More and more Democrats are expressing dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden. It was particularly evident on the weekend of July 9 – 10 when thousands of protesters gathered outside the White House to express their frustration that Biden was not doing more to protect abortion rights. The protesters seemed absolutely unaware of what Biden had done the day before through executive action to protect reproductive rights, as accurately described in “The Week:”

President Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at protecting access to abortion and other reproductive health care services now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Per the administration’s fact sheet, the order “builds on the actions” the White House has already taken by protecting access to abortion and contraception; guarding patient privacy; promoting safety and security for patients, providers, and clinics; and coordinating federal efforts to safeguard reproductive rights. In more specific terms, the order directs Health and Human Services to expand access to abortion pills, fortify birth control coverage under Obamacare, and organize free legal services for those that have been criminally charged for seeking out or providing an abortion. [CBS News, The Week]

Within an hour of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, Biden expressed his outrage and his commitment to Congress codifying Roe. He has done all that could be expected of a reasonable person to find ways to minimize the impact of the Dobbs decision and to advance reproductive rights. What is it about what Biden has done that his protesters do not understand?

Biden has also done virtually everything that a reasonable person could do to control inflation. It is a global problem, not something that can solely be solved by the United States or any other individual country.

He just completed a trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Once again, progressives are giving him considerable criticism. When in Saudi Arabia, he did not shake hands with heir to the throne, but rather had a fist-bump with Mohammed Bin Salman. This had to be difficult for Biden to do, because he has repeatedly stated that MBS is responsible for the torture and mutilation of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi.

So, why did Biden do this? Because oil prices in the United States have been soaring until the past several weeks. While Biden and many others know that in time more oil will be drilled, pumped and refined the U.S. to bring supplies to a level where prices will go down, most people cannot be the patient. The best source of additional oil at the present time is from the OPEC countries of which Saudi Arabia is a leader. So, Biden has to hold his nose and “beg” for OPEC to immediately increase supplies.

He did not do it in the most elegant way, but he did it as anyone would when it becomes essential.

Biden is doing so many of the things that Americans want, but he is getting little credit. More an more we are hearing that Biden is too old to be president; that he is a “doddering old man.” He may be older than most of us, he may not be the steadiest person on his feet, but he is mentally as sharp as he has ever been. He is probably smarter than ever because he is outstanding at learning from his past mistakes.

Maybe we want a younger person to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2024. But for now, Biden is our president and he’s a damn good one. If Joe Manchin won’t give him a break, the kind that would send his popularity soaring, then let’s have the rest of us provide him with the support that he needs and has earned. It’s time to say ‘yes’ to him.

The post What Part of ‘Yes’ Do You Not Understand About Biden? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Mr. President,

Every day the President is confronted with major issues that affect the life and prosperity of our nation and our planet. The decisions that the President makes often are collaborative with input needed from many players and the Constitution provides that some decisions require consent from another branch of government. However, there are moments when the decision belongs to the President and the President alone and these issues are often of the greatest consequence and shape the very identity of our nation. You are now faced with such a moment as Justice Breyer has announced his intention to retire from the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has been at times the solitary mover of progress and it has often been the roadblock to advancement. It is the one branch of government that does not find itself accountable to voters, to the media, or to the wrath of political donors. The Supreme Court is accountable only to the Constitution of the United States of America and has the ultimate authority over what that Constitution means. This should mean that the awesome task of nominating and confirming a Justice should be taken seriously and not treated as another partisan exercise. However, this has not been the case in the last several nomination battles as Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett have been confirmed in a process that has been totally outside of regular order. Furthermore, organizations like the Federalist Society have removed all pretense of judicial impartiality by poisoning the process with right-wing ideology disguised as constitutional reasoning. Regrettably, politics has become part of the process and will remain part of the process until the political will exists to enact the reforms necessary to restore public faith in the Supreme Court.

It is vital that we engage with reality as it exists, not as we wish it existed. The reality is our system of government is threatened by forces who do not believe in representative government or American democracy. The reality is that these forces are poised to gain a meaningful amount of political power over the next year and will exert that power to meet their ends of disrupting American democracy. The reality is that it is not guaranteed that these forces can be defeated without extraordinary action. Therefore, I am presenting an extraordinary action that could prove immeasurable in preventing our slide towards illiberal democracy.

Nominate Vice President Kamala Harris to fill this Supreme Court vacancy. The obvious should be stated that Harris is qualified for this position, she understands the constitution to be a living document, and she generally can be counted on as a liberal vote despite justified criticism of her past positions on criminal justice. There is something that is perhaps less obvious that must be said, the public generally does not expect nor at this current moment desire to see you seek re-election to a second term as President. It is assumed then by the public and by our party that the next Democratic nominee for President will be Vice President Harris. I believe given the increased risk of permanent and irreversible damage to the American system should authoritarian forces be successful in electing their candidate for President, it would be worse than irresponsible to have Vice President Harris lead our party into a general election.

The Vice President was unable to continue her 2020 campaign for President into 2020, dropping out well before her home state’s primary who’s polling placed her outside any hopes for victory. Vice President Harris, despite having a lower profile than yourself has been rated as significantly more unpopular by virtually every pollster. Candidly, I would not be surprised if the Vice President were the first Democrat to lose the popular vote in 20 years. Some of the opposition she faces is because of her race and gender, undoubtedly it must be in a country with as much fraught racial history and racism denialism as ours. However, it would be dishonest to suggest that all of her opposition comes from misogynists or racists.

This is not meant to disparage or attack the character of the Vice President; she would be a champion for the rights of so many and would likely establish a legacy rivaling the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should she be nominated and confirmed. The Supreme Court allows an individual to make changes to our society not possible from the White House or Congress, it would not be a demotion but a vote of confidence in the Vice President’s ability to interpret law.  However, it is my sincere belief that she would be unable to win a general election for President of the United States even in the most favorable of circumstances. Nominating Vice President Harris would not only fulfill your promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, but it would also allow you to pick a successor who would have a greater chance of success in a campaign for President. It is my hope that you would select Rep. Karen Bass of California or Rep. Barbara Lee of California or Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin to succeed the Vice President. These distinguished women have shown themselves to be dedicated public servants, empathetic campaigners, and more than capable of being President of the United States. Furthermore, they have been champions of your agenda as President and progressive causes throughout their careers.

