The real reason why Trump makes people so furious? It’s not that his cruel, exploitative, ignorant and belligerent policies are so very different from those of the other Presidents of our lifetimes.
It’s that his crass, moronic and selfish personality has forced a previously-complacent majority of citizens to finally glimpse the longstanding nature of American government and society. The mask is both literally and figuratively off.
It’s important to that complacent majority to see Trump as an aberration, rather than someone who has finally put an appropriately hideous face on our country’s ugly politics.
Now: If we would just elect a grandfatherly figure like Biden to whisk the Orange Man off the stage, then centrist Democrats and Republicans alike can go back to ignoring the deep, institutionalized violence and rapaciousness of our society.
Nevermind that we’ll be going back to the same conditions which, under Clinton and Bush and Obama, caused so much hopelessness among Americans, that voters finally said: “What the hell... Let’s give a shot to a freakishly offensive gameshow host whose businesses keep going bankrupt.”
And if one points out that Biden has been embedded and complicit in the steady debasement of American government over the past 50 years—and who, by his own boast to Wall Street donors, will not change anything—this makes people doubly furious.
Because the most likely outcome is that we just put a blander, more personable face on the same old nightmare, and let those who are less touched by its viciousness to drift back to sleep.
One wouldn’t want to actually have to keep paying attention, stay involved, or, gosh forbid, do the hard work of demanding structural change after November.
Elect Biden so we can stop feeling we have to care, and not feel so guilty about it.
As we learned from the many who did not speak out when Obama killed innocent Middle Eastern kids with drone strikes, or prosecuted whistleblowers to the fullest extent of the law, or further expanded Homeland Security powers, or deported a record number of immigrants: These are only problems when the Evil Red party is in power.
Vote Biden/Harris, so we can get back to shopping and Netflix, and resume pretending that America has no kids in cages, no crushing poverty, no imperial colonizations of countless other countries most Americans can’t find on a map.
The standard, knee-jerk retort is that if you don’t vote for Biden, that’s because you must be privileged in some way. But the true “privilege” at work in this election is the desire to stop having to resist, and return to apathy.
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After Biden is elected—and he will be elected, barring some colossal blunder on the debate stage, or some other medical meltdown—at least a third of Americans will remain one missed paycheck away from insolvency.
People will still not be able to afford their healthcare; and Pelosi and Schumer will invent a new set of excuses for why they can’t change that.
Much of people’s income, or all of it, will continue to go to rent, or credit card interest, or medical bills. It will still be the case that almost no one can save even a penny, because our whole economy is structured to create perpetual debt.
Bad cops will continue abusing and bashing and murdering innocent people, especially people of color. Our jails will stay full, and remain virtual plantations for private gain.
We will keep spending the bulk of our nation’s wealth on our decades-old undeclared wars, plus all the lesser-known proxy wars in those places where we are not yet ready to admit we are the aggressor.
We‘ll keep slaughtering people by drone, including children and even American citizens; and also giving governments like the Saudis or Israelis all the weapons necessary to wreck their own perceived enemies.
Our government will keep spying on its citizens, and persecuting whistleblowers who try to show the public what its leaders are really up to.
Big donors, especially corporate donors, will continue to have vastly more influence been 99.8% of Americans.
More tax breaks and deregulation will continue to make the rich richer; and they can keep throwing a few coins to charity now and then to deflect from our staggering wealth inequality.
We will continue to do nothing meaningful about the climate catastrophe now fully upon us.
Almost everyone will forget about protest, or engaging in (mostly impotent) organizing with the likes of Indivisible. Or going to local meetings. Or making whatever other gestures they hoped might dent the impending fascist dictatorship of Trump. Because, you know, there was nothing fascistic about the United States before he beat Hillary... Right?
Vote for Joe Biden, because the man at least knows how to modulate the tone of his voice properly, and to stick to his focus-grouped talking points... (At least, up until late afternoon.)
And that will give give the other 2/3rds, both Republican and Democrats, license to tune back out.
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One of the favorite dodges of those who insist that we all must swallow hard and ignore Biden and Harris’s appalling records, is: “Look, first we just have to get rid of Trump.
“Then we can talk about all that other... stuff... after the election. Unlike Trump, we can work on Biden and Harris. We’ll push them to the left!”
This longtime activist honestly cannot think of a single time that a candidate on any level—local, county, state or federal—became more progressive once in office than they were on the campaign trail.
During a campaign, the general public is the candidate’s audience. The candidate needs their votes, or at least will pretend to need them. After the votes are cast, their audience shifts. It becomes their new colleagues. And those colleagues mainly want to ensure that the incoming class won’t rock the boat, and understands that they had better go along to get along. If they want to get anything but an office in the back of a basement closet.
If they don’t promise something explicitly during their campaign, sorry: it ain’t happening after they win.
And even when they do make explicit promises (ex: Obama vowing to get out of Iraq, or Guantanamo), it rarely happens once the old guard sits the newly-elected down in private and explains to them “how things really work.”
Biden is, of course, the immensely proud author of the disastrous 1994 Crime Bill, and also claims covert credit for the Patriot Act—two of the main tools Trump is using to oppress protesters.
Biden has stated flatly that he could veto a Medicare for All bill if it hit his desk, dismissively adding that it’s a non-issue, because no such bill will ever reach said desk.
His history of blatantly racist remarks, bizarre reminiscences, and creepy fondling of women in public, can’t be ignored as just misleading right-wing email memes, as they are are readily verified on unedited, cringemaking video.
And again: Biden is on record reassuring his Wall Street donors that if elected, “Nothing will change.”
He can make those private pledges, because Biden can rest assured that the Blue No Matter Who crowd’s votes are in the bag. No need to make any concessions to “unify the party,” when everyone from Elizabeth Warren to Tulsi Gabbard to Bernie Sanders to AOC to even Cornel West and Noam Chomsky have pledged their fealty.
And that after the election, they will be too scared to criticize or challenge the Democratic establishment. If you speak out, you’re helping Trump come back—or someone even worse, if that is possible.
So: Assuming you gave been doing any of the following to “resist” Trump, here are some challenges to the self-described Resistance for after November:
- Will you continue to march for racial and social justice?
- Will you demand that Democrats in power pass Medicare for All?
- Will you keep writing irate letters to the editor about the state of our “nation”?
- Will you remember to go to local meetings, and lobby in your state capitol for change?
- Will you stay concerned about the plight of immigrants in our country?
- Will the government spying on you and me and everyone else continue to concern you?
- Will our illegal, undeclared and/or covert wars abroad occupy any of your attention?
- Will campaign finance reform be on your agenda?
- Will students loan debt, credit card debt, and other predatory lending practices still be on your radar?
- Will you fight for at least a living minimum wage, if not universal basic income?
- Will you take tangible action to reverse global warming—before we all drown, fry, or kill each other to stay alive?
Or will you just be satisfied that Trump is gone, and just go back to the “normal” conditions which led to his election in the first place?
... And then insist four years from now that we all better swallow hard again and settle for lifelong prosecutor Kamala Harris, or whoever the DNC foists on us 2024 after Biden’s health presents a reëlection campaign. Because we wouldn’t want to go back to the bad old days of Trump, by criticizing or pressuring Democrats, now would we?
Even though those bad old days began long before Trump, and will hardly end the moment he most deservedly gets his comeuppance.
