
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