You have often stated that we are in “a battle for the soul of America”, I would counter that for the last 60 years we have been in “a war for the soul of America”. It is imperative that we are all doing what we can to pull this country back from the brink if it can in fact be pulled back. I do not know that the Vice President would accept a nomination to the Supreme Court, but I believe that she should be asked. Mr. President, ultimately the choice of a Supreme Court nominee is yours and I hope that you will consider all of your options.

Sincerely,

Reece Ellis

St. Louis, Missouri

The post An Open Letter to Joe Biden: Nominate Kamala appeared first on Occasional Planet.

On Tuesday, Jan. 11, there were three examples of a public officials being unfairly reamed or slighted by another official. The highly bizarre attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci by Sen. Rand Paul showed a complete lack of civility, and rational thinking. In some ways, it was understandable, because through the years, we have seen a continuous flow of bizarre and far-fetched behavior from the junior senator from Kentucky. All the same, it was completely unwarranted, especially since Paul’s diatribes have contributed to vicious threats of violence directed at Dr. Fauci and his family.

Groups such as Black Voters Matter boycotted President Joe Biden’s major speech on civil rights in Atlanta. Perhaps the most prominent individual who would have been expected to attend but didn’t was Stacy Abrams. She is founder of Fair Fight Action and the likely Democratic nominee for Georgia governor this coming November as she was in 2018. She, and others, thought that the Biden speech was too little too late. They may have been on target about too late, but in retrospect, it is difficult to call the powerful speech too little.

The third case involves government response to COVID, but nothing involving vitriolic senators like Rand Paul or Roger Marshall from Kansas.

Dr. Fauci and Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Rochelle Walensky were grilled about the often confusing and even contradictory recommendations that government officials have given re. COVID. Policies on masks, vaccinations, testing and more continue to change frequently and sometimes unexpectedly.

There is no question that mistakes have been made. But consider the complexity of the problems. Fighting COVID is somewhat like whack-a-mole; when you find solutions to one kind of problem, or variant, then another one pops up.

What to recommend in the way of vaccinations (other than get them as quickly as you can), is difficult because they involve new science with limited time for testing. What masks to recommend depends on the supplies available, and helping consumers determine which are effective and which are knock-offs. The idea of providing adequate testing for 330 million Americans is overwhelming, considering the scope of the numbers involved. Manufacturing techniques are new and distribution logistics are complicated.

If Drs. Fauci and Walensky were like Donald Trump’s fraudulent advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas, then criticism would be warranted because he was neither serious nor compassionately concerned. Yes, Drs. Fauci and Walensky have made mistakes, but who wouldn’t? So long as they are making good faith efforts with intelligence and concern, they should be given a great deal of slack.

Similarly, Stacy Abrams and others may have been right that President Biden waited to long to give his voting rights speech. But he had good reasons. As someone who served in the U.S. Senate for thirty-six years, he knew how to quietly negotiate. Unfortunately, Sen. Joe Manchin could not be persuaded (hopefully that will change now following the Biden speech and the follow-up).

As we have said before, it is much more difficult for progressives to advance their agendas than it is for conservatives. This is because progressives actually want to do something; not block progress. The Biden Administration is staffed with many outstanding individuals and is working hard to address America’s and the world’s greatest problems. Let’s give them a break!

The post When to give a break to a politician appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s an oft-cited quote, but one that is easily forgotten. It seems that the mainstream media is doing to Joe Biden what they did to Jimmy Carter. They are holding Biden to a standard of perfection, rather than what it is reasonable to expect of a well-intentioned human being.

The same holds true for many of the American people. Democrats and Independents alike are characterizing Biden’s first year in the presidency as a failure. This, despite the fact that he has returned civility and level-headedness to the White House and the American economy is rebounding.

When Biden assumed office, he had a favorable rating of over 60%. As he convinced Congress to pass the American Rescue Plan, his popularity remained high. But things changed in August. He decided that he would follow through on Donald Trump’s commitment to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan the end of the year.

Things did not go smoothly. The military of the Afghani government was of little assistance in helping American and other foreign troops and civilians leave the country. This was in spite of the nearly twenty years of training that they had received from the allies.

The final departure was chaotic and involved casualties. Regrettably, that is most of what the media currently reports.

It seems that most of the media quickly forgot what Joe Biden said when he announced that the United States would be withdrawing from Afghanistan. He reminded the press, the American people and the world that he was the fourth president who had presided over America’s presence in Afghanistan. He did not want to hand it over to a fifth president.

Equally important is that Biden was able to leave Afghanistan without declaring victory. Since Vietnam, the United States has been mired in numerous wars where it had little or no chance of actually winning, but that was never officially stated.

Lyndon Johnson was remarkably effective and popular with his civil rights legislation and Great Society. But as the number of troops in Vietnam escalated on his watch from 50,000 to over 500,000, he thoroughly undermined his credibility and effectiveness. He left office partially disgraced and he turned the war over to his successor, Richard Nixon, who was equally ineffective in extricating the United States.

After Nine-Eleven, President George W. Bush led America into Afghanistan. There was a justifiable reason for doing so because the Saudi mastermind of the attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden, was hiding out in Afghanistan. The United States wanted to bring him to justice.

Bin Laden was finally killed in 2011 in the administration of Barack Obama. But the U.S. did not leave Afghanistan.

Back in 2003, Bush had invaded Iraq for no reason related to Nine-Eleven. He said that there were weapons of mass destruction there, but they were never found. Nonetheless, Bush declared victory. America still has a military presence in Iraq.

By pulling out of Afghanistan, Joe Biden did what Nixon, Bush, Obama and Trump could not do. Yet, when it comes to assessing what he did in Afghanistan, so often he is remembered in the press as Susan B. Glasser did in The New Yorker, “The twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan concluded with an embarrassing and botched American retreat.”

There is not a single American president who has accomplished acts of greatness who did not also make mistakes, serious mistakes, along the way. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but he had also spoken about the best solution to the Negro problem in the United States would be to send them back to Africa.

Woodrow Wilson was the “father” of the League of Nations, but his lack of skill with the U.S. Senate resulted in America not joining.

Franklin Roosevelt shepherded America out of the Depression and through World War II, but was harsh about letting European Jews into the United States and largely tone deaf about racial issues in the U.S.

