So, this is the promised companion article to my previous article on the electability argument. I alluded to the fact that I was considering voting for Biden in 2024 even if the dems piss me off, and given I am a long standing third party or bust kind of guy, I do want to explain this shift in more detail. So with that, I'll list my reasons.
1) Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis
As of right now, Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 republican primary, with Ron DeSantis being the runner up. Donald Trump is the clear favorite, with 52% support, but is currently embroiled in legal battles. DeSantis is at 24%, and kind of cratering after potentially being a genuine challenge to trump a few months ago.
Donald Trump has shown himself to be a genuine threat of democracy. As the January 6th committee laid out last year in a very comprehensive format, Donald Trump effectively incited an insurrection to overturn the election. The MFer basically tried to do a coup. And that coup attempt failed, but for me, that's a red line. I was satisfied to let trump be in office and be an idiot and succeed in turning people off, but the 2020 election was a lot closer than I expected it to be, for one, which is scary in and of itself, and for two, yeah, I don't think it's good we let the dude who failed to overturn one election get in a position of power where they have a second chance.
Compared to DeSantis, Trump is relatively moderate on policy, with Trump hammering "Pudding Ron" on trying to go after peoples' social security, and DeSantis hitting back calling Trump a moderate on guns. Quite frankly, all this does is make me support Trump over DeSantis on the issues, but still, given the dude is a loose cannon, and given the dude obviously doesn't believe in a peaceful transfer of power and wants to become some Putinesque strong man, yeah, let's not give this guy power again.
However, even if this guy fails to win, either due to having to serve time in prison, or because Ron genuinely beats him, we then have to deal with Ron DeSantis. Now, this guy is scary. We talked about how they wanted to put a law in place where bloggers who make money writing pieces critical of the government would have to register with the state. The dude is openly authoritarian on issues like free speech, and trans issues, and everything else. He's blatantly anti democratic in his policies. I mean, I could go on and on, but this guy is a fricking nut, and is FAR more extreme in practice than Trump is. Even if Trump is a genuine threat to democracy, the dude IS more moderate on the issues. DeSantis is a leftie's worst nightmare. Given he's the golden boy if Trump fails somehow, I really don't feel comfortable voting third party this time either. Sadly, the stakes really ARE too high this time that I really don't feel comfortable with a protest vote. Even if I do hate the democrats. I mean the right is so extreme our democracy really is on the line, and while we need to send the dems a message, we need to send the republicans a much bigger one and much more immediately.
Seriously, to me, the modern GOP are basically the boogeyman from that Rammstein video I commented on a year ago. We can't play with fire when they're that extreme.
2) Biden IS the more "electable"
This isn't a matter of "centrism wins elections", it's more the incumbency advantage. Right now, Biden is the best chance of sending the GOP a message on their extremism. Right now, Trump is up 1.7% over Biden in a national election. That isn't good. As we know, the dems need a buffer of at least 3 in their direction to have a 50/50 shot at the electoral college. Replace that with Harris. Now Trump is up +4. And that's his VP. I havent seen numbers on other potential challengers lately, but if I recall, when I've seen small snapshots here and there, Mayo Pete, Bernie Sanders, etc., they all tend to have numbers closer to Harris than to Biden. If we replaced Trump with DeSantis, the numbers are roughly the same vs Biden. 1.6 in DeSantis' favor. Not a ton fo polling on DeSantis vs Harris, but I'd estimate 6.5% in DeSantis favor based on what's available.
If most other candidates, including leftie ones, have numbers resembling Harris' chances, then this isn't the time to jump horses mid stream. Sadly, this is why I fought the dems so hard in 2016 and 2020. I figured whomever won would be not a 4 year, but an 8 year commitment, and now we're stuck with this guy for better or for worse. The dems dug themselves into this hole, and while I'd normally be perfectly happy to let them sleep in it, given reason #1, I kind of feel the need to actually defend Biden this time around.
Don't get me wrong, if it turns out Williamson has much better numbers in the general and this is replicated to the point the polling AVERAGES reflect that, I definitely would advise jumping ship. I believe that in 2016, Bernie would've trounced Trump in a way that Clinton did not, for example. 2020 though, not so much. Biden was just too far ahead all things considered. I am expecting 2024 to look like that. Again, this one the numbers can sway me the other way, but yeah, I'm not going to be taking crazy risks this time around.
