Veterans of the political struggles of the 1960s explain in this open letter published in The Nation why they will vote for Joe Biden. In my view, anyone who opposes racism, fascism, and the dominance of the fanatical religious right should vote for Biden.
The letter begins:
On April 13, 2020, Senator Bernie Sanders urged his supporters to vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden. Writing as founders and veterans of the leading New Left organization of the 1960s, Students for a Democratic Society, we welcome Bernie’s wise choice—but we are gravely concerned that some of his supporters, including the leadership of Democratic Socialists of America, refuse to support Biden, whom they see as a representative of Wall Street capital. Some of us are DSA members, but do not believe their position is consistent with a long-range vision of democracy, justice, and human survival.
Now it is time for all those who yearn for a more equal and just social order to face facts. All of us have charged for years that Trump is the leader of an authoritarian party that aims for absolute power; rejects climate science; embraces racism, sexism, homophobia, and violence; holds the democratic process in contempt; bids to take over the entire federal judiciary; represses voting rights; and violates plain human decency on many fronts. These are the grounds for our solemn determination: A common effort to unseat him is our high moral and political responsibility.
In our time, we fought—for a time successfully—against the sectarian politics of the Cold War. We were mindful then of the cataclysm that befell German democracy when socialists and communists fought each other—to death—as Hitler snuck by and then murdered them all.
Now we fear that some on the left cannot see the difference between a capitalist democrat and a protofascist. We hope none of us learn this difference from jail cells.
We have dedicated much of our lives to the fight to extend democracy to more people, more institutions, more places. We continue this work in diverse ways motivated now as then by a spirit of community and solidarity. But now the very existence of American democracy is in jeopardy.
Some of us think “endorsing” Joe Biden is a step too far; but we who now write this open letter all know that we must work hard to elect him. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment.
Open the link and read the rest of the letter.
I note that my good friend Mike Klonsky, who was National Secretary of SDS in 1968, decided not to sign the letter. You can read his reasons here, but he too will vote for Biden, because, as he writes:
In my view, Trump and Trumpism represent the most reactionary political force in the world today and the most immediate and serious threat to peace and human freedom in the post-WWII era.
Tactically, I’m taking my cues mainly from leading progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders who, to one degree or another, are supporting Biden’s election as a way of defeating Trump and pushing forward our progressive agenda.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I doubt that the new left is interested in what the old left thinks, anymore than I was interested in what the old left thought about the new revolutionary left in 1968. This is a generation that thinks social security and medicare are socialism. They have no notion of the long debate about state capitalism.
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This Biden/Sanders business reminds me of the Eugene McCarthy election. Once again the DNC establishment has chosen their man and places the responsibility on us for yet another “hold your nose and vote for their candidate” moment. Yes, I’ll vote for Biden if he gets past this new allegation of sexual assault and I will be holding my nose when I do.
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Hold your nose or get four more years of Trump.
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Hardly inspiring when a candidate’s slogan is “Vote for me because the other guy is even worse.”
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It’s a choice between an experienced senior citizen and a fascist senior citizen.
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I wonder how many of those Old Left folks, in their youthful idealism, ever imagined they’d one day be advocating a failing septuagenarian accused sex offender as the champion against the biggest threat the nation (indeed, the world) has ever faced? Do you wonder how it came to this? Do you wonder if there’s a better way?
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I suspect most of those Old Left folks — and isn’t Bernie Sanders one of them? — supported a candidate other than Joe Biden in the primary.
But, as Diane Ravitch says: “anyone who opposes racism, fascism, and the dominance of the fanatical religious right should vote for Biden..”
Clearly, there are many people who have very little concern about racism, fascism and the dominance of the fanatical religious right. Most of them are Trump supporters. The others are simply people who don’t find those issues are very important to them at all, generally because they are white and don’t practice a religion like Islam or Judaism that makes them the target of the fanatical religious right.
Those people will not vote for Biden. Having Trump is not a big deal to them but clearly having Biden as President bothers them so much more than having Trump as president.
