Ok, perhaps calling it the vote of the century is overstating things, but there is no question that November 3rd looms as a historic moment, whatever the outcome. Let me begin by stating the obvious: President Donald Trump is a repugnant, despicable, pathetic, vainglorious, and shameless human being. That someone like this could be elected president is a travesty and an unspeakable embarrassment. That such an eminently impeachable clown could survive his first term in office speaks for the insufferable dysfunction of our political system. While I understand why so many people voted for Trump in 2016 (which is not to say I agreed with their choice), doing so again, after the fiasco of the past four years, seems utterly indefensible.
It is easy in hindsight to condemn those who helped elect Trump in 2016. But as surprised as many on the left – including yours truly – were with the outcome, it is not difficult to understand why so many supported for him. Overt racists, bigots, and white supremacists are, of course, on his side. The super wealthy are more or less split between Trump and the “Democrat du jour,” and mostly continue to be. But many, if indeed not most, of Trump’s supporters in 2016 saw him as the lesser evil (I need to emphasize that I’m not defending this view) and voted for him out of desperation with growing economic immiseration. Countless poor or working-class interviewees stated as much, even saying they were voting for Trump even though they thought “he is crazy,” or “he will probably get us all killed.” Too many people living on the margins were simply fed up with neoliberal business as usual and rallied behind someone who could shake things up. (It is largely how, also, we could explain Sanders’s unexpectedly successful run against Clinton in the Democratic primaries). Clinton deliberately ignored the frustration of the have-nots, and it was a major factor in her defeat.
Today, however, it is far less comprehensible how anyone, aside from white supremacists and people living under rocks for an extended period, could consider supporting Trump.
So much for the self-evident. Now I would like to continue by asking: Should wishing Trump ill fortune on November 3rd imply that we should support Biden? I will come right out and say that, while I usually eschew “lesser evil” voting when faced with two unappealing candidates, I believe that there has almost never been a stronger case than the present for such an approach. Biden is weak at best, and in many ways utterly dreadful. Yet his many problems would, by any account, pale in comparison with the countless atrocities of his opponent.
There are, nevertheless, a number of reasons not to support Biden on November 3rd. First, letting us overstate the harm done by Trump because of our visceral hatred for the man is misleading from a historical standpoint. He has, to be sure, been absolutely horrible. But when I hear liberals wax nostalgic about the Bush-Cheney days, it makes me cringe. How many innocents have died or been maimed as a result of the stupid and contemptible wars these two perpetrated in Afghanistan and Iraq? The jury is still out on which Administration has actually done more harm overall. If there is one area in which Trump “redeems” himself vis-à-vis nearly all of his predecessors, it is that his extreme insularity and vanity appears to preclude much interest in destructive foreign entanglements.
Second, we have seen how anti-democratic the leadership of the DNC is. If anything, one could argue that the Republican party is more democratic than its opposition. In 2016, Trump won the nomination running against more than a dozen candidates preferred by the Republican elite. Clinton, on the other hand, was the darling of the elite, whose machinations ultimately succeeded in squelching Sanders’s popular challenge. And we saw it happen again earlier this year, when the Sanders threat induced Biden’s other rivals to summarily abandon the race just before Super Tuesday and hop onto his bandwagon. There is little doubt that there was much dealing behind the scenes to ensure that the candidate preferred by the people – and, incidentally, most likely to beat Trump – would ultimately fade. Supporting Biden would be a vote in favor of the status quo of a two-party corporate dictatorship. This is in fact the standard argument made against voting for the lesser evil.
Third, in Biden “liberals” see a means of getting rid of the odious character in the White House while retaining their material comforts. I don’t consider myself a “liberal,” but I will not deny that I benefit from the relatively comfortable life that such a system grants me and my family. But we should never lose sight of the fact that our comforts are largely contingent on the discomfort of the marginalized majority, both here and abroad. I will not go into any detail here (the post is already longer than I intended), but it is on this subject that I devote much of my writing. The “Bidenistas” grow self-righteous about the imperative of supporting their candidate, but really, it is people like Sanders who are speaking to the tens of millions of downtrodden in this country. At the risk of pissing people off, I would venture that in his party’s disregard for the poor and ill-fated, Biden swings closer to Trump than to Sanders. I am, moreover, convinced that the Democratic leadership (though they would never admit it) would sooner countenance a Trump than a Sanders Administration.
And while we are on the subject, the upcoming election should be about far more than Donald Trump. I would love to be able to say that progressive initiatives like the Green New Deal or socialized medicine – in my view inevitable at some point in the future – are at stake on November 3rd. Yet with Sanders out of the picture, are such policies any more likely to see the light of day under Biden than Trump? If the derision heard from other members of the Democratic establishment about the Green New Deal is anything to go by, there is not much hope of it. It is true that electing a Democrat could, or even would, make a difference to the composition of the Supreme Court. But isn’t this argument getting old? Is there not anything else on offer? While seeing Biden get elected would surely make many of us feel better, such an outcome would do little to eliminate or even substantially reduce some of the most pressing challenges to humanity – outrageous levels of inequality and the present environmental crisis not the least of them.
So, what is the reason for this time embracing the lesser evil of Joe Biden? There really is only one. No matter how harmful neoliberalism has been, nor that our system was seriously broken before Trump, the latter’s policies are not only harmful to so many but are also unique in their cruelty and depravity. Someone with such wanton indifference to the human suffering stemming from a complete inability to empathize with others is completely unfit for any public office, never mind the highest one in the land. Trump’s callousness is epitomized by his separation of immigrant children from their parents and their indefinite detention.
In my view, this argument tips the scales. I suppose that I am fortunate to live in New York, if only because it appears to be a state that Biden has already locked up. I therefore have the “luxury” of being able to vote my principles, and plan to support the Green party candidate, Howie Hawkins. Voting Green or socialist, or submitting a blank ballot, are all viable choices, but only for voters living in states that tilt heavily in favor of one of the two candidates. While my brain might tell me that Biden would be terrible, my conscience will simply not allow me to do anything that might help Trump. If I lived in a swing state like Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, I would have no choice but to vote for Biden.