at some point in the very near future i need to come to grips with the fact that in order to defeat the supremely dangerous authoritarian anti-rule of law current regime we need to be willing to form a coalition government between sanders and biden-harris. this is something parliamentary political systems are set up to do, but to which ours is neither structurally or culturally suited.
i’m finding this election cycle lonely. as someone born in 1961, i am surrounded by people who are enthusiastic about the biden-harris ticket or, even if not enthusiastic, are so focused on defeating the incumbent president that they are terrified (hence furious) if i express any reservations about biden-harris.
at the same time, a lot of my followers on twitter (and my two children) are millennial voters who also enthusiastically supported bernie sanders and his policies in the primary. with that crowd, many of them see both trump and biden as an existential threat. to their mind the “high propensity democratic voters” turned their head as the obama administration failed to take bold action in the climate or criminal justice or economic disparity crises (historic expansion of medicaid/medi-cal notwithstanding). now those same voters stole the election from bernie by anointing obama’s vice president. while most deplore the incumbent president and his policies, there is understandable deep belief that the biden-harris ticket will continue the obama administration’s loyalty to wall street over main street. not having lived through the 20th century, these young adults either do not fear overt fascism as baby boomers might, or consider the lighter fascism of the obama administration (allowing the military and prison industrial complex to continue, not closing gitmo, widespread spying on our citizens, harsh immigration policies and deportations) to be almost as troubling. they resent the party nominating clinton last time, shaming the rest of us for not being enthusiastic about her and then blaming sanders’ supporters for her losing but not seemingly learning the lesson, repeating the whole process over again in 2020.
yet, there are a host of very real policy differences between a trump and a biden administration that make it imperative that trump be defeated resoundingly. the incumbent president has made it abundantly clear that he does not defer to the rule of law or separation of powers nor does he respect the sanctity of elections, to put it mildly. moreover there is, however much young democratic socialists might want to think otherwise, a world of difference between failure to take bold action in various areas (which the obama administration was certainly guilty of) and actively unraveling decades of environmental, health, food and safety, education and civil rights regulations and protections (which the trump administration is quietly and aggressively doing daily).
moreover, we live in a time when social media bots (russian and otherwise) are exploiting this fear, cynicism and division to depress turnout. so i am mindful that i do not want to contribute to that problem.
my husband keeps reminding me that most countries in the world bernie sanders supporters and joe biden supporters would be in different political parties. on the world stage joe biden’s policies historically would be considered center-right (sorry, but they would), such as the canadian conservative party which is pro free trade, pro choice, fine with income tax but wants to keep it low, against carbon tax, pro government funded healthcare, pro public pensions. sanders’ policies (hence his supporters?) might fit comfortably somewhere betweenthe liberal party of canada (which is considered center left) and the green party. it is a little hard to translate because worldwide even centrist political parties embrace the primary tenants of the sanders platform: bold climate action, guaranteed universal public healthcare and free public universities. only in america do we consider those radical ideas that are not embraced even by the biden-harris ticket. trump’s party, it has to be pointed out, especially with the recent addition of the q-anons, would be consider a white nationalist party to the extreme far right of almost anything you could find on the world stage.
the democratic convention made it clear that as a center right party, the strategy is mostly focused on attracting voters from even further right (suburban educated republicans); yet it is also going to need us green party voters to vote for the ticket as well (certainly in so-called battleground states but maybe also in states like california, which sanders won in the primary).
it is easier for me to reconcile all these warring factions in my combined demographic (as a democratic socialist boomer) to see myself as a member of the democratic socialist party (i’m actually a registered democrat) who has decided to form a coalition government with the center right biden-harris party, then it is for me to pretend that we are the same party. that’s a pragmatic political move that makes sense. i’m not going to pretend that i’m enthusiastic about voting for a center right party, but i’m not going to pretend there’s no difference between a center right party and an extreme white nationalist ultra-right party.
my husband and many of my progressive friends argue that for this reason it is dangerous to support third party candidates for president even in states like california that are guaranteed to deliver their electoral votes to biden-harris. they argue that there must be an overwhelming majority in the popular vote to eliminate any ambiguity as to what the people want. this mostly happens by running up the score in california and new york where a ginormous amount of democratic-leaning voters live. i am not there yet on this. i get the argument but i don’t quite see how it works. i’ll explore it more about in another post.