Joe Biden won because he had the support of many African-American voters, so it does make sense that the people who put racism way, way down on the list on issues that concern them would not vote for Biden. As I said above, many of them are Trump voters and others just don’t care much about racism or fascism, and certainly don’t care whether more Supreme Court Justices like Brett Kavanaugh get appointed. They also think Bernie Sanders is completely untrustworthy and therefore they know Bernie is lying when he tells them to vote for Biden to end Trump’s reign.
The bottom line is that people who don’t vote for Biden believe that Bernie Sanders is not to be trusted and they believe that Bernie misleads and lies to voters, and that’s why they would never do what Bernie Sanders is telling them to do and vote for Biden to get Trump out of office. Most of those people are rabid Trump supporters who know Bernie Sanders will turn America into Cuba, and the others who won’t follow Bernie’s request to vote for Biden just think Bernie Sanders is lying to them.
There really is a huge irony is all the young Bernie Sanders supporters who now claim Bernie Sanders is so untrustworrhy that they would never vote for the candidate he endorsed. Clearly they have always believed deep down that Bernie Sanders was not a trustworthy man and therefore none of them would have voted for Bernie in the general election anyway.
The REAL Bernie Sanders supporters are voting for Biden. The faux Bernie supporters are proving that they never trusted Bernie at all, and believe he would lie to them. Or maybe they just believe Bernie Sanders is a doddering old fool who has endorsed Biden because someone was paying him money to do so. Whatever reason, they clearly would have never voted for Bernie in the general election. Just like Trump voters, deep down they always knew Bernie was not to be believed.
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That is a question for Bernie Sanders. He certainly was a leftist during that era.
Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders has had a friendly relationship with Joe Biden over the years, despite their differences on some issues, since they overall share the same values — the values that Donald Trump and the Republicans don’t share and are trying to destroy.
I wonder how many of the people who said preventing HRC from being president and letting Trump be president instead would bring us to a progressive era imagined that one day they would be defending a terrible president Trump against impeachment and insisting that Trump has done nothing worthy of impeachment and he is just a normal president and at least he was not the evil Joe Biden.
I guess the same people who would have insisted that Barry Goldwater would be no worse than the “evil LBJ” and fought hard to defeat LBJ and convince voters not to vote for him.
And all the Great Society programs started by the “evil LBJ” would not exist. All the civil rights gains would not have happened. But white people who keep attacking the Democrats for focusing on “identity politics” (code name for politics that the working class white voters resent because they believe racial discrimination does not exist”) would not even notice.
I think that if you asked Bernie Sanders and those on the New Left whether there is a better way than DEMOCRACY, they would ask the questioner what is it they want? To let a small number of Bernie voters tell African-Amercan voters who they must vote for in order to get those white voters to help defeat Trump, because otherwise those white Bernie voters are good with another 4 years of Trump?
That isn’t democracy. It is extortion. By privileged white folks who feel protected against Trump’s anti-democratic rule.
Bernie and the Old Left know that preserving democracy is how progressivism rises. Destroying it and enabling a fascist government is not the way and I wonder why there are still people who claim not to be far right supporters who believe that would be a perfectly acceptable result.
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Unity among Democrats is essential for the upcoming election. The media have been floating various female vice-presidential candidates, many of whom are black. In terms of strategy and qualifications, one candidate stands out, and that candidate is Elizabeth Warren. In the spirit of conciliation, Warren would be sage choice. Biden already has Obama’s support, and Biden has already shown African Americans at about 12% of the population will show up for him while progressives in the party continue to feel marginalized. Bernie’s voters represent about 30 to 40% of the Democratic party. If the DNC wants to reach out to Bernie voters, it should send them an olive branch, which they will do, if they select Warren as vice-president. We cannot afford to lose progressives to a wasteful third party vote when we are trying to stop “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”
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If it’s unity you seek, then you must offer something (in fact, lots of something) to those who are marginalized, jaded and disgusted with the status quo. It’s not going to work to simply tell people it’s their duty to vote for someone who offers them nothing on the grounds that the other guy is, arguably, worse (please be aware that many people do not share that view that Trump is worse and that simply calling such people “stupid” or “deplorable” is also not helpful).
If you want the left, the independents and the non-voters to support Biden, he needs to start talking about specific plans for things like Medicare for All, debt forgiveness, housing guarantees and other things that help those who are struggling, especially in the midst of the worst pandemic in over 100 years which has already seen unemployment start to rise to Depression Era levels.