When a calamity happens on a president’s watch, it not always his or her fault. Jimmy Carter chose to try a military rescue of American hostages in Tehran, Iran, but mechanical problems resulted in helicopters and planes malfunctioning. He paid a terrible price for malfunctions over which he had no control.

Joe Biden did not want America do leave Afghanistan in the way it did. He did not want the Delta variant of COVID to hit the United States in the summer nor the Omicron variant in the winter. It is terribly unfair to blame him for these, but many in the media do so.

Right now, Joe Biden and the Democratic party are what stand between us and a possible destruction of our Democracy by Trumpsters. Give the man a break. All of us, including those in the media, make mistakes or have misfortune fall upon us. Let’s show some tolerance and forgiveness.

The post Biden deserves more than he’s getting from Mainstream Media appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s really hard to be a Democrat these days. Yes, at the moment, we have a slim majority in the House of Representatives and the slenderest of margins in the Senate. Joe Biden is our president. All of this contributes to why it is especially important now for Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to join their fellow Democrats and support the Build Back Better Act.

Everything comes with difficulty for Democrats. It’s not like with the Republicans where there is a myriad of ways to say no, to obstruct, to negate, to undermine. Democrats have to deal with a real diversity of opinions within their ranks and focus on constructing policy rather than destructing programs.

In 2009-10, Democrats had a slim workable majority in Congress and were able to pass the Affordable Care Act. It was a significant step forward, but because of literally no help from Republicans and some dissension within their ranks, it was a watered-down version of the bill that President Barack Obama wanted. It did not include the public option which would have given citizens the right to choose a government-sponsored health care program that would have been more affordable than others because unlike private plans, it did not involve make a profit for the insurer. Despite the absence of the public option, the ACA was the biggest new federal program passed since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Right now, there is an opportunity for Democrats to once again pass major legislation. They have done so with the COVID-related American Rescue Plan and then the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But there is a third piece of legislation that will really strengthen the social and economic safety net that was created in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and then the Great Society. It is the Build Back Better Act.

This omnibus bill is a remarkable proposal that provides comprehensive benefits for everyone from infants to the very elderly. Once again, it appears that there will be no help in the Senate in passing the bill. And, if history serves us right, next year’s mid-term elections will see one or both houses of Congress revert to the Republicans. That will put an end to any meaningful social, economic and human rights legislation that Joe Biden wants to pass.

This is why now is not the time for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to not jack around Biden, Congressional Democrats and the American people. We have a window of opportunity that is almost certain to shut after next year’s elections. Currently, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and others can go to Manchin and Sinema and ask them to support the Build Back Better Act. Manchin in particular has shown a willingness to meet, even at inconvenient hours. He hears, though we don’t know how well he listens. But this is the time for him to accept the wins that he has already accomplished (including reduction of the bill by more than a trillion dollars). He could still qualify to be TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year because he has perhaps had more influence of the US, if not the world, than any other person. TIME awards the honor whether the change effected by the recipient is positive or negative.

After the 2022 mid-terms, Democrats will likely be in the minority. Any talks between Biden and Congressional leaders with Manchin or Sinema will be meaningless. As the political pendulum has swung in recent years, there may not be another opportunity for a decade or more.

So, Joe and Kyrsten, whether your really are Democrats or not, now is the time to at least pretend to be one and help the party in this infrequent window of opportunity. Tomorrow’s next chance is far too far off.

The post Another reason why Manchin and Sinema should vote like Dems, at least for now appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Since August of this year, President Joe Biden’s popularity has been plummeting. The rule of thumb is that a president needs to have an approval rate that is at least ten points higher than his or her disapproval rating in order to stand a good chance of being reelected.

According to 538, in early August Biden was up 52 – 42%. It was that month that the president announced that the United States was initiating a thorough and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, where American troops had been since shortly after Nine-Eleven in 2001.

At the time of Biden’s announcement, MSNBC anchors Nicolle Wallace and Brian Williams jointly said that they speculated that 95% of the American people would support the withdrawal while 95% of the media would oppose it. If it was true that the preponderance of the American people supported the departure, it did not take long for the media to exercise overwhelming influence over the populace. By early September, Biden was underwater (higher disapproval than approval rating), 46%-47%. It wasn’t just Afghanistan; it was the lack of organization and progress with key domestic legislation such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Build Back Better Act (expanding the social safety net).

Biden had formidable members of Congress who preferred gridlock to giving him victory when he really needed it. The so-called “corporate Democratic twins” in the Senate, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, did and continue to block passage of the Build Back Better Act. If the bill passes at all, it will probably be at a tab that is $1 trillion less than what forty-eight other Democratic senators want.

In the House, the Progressive Caucus fashioned a strategy whereby the infrastructure bill would not be voted upon without a commitment to vote for the Build Back Better bill. They withheld their votes on the infrastructure bill, but fortunately thirteen Republicans voted for it to allow it to pass (nineteen Republicans in the Senate also voted for it earlier in the year). But the lack of unity among the Democrats made Biden look weak to some and contributed significantly to his drop in the polls.

To many, the fact that Joe Biden is such a nice guy and doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body would be reason enough for his popularity to stay well above water. Yes, he has made tactical mistakes with both foreign and domestic policy, but we all make mistakes, don’t we?

The fact that he has been burned for the kind of miscues that anyone might makes causes me to think that maybe the so-called independent voters are more like Republicans than Democrats. Republicans are much less tolerant at giving Democrats a break than Dems are of Republicans. Biden’s good intentions and humane governance is not playing well enough with independents to keep his job approval rating intact.

Is there anything that Biden can do to improve his job approval rating, and encourage citizens to be more positively inclined towards Democrats in general? Molly Jong-Fast of the Atlantic Magazine writes that “Biden Needs an Enemy.” She asserts that demonizing his enemies is what has allowed Donald Trump to stay so popular among his base. Biden needs to play hardball and forego giving Republicans the benefit of the doubt. The reluctance of Republicans to support virtually any proposal from Democrats shows that while the GOP can talk the bi-partisan game, it rarely plays it. One of the most telling incidents was in 2009-2010 when President Barack Obama was bending over backwards to get Republicans to support the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). He had exclusive meetings with Republicans in which he encouraged them to share their thoughts and let his administration know what they wanted in the bill. Of course, this was all premised on the assumption that they cared about improving affordable and effective health care for American citizens. That proved to not be the case.

