So, with the recent conventions concluded, I feel like it's a good time I lay it out there how I feel about 2020. As you know, I Bernie or Busted in 2016 and voted for Jill Stein. Long story short, I don't really feel much differently toward 2020. I plan on voting for Howie Hawkins, and am outright endorsing him right here and now. He has a much stronger platform than Jill Stein did, and one that has a lot more thought put behind it, and I kind of believe Howie is as close to an ideal candidate as we're going to get. He hits all of the major notes for me. Universal basic income, Medicare for all, a solid climate change policy, etc. He's significantly stronger platform wise than both Biden and Trump.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's focus more on Biden and Trump. Biden is basically just another Hillary. In the democratic primary, as I outlined in my previous post, there was some screwery going on there too. The party clearly worked behind the scenes to support Biden, despite him floundering in early states, and they got everyone else to drop out so he faced Bernie practically one on one. This caused a repeat of 2016 to happen in which Bernie lost by significant margins. The fact is, if there was no interference from parties within the democratic party, it's highly likely the primary would have been much more drawn out, with Bernie walking away with a lot more wins, while the electorate would have been much more divided between Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar. But, because the democratic party isnt the republican party and the democrats like to nudge things along in their direction, they "saved" the party, as they would put it, from Bernie.
Then the centrist camp got a massive mandate to ignore progressives. While there were some so called unity task forces and mild policy concessions on topics like healthcare and education, they quite frankly didn't go far enough. Most concessions we got were mild window dressings while the large concessions were always off the table. Combined with COVID-19 accelerating the need for things like medicare for all and even UBI, this has proved to be extremely milquetoast and out of touch.
The real slap in the face though has come in the past two weeks though. With the DNC ramping up and the democratic party shifting to the general, they've all but thrown progressives overboard. The democratic convention, to me, felt like a republican convention if the republicans were sane. They virtue signalled nonstop about how great America was, they let literally MULTIPLE republicans speak at the convention, with them assuring "don't worry, Biden won't go that far left, he likes to work with republicans", and the appeals to the left felt hollow. Bernie and Yang's speeches, some of the best, seemed empty and hollow, because let's face it, they were selling a turd and their rhetoric completely contradicted the overall feel of the convention. Michelle Obama went so far to voter shame third party voters, and that didn't resonate at all. All in all, it seems quite clear that the democratic party essentially plans to abandon the left and appeal hard to the center. Some, like Rahm Emanuel, are talking about abandoning policy positions like Medicare for all and the green new deal to win over these new republicans friends. These guys don't care about actual solutions to problems, and would rather turn us into what the republican party used to be than be the champion of the people.
The republican convention, on the flip side, was a complete disaster though. The republicans had a lot more energy, sometimes too much energy, with Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend being accused of using drugs during their extremely animated speeches. The entire affair was just one lie and strawman after another, with constant accusations that Biden is a socialist who is being controlled by Bernie (I wish), and lies about how great Trump is and how well he's handling COVID and the economy.
He's not. Trump's handling of the issues of our time has been horrible. Trump has regularly ignored the virus, ignored the scientists, and insisted it would "just go away."Well, here we are 170,000 deaths later and Trump is freaking wrong. Trump's meal ticket is the economy and he has tried to force stuff to open all year, only for it to backfire and lead to massive spikes in covid cases whenever he does. He doesn't care who dies, as long as he can come out looking like a hero in the end, and even if he created the problem in the first place.
But at the same time, his convention was animated, and had a lot of energy and enthusiasm the democrats simply lacked. And now Biden's poll numbers are dropping in swing states. I have yet to recalculate Biden's current chances, but this goes to show that despite my 95% prediction a few weeks ago, Trump can easily win this. All Biden has to do is lose enthusiasm, and Trump to gain support, and it's over. He's releected.
Now, some people will wonder, well, I'm voting third party, shouldn't I suck it up and vote Biden out of harm reduction? You know, I've thought a lot about this this year, especially due to COVID. I mean, most of Trump's damage has been overstated up to now but this year has been a massive disaster with the worst effects having able to been avoided. I totally get the harm reduction argument and I totally get why some may want to vote for Biden just to get this idiot out. And you know what? If you want to vote for Biden, go ahead. I see no shame in it.
As for me though? I'm still focused on the long game. Look, as I've been saying since 2016, America is heading toward a realignment. And how the next few elections go will ultimately affect the fate of the nation. As it stands, with the democrats' current strategy, they're basically trying to bring the sane parts of the GOP into the party at the left's expense. The problem with this is that if they are successful, that's your realignment. The democratic party is now a right wing party. There will be no progressive policies. No medicare for all, no basic income, no green new deal. it's neoliberal centrist capitalism from them for the next 40 years. And they have the electoral path. I talked about the whole "sun belt" strategy and think it could work. They would abandon their "blue wall" as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and perhaps even Minnesota and Pennsylvania turn red, and as the working class there is forgotten, and their future will be found in a combination of minority and white suburban moderate populations in the south and in already blue states. They will essentially trade Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,for Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, and in house races focus less on winning rust belt cities like where I'm from, which are economic deadzones, and more on winning places like Orange county California, as well as Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix suburbs. It could work, but I fear this would be devastating for the future of the country.
As for the republicans? Well, they're basically going full on fascist if Trump is any indication. They will turn to populism and empty rhetoric about the economy and jobs, but in reality be offering the same old trickle down economics. But you know what? Because people are swayed by words and enthusiasm and not policy, it will work. The democrats will regularly fall flat on their faces in off years as their gains in the sun belt revert to the republicans, while they will gain support as the far right republicans take over and screw everything up.Under this regime, the realignment is already happening. Biden and Clinton are not just the past, but the future of the democratic party, and people like Donald Trump and Ron Desantis are the future of the republican party.
This is the darkest timeline. We will be forced to choose between center right and right for the rest of our freaking lives. No progress will ever be achieved, and democrats will constantly vote out of fear against something, never for something.
To me, the prospects of this are so dismal voting green actually sounds, to me at least, like a good idea again. The only way for progressives to have a future in politics, is if they flat out abandon the democrats when they do stuff like this. If we give them a victory, even if it is a means to get Trump out, it will just legitimize them and this strategy, and nothing will ever change.
In the long term, what is the greater evil? Well, that's for you to decide. I've made it a policy of mine not to rip Biden voters too hard unless they're aggressive of belligerent. I get it. Trump is an awful president, perhaps the worst we've ever had. I totally get the harm reduction argument. But I just can't follow it. Respect me, and I'll respect you. I just can't stand by and watch as this horrible alignment becomes permanent for the next half a century.