Our votes are not owed; they must be earned.
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Biden has already been talking about loan forgiveness and more money for education. He does not support Medicare for All at this time. He still thinks he can resurrect the ACA, although some predict ACA rates will go up 40 to 60 percent from the pandemic.
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Dienne,
I assume you are voting for Trump.
It is either Trump or Biden. One or the other will be president until 2024.
There is no other realistic possibility. None.
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retired teacher – what do you tell the unemployed wait staff, bartenders, actors, stagehands, Uber/Lyft drivers, etc. about getting healthcare? Just use your stimulus check to pay premiums you can’t afford on the exchanges so that if you get sick you’ll have co-pays and deductibles you also can’t afford? Or are they just on the “don’t get sick/die quickly” plan? Only very privileged people think the ACA is a solution for millions of unemployed workers.
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Dienne,
I’m not posting your attacks on Biden.
Bernie Sanders endorsed Biden.
AOC endorsed Biden.
That’s good enough for me.
The alternative to Biden is four more years of Trump. There is no other alternative.
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Dienne-I agree that we need universal health care, and this pandemic shows us more than ever how much we need a supported public heath system that can serve the needs of all the people.
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Is America more likely to get universal healthcare with Trump as president or with Biden?
Is America more likely to get universal healthcare with Trump appointing lifetime Supreme Court Justices who decide Medicare for All is illegal, or with Biden-appointed justices?
People who care about getting to universal healthcare are clearly going to vote for Biden and not Trump.
People who use their faux concern about healthcare to claim that is why they are enabling Trump to have supreme rule over this country are simply not credible. Their faux concern with universal healthcare — “i am so concerned about people without healthcare that I am going to let Trump choose the next Supreme Court Justices” doesn’t ring true.
Is there really anyone in this country who believes that the people who are actually concerned about Americans without healthcare would vote to insure that Trump wins another term? They must think we are idiots when they make that claim. I think the same people who believe everything Trump says believe them when they make the claim that the way to best help those without health insurance is to make sure Biden loses (which of course means Trump wins).
Bernie Sanders and AOC have made it abundantly clear that anyone who supports their policies should be voting for Biden against Trump. It’s amazing to me that the people who claim they “would have” voted for Bernie Sanders in the general election are also now implying that Bernie is now lying to them and they don’t trust Bernie’s judgement at all. They would never have voted for Bernie in the general election. The real Bernie supporters are voting for Biden. The ones who never really liked Bernie but hated the Democrats are now insisting that Bernie’s judgement is so warped that his endorsement of Biden should be ignored as coming from an untrustworthy man.
The bottom line is that those who say they are Bernie Sanders supporters but believe Bernie Sanders’ judgement in endorsing Biden is not to be trusted simply don’t make rational arguments.
Either you trust Bernie enough to believe he would make a good president or you don’t. Saying that you trust him to be president, but you don’t trust his endorsement of Biden means that your trust in Bernie was never very strong to begin with.
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“anyone who opposes racism, fascism, and the dominance of the fanatical religious right should vote for Biden”
Or even if you just want competent government.
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It’s deja vue all over again all over again all over again, etc., ad nauseam. In 2016, I was scorched and roasted for saying that we should vote for Hillary in the general election (I voted for Bernie in the primary). How dare I support a war monger corporate Democrat, I should vote for Jill Stein. Third parties don’t make it in this country, that is the reality, just ask Teddy Roosevelt. It’s either a D or an R, period. The only way to move forward is to infiltrate the Democratic party with people like AOC, Bernie and Ilan Omar. I plan on voting for Biden, assuming he makes it to the general election with these explosive sexual assault charges floating around. Trump must be defeated, the GOP must be defeated. All this political miasma is happening during a horrible pandemic, could things get any worse? Yes they could, if Trump wins another term.
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You are being an adult realist, and I feel the same way. I supported Bernie twice, and he didn’t win. What is better for all of us is Biden, not a right wing lunatic bankrupting our country. As far as the sexual allegations go, it seems strange that they only appear when a Democrat shows some promise. Let’s not repeat the “Franken” error of the past.