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley seemed interested in engaging in the dialogue, and Obama repeatedly tried to incorporate some of his suggestions into the bill. But whenever it became time to count noses and see who would approve a compromise version of the bill, no Republicans would indicate support. At the time when the bill was passed exclusively with Democratic votes, Grassley admitted that he never had any intention of supporting the bill. He seemed to simply enjoy jacking around Obama and other Democrats.

Joe Biden has tried to forge bi-partisan alliances for his domestic policies. To a certain extent, it worked for the infrastructure bill. But for the most part, Republicans have shown little interest in collaboration. Those who worked and voted with him on infrastructure are now facing repercussions from party leadership. The bottom line is that there is little point in Biden using valuable time to try to get Republicans to try to change their ways.

But what if Biden adopted a different strategy; one in which he is played hardball and essentially attacked Republicans whenever they engaged in behavior that was outside the bounds of the rational and empathetic thinking that characterizes most Democrats, both in and out of Congress and the White House? Even if it would be a good idea for Biden to do this (and there are ample opportunities for his team to poll the American people on how they would react to this), it really would be an impossibility for one simple fact.

Being nasty and aggressive is not who Joe Biden is. What’s more, he doesn’t seem to have a sarcastic sense of humor, the type that Barack Obama utilized at the White House Correspondents Dinner against Donald Trump in 2011. He himself would likely become a target of mockery if he tried to vitriolically lash out at his opponents.

However, he could be firmer in his deadlines with Republicans. It hurt him that votes on much of his domestic agenda extended beyond the time that he decided to pull the United States out of Afghanistan. Since Republicans have a consistent and proven record of jacking around Democratic presidents, it would serve him well to give them ‘x’ amount of time to contribute to a solution, and if they don’t, then move ahead as best he can without their input. It may be that this will irritate Joe Manchin, but Manchin too is going to have to show that he does not want to make the Democratic Party look tentative and even feeble at time.

Those who criticize Biden for being either too patient or too rash are being unfair to him because neither option is without its negative consequences. What is important to keep in mind is how he is a quantum leap over Donald Trump in how to function as president of the United States. It is not Biden’s fault that Republicans are as strong as they are in the Congress. He has been dealt a difficult hand. Let’s work with him and encourage others to show compassion towards him. We have already gotten half a loaf of what we want from him; hopefully we can up that considerably with passage of a credible form of the Build Back Better Act and then focus on maintaining control of one or both houses of Congress in 2022.

The post Should Biden Play Hardball or Softball? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The interviews in this post emanate from a Facebook page set up for the Kirksville, MO community to share events and news for Northeast Missouri. The author is a moderator for the group which has something near 5,000 people. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States with 306 electoral votes from 25 states and 2 congressional districts. Uncounted in that 306 is Missouri, where the President-Elect was soundly defeated by 57% to 41% carrying only 3 (and the independent city of St. Louis) of the state’s 114 counties. This week, Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt joined a lawsuit headed for the United States Supreme Court with the intent of overturning the results of this election and he was met with enthusiasm by many Missouri Trump voters. I decided to try to find out why the Trump supporters in my rural community in Northeast Missouri believe what they do, here was that conversation.

Trump Supporter 1 (Woman in her 40s, Trucker): There’s more lawsuits than I can keep up with; some by citizens having nothing to do with Trump or his campaign. Many cases have been thrown out for procedure/technicalities and/or because the lower judges don’t want the case on their hands; they didn’t even hear any evidence.

The plan appears to be to have the SCOTUS be the end player all along. There has been witness testimony at legislative hearings in most, if not all swing states. Even the Thomas Moore Project had a hearing of some sort in Virginia.

A couple of facts, 1.) Most lawsuits take weeks to months to gather evidence; these have been done in mere days. 2.) There’s a long history of voter fraud, but it’s usually not of the election overturning magnitude. 3). If the mathematicians and IT experts in this are correct, this year was exponentially different.

Who honestly wants to believe that in the greatest country on earth we had enough fraud to actually change everything? Instead of, “OK, let’s have a look,” we’re hearing, “There’s nothing to see here; move along.” This has invited even more suspicion. If “they” are sure there was no fraud, then why all the resistance to an investigation?

Texas filed their initial suit on November 10. A month ago. I didn’t hear about this suit until yesterday. Did any of you? Suppression of information by the big media groups only lends to more suspicion and I have seen them (CNN, et al) completely twist something (i.e. testimony) that I watched live. Those sources are now completely illegitimate to me, especially after the phone calls the Veritas Project recorded of the CNN exec.

Matt Braynard conducted the Voter Integrity Project; a call center that called those listed as having requested a mail-in ballot. The former director of the DNI has been investigating in Nevada. The current director of the DNI is investigating. The DOD is investigating.

Will any of this be enough to overturn the election? I haven’t a clue. All I can do is follow along as best as possible and continue to aggravate my diverticulitis with popcorn as I watch it all unfold. There WAS election fraud. The magnitude of it is still being uncovered.

Me: Can I ask you a serious question? If there was fraud to benefit Joe Biden, why did Democrats lose seats in the House and not win the Senate outright? These allegedly fake results to benefit Democrats, would’ve had to have been Biden up top and GOP down ballot. Does that make sense to you?

I don’t know what IT experts you’re referring to, but the election officials from both parties and Trump’s attorney general and The Supreme Court unanimously in a Pennsylvania decision are convinced that this election was as at least as secure as the last one.

If there’s fraud, why wouldn’t we want it exposed? While there are die-hard Trump supporters, I don’t know too many people who are worked up and excited about Joe Biden in the same way. I’ve followed the cases; most weren’t thrown out on a technicality. Many were thrown out for making up precedent or claiming hearsay as evidence or in some cases declaring fraud in places that literally don’t exist in the state (Sidney Powell was looking for Detroit votes in Wisconsin).

As for these challenges, Matthew Braynard was a Trump campaign adviser and RNC political analyst who formed a non-profit to mobilize GOP voters. I don’t think he has any conflict of interest.

I don’t trust CNN either, but it’s not just CNN. It’s every media outlet save for Newsmax and OAN, and to be honest it’s odd for the government to tell me where to consume my news. I understand not every story is covered enough everywhere, but I don’t want news that is uncritical of the government because is that really news?