3) Biden ain't half bad
Biden actually has been wanting to do progressive things. His Build Back Better proposal is clearly inspired by Bernie's Green New Deal and is really just a stripped down version of that (and for me, stripped down is good, I dont wanna spend trillions on cumbersome jobs programs). His Child Tax Credit was a proof of concept of UBI that cut child poverty in half. His student loan forgiveness plan was better than nothing. I mean, let's give two reasons why Biden has not been more progressive than he's been. 1) Congress, 2) the courts. The president is only one person, in charge of one branch of government, and we have a country of separation of powers and checks and balances. Despite democratic majorities in congress, turncoats like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have blocked virtually everything. And the conservative SCOTUS is just freaking doing whatever it wants to do.
To some extent, this is a problem with the democrats' election strategy in 2016 and 2020. They sold Clinton and Biden on the idea of getting things done and being able to work with congress. That turned out to be a lie. The reason moderation was supposed to be needed was we needed to be able to get this stuff past congress. And then we didn't. Because of a few holdouts. So much for that.
To be fair I could've told you this would happen in 2016 and 2020. The pragmatism argument was always a farce. Whatever the dems do decides the overton window, and then what we get meets it half way. If we had a progressive in charge I wouldn't expect them to do a better job under the same conditions. Because again, the same thing would happen. Except if Bernie were in charge they'd be attacking him for being too extreme and not knowing how to work with congress. But yeah.
Honestly, being objective, does Biden deserve a vote? For the general, eh...kind of? Biden isnt great, im not huge on him, but he's...okay. I mean, given the other arguments I'm making I'm not seeing much of a compelling reason to choose someone else. Which gets me to the final point.
4) Who else is there, really?
Honestly, the field ain't looking that great this time around. Admittedly, I've rebranded my politics to be more in the Yang 2020 lane of politics since last time, and I've distanced myself from the progressive left a bit given their lack of support over UBI and differing policy preferences over things like say, the green new deal. But still, I'd prefer the left over Biden. Mostly.
But then you gotta consider the candidates. Williamson is running in the primary on bernie's platform. I admit, she's a lot more progressive than Biden, and I like and respect that. But, I don't see her as the best leader honestly. Im not big on the new age angle, and honestly, she seems more interested in sentiment than policy. I know I've heard people reading her books and criticizing her for bashing policy wonks as if feels over reals is how to do elections, but this is a problem the progressive left has too much. They talk a big game on policy, but they dont really have solid plans to get there. bernie was fairly unique in this sense. he had detailed plans and people attacked him despite that as if he didn't. But Williamson...doesn't.
Greens? Eh, we're likely gonna get howie hawkins again there. Ive cooled on him a bit. Im not huge on his green new deal. It's competition for my UBI for I prefer biden's BBB approach. His healthcare plan was kind of lacking last I looked at it, and his UBI plan was a NIT with questionable numbers. Point is, given where Biden is at I'm not really seeing a compelling case for these guys over him.
And then there's Yang. I know I was all gung ho on forward initially, but my enthusiasm on that has been effectively killed. RCV is nice, and I do like the idea, but working with the political opposition for its own sake to "depolarize" the country isn't my cup of tea. I like some policy and convictions. Couldn't you have at least kept UBI? I mean, really. As it stands Biden aligns more with my policy goals than Forward does. And if we want to depolarize the country, then maybe we should send a strong message to republicans who are the ones driving us to the brink of a second civil war that their current political trajectory isn't acceptable.
For me, depolarizing the country means a new political consensus. And the only favorable consensus is a relatively left wing one.
Conclusion
I mean it's early, there's still plenty of time to change my mind. Democrats are making it harder, not easier, for me to accept Biden and to vote for him. Seriously, trying to bully and gaslight me just turns me off, stop it. But honestly, if this election plays out in the obvious way, with Biden trouncing williamson, and trump or desantis being the nominee on the republican side, I feel like stopping the GOP is a much more immediate priority than teaching the dems a lesson.
Of course, unlike the blue no matter whoers, I won't tell you to do the same. I'm just explaining my vote. So vote for whom you want. But those are my arguments, and why I'm thinking of voting that way this time. This isn't to say I've gone soft, I just believe we need to stop this current wave of borderline fascist republicans from having a shot, and then we can settle things in the democrats later. This isn't a permanent thing (hopefully). Im hoping 2028 actually looks better. But yeah. For 2024 at least, I'm largely going to be supporting Biden in the general if he makes it. If not I'll likely support whomever the democratic nominee is, within reason at least.
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