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Joe Jersey says “In 2016, I was scorched and roasted for saying that we should vote for Hillary in the general election (I voted for Bernie in the primary). How dare I support a war monger corporate Democrat..”
Me, too.
Thank you for your spot on post.
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Hmm, the human incarnation of the seven deadly sins, or a sandwich?
Everyone should vote for a sandwich, and Joe Biden is that sandwich.
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Ted,
I assume you are voting for Trump. Correct?
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No, I believe he is a flawed human with little empathy. Voting for him would be a quick trip to Purgatory for me.
I was just making a joke about pragmatic strategic voting.
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Trump is worse than “a flawed human being.” He is a dangerous man who is stuffing the federal judiciary with people recommended by the rightwing Federalist Society, many of whom have been rated “unqualified” by the American Bar Association, including bigots who refused to say whether the Brown decision was rightly decided. His first allegiance is to his base of zealous evangelicals who want to turn the US into a theocracy and believe that Trump is God’s choice. Trump’s Supreme Court has already declared that it is fine to discriminate against gays. Next the Court will tear down the “wall of separation” between church and state and will claim that church schools are entitled to public funding. Soon there will be cases where shopkeepers assert that their religion does not allow them to serve customers who are black or Muslim or Jewish or Hispanic or—fill in the blanks. The Court has made clear that “religious freedom” allows discrimination. Then there’s Trump’s efforts to wipe out environmental regulations or any hindrance to the fossil fuel industry.
This is far worse than being “flawed.” We are all flawed. I’m flawed. So are you.
Trump is a willing tool of religious and political interests who are not interested in democracy, social justice, or equality. His open attacks on the press are ludicrous but also dangerous.
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All good points. And, his policy of separating families at the border, a policy of deterrence through cruelty, which is an insult to American values, or just human values.
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The good news if you were a Bernie or Yang supporter is that socialism and backstopping the system will happen, brought to you by none other than social utopians Mitch McConnell and LIndsey Graham. Republican governors gotta eat too. A 1/2 trillion dollar package for state and local government is only a matter of time.
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Sure. Trillions to the 1%, especially Trump campaign donors. No oversight for the spending. That’s not socialism. That’s graft.
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Some years ago, Tom Hayden was running for office and suggested that the radicalism of the 60s had become the common sense of the 80s. Almost 4 decades later, the radicals of the New Left are reduced to making the argument that the government has a role to play. The right has succeeded in their efforts to move the country so far to the right that to suggest that government has any role at all is to be on the distant left.
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Heh, heh, never heard anyone call the ’80’s an era of common sense 😀
Tom Hayden didn’t either– he said that about the ’70’s when running for Senate in ’76.
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But I take your point. I’m still trying to parse how it happened. The policies that got Baryy Goldwater defeated in a landslide in ’64 are par for the Rep Party course today.
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The idea that both parties are the same, or that Biden would be just as bad as Trump, is a pernicious, nihilistic rant that only serves to demoralize Democrats and depress turnout.
There is no comparison between the two parties.
Republicans starting with their 1994 Contract with America got almost everything they wanted, and they paid almost no political penalties.
They got the deregulation of Wall Street, banks, commodity markets and by 2004 increased borrowing leverage of 40 to 1.
And when 48 states signed on to Elliot Spitzer of New York’s lawsuit challenging federal banking deregulation he was destroyed by a sex scandal that had all the earmarks of a Roger Stone hit job.
They got mega mergers of energy, banks and health insurance companies, not bringing a single antitrust action.
They gutted the law that limited the concentration of power by media mega-firms, ushering in a period of tremendous media consolidation.
They were handed huge projected surpluses in 2000 that would have left us debt free by 2011. They responded with huge tax cuts which they said would create 24 million jobs and create an economy so good, that we would be debt-free by 2011.
The $250 billion surplus from the Clinton years was squandered in no time and we got a “jobless recovery.”
They ignored or overturned EPA, FHA, and SEC regulations and deregulated everywhere, privatizing the military with Eric Prince’s lawless murderous mercenary goons and much of government saying this would reduce cost as they then doubled the size of government over eight years (like under Reagan).
They got an unfunded private Medicare Part D prescription drug program without any cost controls that locked Americans into paying up to five times more for the same drug as in the rest of the world, that cost annually as much as the paid-for Obamacare program which reduces the deficits while their drug program adds up to 25 percent of the remaining deficit.