I think our elections are about as secure as they’ve been for a while. We can do better, it’s why the House has been pushing H.R. 1 but it was blocked by Mitch McConnell. I want free and fair elections everyone can believe in. But I honestly don’t think that these lawsuits are in good faith. I know many conservative voters believe them, but I don’t think GOP politicians do. I think it’s an attempt to placate and make excuses for failing their voters by blaming something else. Otherwise I can’t explain why Trump raised $200 million but has only spent $9 million on these efforts. I hope we get the truth, but I think we have it because if Trump appointed judges won’t even accept the suits; what does that say?

Trump Supporter 2 (Man in his 50s, Pastor): You need to google ballot fraud. Open your eyes to both sides. You at this point are definitely one-sided but I wouldn’t expect less.

Me: Are you open to both sides? Because I’m not saying fraud is impossible I’m just asking anyone to provide the evidence they’re confident in, because why shouldn’t we see it? I’m also asking…why would Democrats produce ballots where it’s Biden up top and GOP down ballot, essentially swinging elections for Republicans? What is the logic in a cheat where you help the other party win seats?

Trump Supporter 2: You need to look for the evidence. It is so blatant in front of everyone’s face and you choose to ignore it.

Trump Supporter 3 (Woman in her 50s, University Administration): Biden claimed at one point that he finished at the top of his class in law school.  He was lying and was near the bottom.  He was knocked out of the 1988 presidential election for plagiarism.  He has been a politician for 45 + years and has only the crime bill for tougher sentences as his signature accomplishment.  He has shown he is racist “You ain’t black,” Obama was a “clean black” and he gave the eulogy for Robert Byrd, a strong member of the KKK.  He fought against segregation and didn’t want his kids growing up in a “racial jungle.”  As VP, his brother and his son have been getting millions from places like China, Russia, and the Ukraine (“with a cut for the big guy”) to gain access to him.  He is on tape threatening to withhold loan guarantees from the US to the Ukraine unless they fire the investigator looking into corruption in the company paying his druggie son thousands of dollars a month.  His whole family has gotten rich from his public service. Meanwhile, thousands of good American jobs go overseas. At this point, he looks to his handlers to tell him what to do and they are listening to the radical side of the Democrat Party. Watch some videos and his wife has had to show him how to leave the stage. I could go on…why do you think he would be a good president?  The only answers I ever get are “he’s not a meanie like Trump” and “he is calm.”

Me: To be fair, I don’t think he will be a good president and have never said as much. I don’t think we’ve had a President who did more good than harm in over 70 years.

Trump Supporter 3: So how did Biden get a record number of votes? How did he get more than Obama?  No one thinks he will be a good president.

Me: 1. More people are of voting age than 8 or 12 years ago. Bush got more votes than Reagan. Obama got more votes than FDR.

2. Some people do think he’ll be a good president! Their politics just aren’t my politics.
3. You don’t have to vote for someone you like. Sometimes people vote for the lesser of two evils. How many Republicans even halfway like Roy Blunt? Fewer and fewer, yet he wins because people are smart and know that if they can’t get what they want they can at least avoid what they don’t.

Trump Supporter 3: I have faith in the American people, so I have to believe that the Dominion voting machines were designed to allow Biden to keep up with and surpass Trump, who also received a record number of votes.  I know that a lot of people have Trump derangement syndrome, but there are a whole lot of people who passionately support him.  There were events at which 50k+ people showed up on a few days’ notice.  There was the huge line of supporters in Arizona.  There is nothing like that for Biden and he had trouble getting many people to watch him online.  If you have seen the Ruby video, you see boxes and boxes of ballots that are being filled out. This corruption was highly organized. I am praying that the truth comes out.

Me: President Trump did have amazing enthusiasm among his voters, and I think he would’ve won if he did things differently the last few weeks of the campaign given how close things were in some states. But Republicans have only won more votes than Democrats once in the last 28 years of Presidential elections. So, I’m just asking, is it not plausible to you that Trump was just a continuation of a trend of a divided electorate where there are slightly more Democrats nationwide? How do you rationalize the great Republican performance down-ballot but Trump’s apparent loss? That would have to mean millions of Illegal votes that had Biden for President, Republican for Governor, Senator, and Congressperson. Why would a cheat look like that? I think we live in a bubble because Missouri is Trump country. While Biden didn’t have crowds, he did raise more money from individual donations than any general election candidate ever which also shows support. We’ve caught election fraud and invalidated elections before, like in a 2018 North Carolina congressional race. I understand why you believe what you do, but I really do think that if Trump won this election you’d have seen more Republicans in the federal government making that case as they did in 2000.

Trump Supporter 3: I am not in a position to know for sure, but if down ballot, there were a lot of Republicans who won… maybe those were the valid ballots?  Where people actually voted?   If there were a whole lot of ballots with only Biden checked at the top (because the people filling them out didn’t have time to fill them out completely), that would explain it, wouldn’t it?  Like I said, I am not in a position to know.  I just pray that we as a country can get through this without another civil war.

Me: That’s unlikely. Here’s results from Pennsylvania, whose results are being challenged. The vote totals are about the same in this congressional district with about 440,000 votes cast in total for President and Congress. Biden won and so did the Republican. This was true in a lot of places, not much undervote with Biden doing well and the Republican doing better (sometimes Congressional races having more votes than the Presidential). It also happened in the reverse with Biden doing worse than the down ballot Democrat, like in Iowa and Arizona. So, I’m just saying, I don’t know why Democrats if they were trying to steal an election would produce ballots stealing elections for Republicans. I hope America can get through this too, because Biden and Trump are no Abe Lincoln and aren’t worth fighting over.

Trump Supporter 3: PA-1 seems to be the north suburbs of Philadelphia with Republican representation. Median income $97k.  Corruption is suspected in highly Democrat areas like PA-2, not everywhere.

Me: President Trump did better in “Democrat Areas” than he did in 2016. In Detroit for example he won more votes than any Republican in 28 years. I don’t think you’re meaning to imply that those votes are fraudulent, because that’s actually where he did better. Because I don’t think we can square “Donald Trump did historically well in the city” with “Votes in the city are fraudulent”.

Trump Supporter 3: I think the essential issue is that we have different sources of news.  Our realities are different. I see videos of Ruby, proudly working hard to create fraudulent ballots in Georgia with boxes and boxes of ballots that were never mailed. I read that it is a mathematical impossibility for some of the returns that happened in swing states in Democrat areas. I hear that an exec at Dominion said he’d made sure Biden would win on an Antifa call. I read about the laptop from hell and the corruption of the Biden family with pedophilia and child trafficking and bribery. You see the mainstream media and aren’t seeing the news they hide. They decide what you see. Mark Zuckerberg gave $230 million to Georgia to help fix the election. Facebook put disclaimers after every post that CNN has declared a winner. “Fact checkers” countering truths with their “mostly false” and “unproven” claims.  Google hiding YouTube videos that don’t fit their narrative.  I’d think that would scare anyone. The media is working overtime protecting Joe Biden from himself.  Let’s hear more about his pets!  The Mueller investigation and report revealed that the Trump campaign was not colluding with Russia, but that was breathlessly reported for three years. And how about the FBI trapping and threatening Michael Flynn’s son and the way Judge Kavanaugh was treated with no proof that he’d ever even met Christine Ford?  I harbor no ill-will, we’re all neighbors.  I just believe we have different realities and we won’t change each other’s minds.

*End of Dialogue*

So, what did I gather from all of this? First, the mainstream media has clearly poisoned the well with tens of millions of people and there is no longer any objective reality or truth in America. As local news outlets have slowly died out and been replaced by an increasingly coastal educated and liberal establishment at the national level, people have become more alienated and detached. This will have consequences for generations. Second, this election controversy is about more than Trump. It’s about the growing pains of entering a new political system where the dominant constituency, white conservatives, have lost their king-making status. The rural-urban divide is more pronounced now than any time in living memory and Americans are beginning to see themselves as strangers in a strange land. Finally, we are on the brink of crisis and it’s unclear whether many of us are truly aware of how fragile our democracy is. In so few words, America has gone off the deep end.

The post A Conversation with Trump Supporters on Election Fraud appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There were over seventy million Americans who voted for Donald Trump. They will not simply go away. If Biden supporters condemn them, it will only raise the Trumpsters’ ire. Liberals need to develop new strategies to reach the Trump voters with the hope they will over time see the benefits that can accrue from progressive policies. It will take a whole new strategy from what most Democrats have tried to date. Central to this approach will be for Democrats to embrace alienated poor white citizens as an essential part of the party; a collection of citizens whose agenda is as important as any other identity group.

Joe Biden can help himself, the party, and the American people by taking a radical approach to filling certain cabinet positions. Key to this will be filling certain positions with “real people;” the kind of individuals with whom alienated poor white voters, and many others, can easily relate.

How about filling the Department of Education with a teacher rather than an educator? Better yet, fill it with a student (I’m not being facetious). How about the Secretary of Labor being a line worker, a truck driver, or a nurse? What about the Secretary of Agriculture being a family farmer?

This would not work for every cabinet position; clearly the Secretary of Energy must be a scientist and the Secretary of State must have an extensive history of studying foreign affairs and traveling abroad.

There are several reasons why I suggest that wherever possible Biden’s cabinet nominees be from the grass roots. Clearly, not everyone in the grass roots would be capable of being a cabinet member. However, throughout the country, there are very thoughtful well-read individuals doing regular jobs who have ideas for reform that would truly advance the condition of people in their profession.

There are people in the trenches of fields like education, labor and agriculture who clearly know best what the current challenges are. They have ideas on what the federal government can do to improve their industry, including the people who work in it and who are served by it. This person may not have had a great deal of administrative experience, but she could have the necessary skills and personal attributes to develop strategies to help others in the grass roots. Naturally, they will have to hire assistants who are skilled managers as well as savvy budgetary gurus.

In addition to skilled grass roots individual making excellent cabinet members, there is another reason to take this approach. Political observers have recently been drilling down to learn why so many members of the Trump base do not like Democrats. For many Trumpsters, it is their disdain for and their separation from the so-called meritocracy.

What is the meritocracy and who are these people? The meritocracy is those people whose standing in life is determined by their professional credentialed achievements. They are the architects, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, city planners, university professors, journalists – the people who ascended to their positions by doing well in school, scoring well on standardized tests, doing what was necessary to make it through college, and in some cases, learned a few things along the way. To many Americans, these professionals are the backbone of our society, the real strength of the American populace. But to a multitude of Trumpsters; these are the people who have had unfair advantages in life, and live in a cloud in which they can neither see the Trumpsters nor care about them.

Those in the meritocracy have high standing in our society. Their prestige is at a level far above the auto-worker, the warehouse worker at Amazon, the bagger at the grocery store, the clerk at the dry cleaners.

In the world of the meritocracy, others within the clique are to be greatly admired and respected. But in the world of the Trump base, these “achievers” are the “others;” the people who got all the breaks in life.

The Trump base are the people who have been susceptible to misinformation on their social media feeds and have no idea how they are being manipulated. It is true that those in the meritocracy suffer from the same malady of manipulation, but to a lesser degree. In any society, there is a balance of power, or imbalance of power. Currently in the United States, alienated poor white people have considerably less power than those in the meritocracy. They are the “out crowd,” and have enormous resentment towards those in the meritocracy.

Those who are traditional achievers may say that they deserve everything that they have, in work, wealth and status. In the traditional way of looking at human achievement, they are spot on. But by viewing their achievements this way, they alienate those who have not made it to the level that those in the meritocracy have reached.

If we are going to achieve a greater modicum of unity in this country, we are going to have to find ways to respect where each of us stands. It’s not just a matter of accepting where others are. It is a realization that each of us has achieved, or in some cases not achieved, because of factors which go beyond the content of our character. They involve the status of the family in which we were born and other factors of luck.

If you are religious, you would say “there but for the grace of God go I.” If you’re not religious, you might say that some get better breaks than others.

Humanizing cabinet selections is a great way to start. A family farmer knows well how he is constantly under pressure from agri-businesses to sell his land and essentially become a tenant farmer. This family farmer needs more protection for his family and thousands of others who retain independent entrepreneurs in America’s first industry. Putting a family farmer in the cabinet would go a long way in preserving a competitive economy and strengthening American culture.

A teacher who has not aspired to move up the bureaucratic ladder, but instead to stay in the classroom, may have the most innovative ideas for improving education. Why not appoint her to be Secretary of Education and help her bring in a team of innovative administrators.