They got private Medicare Advantage HMOs, which instead of costing less as promised were paid 15 percent more, and if it had not been fixed under Obamacare was going to bankrupt Medicare by 2017.
Defense spending was more than doubled. And to accomplish all of this, they quickly did away with Pay as you Go which had resulted in the much of the surpluses they were handed, with Republicans saying Reagan had proved that deficits don’t matter.
The results of this looting spree: energy and food prices increased as speculation in the unregulated commodity markets soared. Health insurance costs soared. The tax cuts did not produce 24 million jobs, but a negative one million private sector jobs with Bush’s “jobless recovery” culminating in an economy losing 800,000 jobs per month by the time of Bush/Cheney’s exit.
The tax cuts did not make the economy boom, as they promised, nor increase wages and increase payments into Social Security and Medicare – but just the opposite.
Surpluses were quickly changed into massive deficits. The privatization in every case resulted in higher costs, not lower.
They continued their assault on labor unions and their outsourcing, signing free trade agreements with no conditions whatsoever on labor rights or environmental protections as 60,000 factories closed and half of high tech jobs were outsourced, all on the myth of unregulated free markets.
The economic results after the Republicans got everything they wanted except the complete dismantling of Social Security and Medicare was the worst economic performance in our lifetimes and the worst economic collapse in the history of the world.
And what did the Republicans do? The blamed President Carter for passing the Community Reinvestment Act, which they falsely claim forced banks to make loans to unqualified minority borrowers, and blamed President Clinton for repealing Glass-Steagall – never mind that the Republican-led Congress had a veto-proof majority pushing for repeal.
And more recently, in the midst of the worst financial and economic collapse of our lifetimes, a period that also saw two ruinous wars spinning out of control, this nation elected its first African-American president, Barack Obama, a brilliant, tough and compassionate man who presented the rare combination of an inspiring vision, a deep and probing intellect, personal charisma and magnetism, and a compelling life story on his way to becoming the top presidential vote-getter in our nation’s history.
As President Obama immediately set out to rescue our cratered economy and restore hope to our beleaguered nation’s battered psyche, he was just as immediately met by forces of maximum resistance: the reactionary, racist and conspiracy-mongering Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.
And despite his work as a teacher of Constitutional Law at the prestigious University of Chicago and as a community organizer, celebrated published author, state senator, and United States Senator, Republicans demonized him as an alien, malevolent force with a murky, dangerous background.
They questioned his faith, his family ties, his politics, and even his eligibility as a U.S. citizen to run for and hold political office.
Religious leaders openly prayed for his untimely death, for his loving, gracious and devoted wife to be widowed, and for his beautiful children to be orphaned.
And though Democrats in recent years had rallied behind a Republican president and called for national unity after the attacks on 9-11, Republicans felt no need to reciprocate for the good of the country amid an arguably even-greater crisis.
During eight years of declared war against this democratically elected president, Republicans violated every norm and protocol needed to facilitate representative self-government, burned every bridge behind them, imposed austerity economics to starve a still-recovering economy in a calculated, heartless and cynical attempt to blunt recovery efforts for partisan political gain, and did everything they could to make this country ungovernable under a black Democratic president – even taking us to the brink of a national default by refusing to raise the national debt ceiling, and writing open letters to the leaders of Iran in which they urged them to reject the policies of our own president, even though rejecting a nuclear arms agreement could mean an unavoidable slide to war.
But despite these obstacles, during the eight years that followed we brought the economy back to almost full employment, reformed the healthcare industry and provided coverage for 20 million people, enacted banking reform to curb the worst abuses of the financial sector, rescued two iconic automakers from insolvency, made massive investments in renewable energy, restored our standing in the world community after the debacle of the Bush years, and honorably ended an ill-conceived and ruinous war.
This is what we are up against: a political cabal whose agenda is more division and strife, more misery for working-class and struggling families, more bailouts, privileges and carve-outs for the powerful special interests, and a diminution of rights and redress for women, minorities and disenfranchised citizens.
And a public misinformed by divisive right-wing media, deceptive and misleadingly edited YouTube videos, partisan talk show hosts, and cynical and disingenuous religious extremists using anger, fear and resentment to promote reactionary politicians and policies.