An auto worker who does not know from one day to the next if her plant will be shut could bring excellent insight to the Department of Labor. She would personally be impacted by job transitions, and could provide innovative ideas that would allow herself and her fellow workers to continue to have gainful employment if their plants shut down.

Not only could grass-roots workers make excellent Cabinet secretaries, but they would represent extending a hand to many Trump voters. Biden would bring into government people “like them” who would have a better chance to understand their challenges, frustrations, and opportunities for advancement.

We know Joe Biden will innovate. Bringing some “regular Joes and Janes” into the Cabinet would be a great way to advance the country and open the eyes of Trumpsters to what Democrats can do for them.

The post Biden Can Gain Trust from Trump Voters with Clever Cabinet Nominees appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Joe Biden had another “foot-in-mouth” moment a few days ago when he agreed to a radio interview with a gentleman who goes by the modest name of “Charlamagne tha God.” What most of us have heard is what Biden said more than seventeen minutes into the interview, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” Charlamagne, who is African-American, did not cheer Biden on, instead he said, “It don’t have nothing to do with Trump. It has to do with the fact I want something for my community.”

There are so many ways to take this exchange. It’s possible that what Biden said would have gone largely unnoticed in the decade of the 1960s. The 1960 presidential election was when African-Americans took a commanding step away from the Republican Party (the party of Lincoln) and began voting in huge numbers for Democrats. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was largely responsible for this migration. But by 1970, the term “politically correct” came into our lexicon.[1] Such a comment by Biden or anyone would then have been unacceptable.

Regardless of how accurate Biden’s statement about African-Americans voting Democratic might be (approximately 93%), it certainly did not apply to all African-Americans and it assuredly was not politically correct. Generally, it is progressives who are tossing out the allegations of someone or something not being politically correct, but in the case of Biden’s words, conservatives joyfully jump to impugn both Biden’s words and his sentiments.

Biden will pay a price with conservatives for his words, particularly with the millions of African-Americans who do not identify with the Democratic Party. But he also pays a price with segments of his Democratic base because critical thinking, a skill that helps define many Democrats, rarely includes sweeping generalizations.

Some might say that Biden makes mistakes in his use of language because he is frequently over-energetic, or even hyper. That may be, and at his age (77; 78 by Election Day), it is unlikely that he will develop any more self-control than he already has. So, here are two suggestions as to how Joe Biden can minimize making mis-statements that come back to bite him:

1. Be careful to whom he grants interviews. He does better when his energy and intensity is low, so it would behoove him to limit his interviews to reporters and other members of the media who are especially subdued and restrained in their manner.
2. Stop the bragging. In his interview with Charlamagne, he dwelled on his accomplishments. This can be unseemly, especially to political introverts and others who measure words carefully. Biden needs to work with advisors to help him identify when he goes into “bragging mode.” The best way for him to avoid blowing his own horn is for him to focus on the future rather than his past. Let others promote his accomplishments. Biden should be the messenger for rational and empathetic policies in the future; essentially the opposite of everything that comes out of the Trump Administration.

Donald Trump is probably chomping at the bit to debate Biden. Trump always aims at the jugular, and the way to combat that is with calm reasoning and well-placed sarcasm. Biden has to avoid the boorishness of bragging and the echo chamber of laundry lists about this and that. Barack Obama may not have been the world’s best debater, but he never lost his cool. If Biden can stay calm, he will avoid doing anything that is self-defeating.

Whether we’re talking politics, sports, or any other kind of game, the wise competitor knows to never defeat oneself. Joe Biden has yet to show that he can avoid undermining himself. Let his interview with Charlamagne stand as a reminder that he needs to chill, or be as Trump would say, “low-energy.”

[1] William Safire states that the first recorded use of the term “politically correct” in the modern sense was by Toni Code Bambara in the 1970 anthology The Black Woman.

The post Joe Biden Needs a Little Behavior Modification appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are no permanent friends and there are no permanent enemies in politics. There are just temporary alliances that serve as a means to an end. That is how leftists should view the candidacy of Joe Biden when deciding whether to vote for him in November. I have decided that I will vote for Biden, it was not easy.

Joe Biden will be a bad President if he gets his way. He has a policy record nearly a mile long full of war authorizations, working class attacks, and mass incarceration. He is not going to meaningfully compromise with the left, there has been nothing in his long political history to suggest that he will. The party platform doesn’t matter, and his campaign concessions don’t matter, they will disappear after he wins. We’re not going to end up with the kind of society we were fighting for, not this time. The left lost this one, there isn’t a real positive way to spin that. There were insurmountable odds in regard to uniformly negative media treatment, outside party pressure to coalesce around anyone but the left front runner, and an electorate that ultimately cared only about electability and thought the left was a risk despite polling better than every liberal alternative save for Joe Biden. However, losing is still losing and there are now millions of voters who are unsure how to move forward, which will be of enormous consequence in the 7 states which will decide the presidency.

Here’s a question for my fellow friends on the left, “do we want to start winning?” If the answer is yes, the choice must be Joe Biden. That’s not going to be a popular answer, but I’m going to do my best to explain myself.

Joe Biden represents a rapidly decaying, unpopular, irrelevant ideological framing that is clearly in its death throws considering the left defeated 23 candidates representing it and would have defeated 24 if not for the party stepping in to save Biden. Meanwhile Donald Trump represents the beginning of an ideological revolution already seen in US Senators like Josh Hawley. The New Right is adopting the language of working class movements and has allowed its rhetoric to become increasingly anti-elite while pushing a policy that is aggressively conservative on immigration and civil rights. Which will be easier to defeat when the time comes and will do less immediate damage? It’s Joe Biden and neoliberalism. The danger of the New Right is so profound and under examined that we cannot risk it’s further legitimization with a Trump re-election.

As Cornel West said, we have to form an anti-fascist electoral coalition. It will not be a happy task because of the genuine disagreements many of us have with Biden on nearly every policy issue. In some cases, I truly believe his solutions will make our world worse, not better. However, I don’t subscribe to the acceleration mindset that is present in some leftist circles. I don’t believe that it’s in the best interest of anyone to allow the system to become as dysfunctional as possible in the hope that the working class will achieve the class consciousness to finally stand up to industry and party elites. I understand the logic, but there’s several reasons I find it dangerous and irresponsible.

First, the revolution just might not happen that way. Things may get bad or just downright terrible and the working class may simply just learn to live with less as we always have, and a more unimaginable cruelty will become the new standard of living. We may be resigning ourselves to a generation or a century of unrealized opportunities because we mistakenly believed that the powers that be which have actively suppressed the working class would suddenly become allies because the Right won.

Second, and this a more philosophical question, but just how much guaranteed suffering are we comfortable inflicting to prevent hypothetical suffering? We know to a great extent what happens if the right wins. There will be an even more enormous transfer of wealth to the rich from the poor. Civil rights will be rolled back for ethnic minorities, religious minorities, the LGBTQ+ community and women. Climate change will be ignored and there will be hostility towards socialist governments. So, it’s a pretty enormous gamble to suggest that by strengthening the right by giving it access to power that the locked-out left will win. I don’t know that we’re organized enough to win against an animal that is admittedly much smarter and much more politically savvy than the liberals in the Democratic Party who we still lost to.

Finally, if there was any real chance that the New Right was sincere, would act on their populist rhetoric, and actually unite with the left on the few things we agree then that’d be one thing. Josh Hawley for example talks a pretty good game about cracking down on Google and increasing worker wages. However, Donald Trump has been President nearly 4 years now and the time for compromise has come and gone and come and gone again and each time the New Right became more extreme and further removed from anything resembling populism. They are not serious about supporting the working class, they are enemies of working people and only play lip service to our economic anxieties. They are co-opting ideas and language to create a coalition broad enough to enact their actual agenda. Joe Biden is also not a consistent ally, but at the very least he isn’t duplicitous in his true intentions. We know what we’re dealing with and that matters.

I know some of you are thinking “Well what about the Green Party?” and I understand the question. Clearly the Democratic establishment has a deep antipathy towards the left and resents us for questioning why we shouldn’t expect better. There’s obviously an urge to thumb our collective noses at the party and refuse to support a nominee we feel was foisted upon us. Believe me, I get it. Here’s what I don’t get; is the Green Party serious about doing anything except making it easier for Republicans to become President? Because if they were serious about providing an actual left-wing alternative for voters, that would be a noble and respectable goal. However, there does not seem to be an effort to build any actual left-wing political party that can compete in municipal, state, or federal races. There are 0 greens in the US House, 0 greens in the US Senate, 0 greens in Governors mansions, 0 greens in state houses, 0 greens in state senates, just 1 mayor and a smattering of assembly people or trustees to a fire protection district. The Green Party is not serious about politics; they’re serious about publicity stunts including running for President with no intention of winning or even organizing in a serious way. The Green Party isn’t worth anyone’s time.

You might also be thinking, as I did, why not just leave your presidential ballot blank and only vote down ballot. In 2016 despite organizing hard for Hillary Clinton, despite Bernie Sanders holding over 37 events for Hillary Clinton, and despite more Bernie voters supporting Hillary than Hillary voters supported Obama 8 years earlier…she still lost and the left received all the blame. If Biden loses we will get all the blame and if he wins we’ll receive none of the credit. However as with Mrs. Clinton, a Biden loss would not cause the party to become introspective. It would lead the party to double down on an ineffective ideology while simultaneously attempting to strangle the left. The party again will be obsessed with beating the other guys by any craven means necessary as opposed to creating positive policies that will make people’s lives better. Yes if Biden wins, truly awful people will once again have direct access to power. However, those same people have that access now and will retain it win or lose, but hopefully what changes for us is a fever break in the fear that grips Democratic voters that will allow us to be bold on policy next time.

I understand believing there is not an affirmative policy case for Joe Biden. He opposes Medicare-for-All. He opposes marijuana legalization. He opposes the Green New Deal. He is conservative in his outlook and without imagination. I don’t dispute that; I agree with that analysis without objection. However, the few places that he is not bad, not good by any means but devoid of Trump level cruelty, are important.

A bipartisan consensus exists on DACA and would likely succeed with the narrowest possible senate majority. Biden would sign DACA, Trump would not. That makes the difference for 700,000 Dreamers. It’s not nearly enough for them, but it is life changing.

Joe Biden paved the way for Clarence Thomas, something he regrets but we should nonetheless resent him for. Donald Trump appointed Brett Kavanaugh and will appoint other conservative activists. The Supreme Court is at stake, it shouldn’t be, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg unnecessarily put this country at risk by not retiring in 2014 while Democrats had a Senate majority; but here we are. There are also federal courts and US Attorneys and decades of precedent that could be upheld, rewritten, or tossed out. The ACA, which is a dysfunctional and inadequate attempt at moderate healthcare reform, only exists because of a single swing vote. Medicare-for-All will never come to pass with a Trump judiciary. Biden’s picks will not inspire us, but they will support an eventual leftist agenda when the time comes.

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge the credible allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden. I believe Tara Reade and I believe Joe Biden should be investigated. This is no different than the Kavanaugh allegation right down to the reporter. I believe Joe Biden should be disqualified from the presidency; I believed that about Donald Trump too yet nonetheless he became President. As a country we are going to have to grapple with what it means to have two accused sexual assaulters competing for the Presidency. It’s disgusting and survivors of sexual abuse certainly deserve better than Trump or Biden. There’s nothing to add beyond that, there is no “defense” or “vote for the rapist with better politics”. If the allegations against the candidates are a bridge too far for you, that is perfectly reasonable and let nobody convince you otherwise.

What the left is fighting for is not about one Joe Biden or even Donald Trump. It’s about defeating the forces that created Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It’s about long term goals for this society and moving the ball forward anyway that we can, understanding that this struggle came before us and will continue once we’re gone.

I’m voting for Joe Biden. Not because I support him or what he believes in. Voting for President in states like Missouri has become a purely symbolic act, it just won’t matter in the end. But symbolism does matter and eventually Donald Trump won’t be President and we’ll be able to take a long distance view of the damage he’s done to our country. I want to be able to say I opposed him in every way possible. I protested, I organized for unions, I organized for criminal justice reform, I donated to organizations doing good work in places I can’t go…and I voted in opposition. We should still demand things of Biden and his eventual administration should he win. We should get even more serious about persuasion and political organizing. We should rethink electoralism and find new ways to achieve our policy goals. Those are all necessary things for the future, what is necessary now is defeating the New Right by voting for Joe Biden. In an election with no good options, we have to fight to prevent the worst possible outcome.

The post The Left Case for Joe Biden appeared first on Occasional Planet.