And the result was the election of Donald Trump, quite possibly the most unfit, unqualified and corrupt president in the nation’s history, whose destructive policies and actions have brought us to this frightening crossroad in our nation’s history.
And today, Republicans continue to push for the same economic ideas that killed a world economy, and in fact now want to turn the hands of the clock back even further, slashing funding for public schools and universities, the EPA, food and drug safety regulations, scientific and medical research, the State Department, and a safety net that prevented the Crash of 2008 and the Great Recession from being a Great Depression.
In Trump’s first year of office the Dodd-Frank banking regulations were gutted: where originally any bank larger than $50 billion was considered a systemic “too big too fail” institution and subject to more stringent regulations and reserve requirements, that threshold was lifted to $250 billion; now only a half-dozen banks need to meet those requirements.
And the Volcker Rule, which limits proprietary trading by banks – using taxpayer-insured deposits to gamble on Wall Street – now exempts banks with assets of less than $10 billion.
We had a brief respite during the Obama administration, but now the Republicans want to do this again with the same corporate-friendly and deregulation policies.
And now we have a party ruled by an extremist mob that is obsessed with abortion and women’s sex lives, condones caging immigrant children in detention camps, determined to make voting more difficult for targeted groups of people, and ready to lurch toward their next depraved exercise in cruelty.
They would also:
deny millions of people health care via Medicaid,
cheer if the Supreme court did their dirty work and gutted the Affordable Care Act,
force the unemployed and marginally employed to piss in a cup as a condition for getting government assistance,
deny free or reduced-fee school lunches to children from needy families,
support gutting earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare for seniors,
condone police brutality and unequal justice,
rip struggling vulnerable families apart who are fleeing violence, poverty and social instability that our own wrong-headed policies helped create,
mock the concept of civil rights for racial, religious, ethnic or sexual minorities as “special rights,”
refuse to restore voting rights gutted by this Supreme court,
vigorously defend the right to discriminate and deny an employee reproductive health care out of some notion of “religious freedom,”
raise interest rates on students out of “free market principles,”
force seniors to delay their retirement as a means of “entitlement reform,”
and oppose free community college and training in the technical trades that could enable lower-income youth a chance to escape poverty and enter the middle class.
All while defending or expanding subsidies and tax cuts to the largest, most profitable banks and corporations and and the wealthiest individuals, rewarding firms that send our jobs overseas, and gutting regulations on predatory banks and polluting businesses.
And now they have acquitted President Trump of obstruction and abuse of power, even though he:
refused to provide documents, witnesses and testimony and defies court-ordered subpoenas in a Constitutionally-authorized process of oversight and a system of checks and balances;
places unqualified people who cannot pass a background check into sensitive government positions with access to classified information;
refuses to provide readouts of one-on-one meetings with representatives of adversaries that for some unexplained reason he refuses to denounce;
redirects Congressionally-authorized funds to build a border wall by unilaterally declaring a national emergency;
violates the Senate’s Constitutional advice and consent powers by employing “acting” Cabinet members and senior officials so as to avoid undergoing a Senate confirmation hearing;
threatens critics, political opponents, and government employees who lawfully complied with subpoenas with investigations;
unilaterally imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, a country that had been found to be in compliance with a US-led nuclear agreement that was negotiated by the world powers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, and has threatened to impose sanctions on countries that wish to uphold that agreement and resume trade with Iran;
Openly defies the constitutionally mandated oversight role of Congress with a signing statement and by firing the Inspector General who would lead efforts to monitor the disbursement of funds under the $2.2 trillion coronavirus disaster relief/stimulus package, and
calls a free and independent press the enemy of the people.
This authoritarianism, and a party marching in lock-step behind it, is what we are up against.
Take a good look – this is the government that you have elected or allowed to be elected by withholding your vote or voting third party. Is this what you wanted when you decided to “vote your conscience”?
To recap, there are only two items on the menu, and you have to order from the menu.
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And yes, this is the same “vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary Clinton warned us about in the 1990’s – when her husband was facing constant, vicious attacks for eight years straight – except now it’s on steroids.
And in 2016 it was only too happy to use cutouts and trolls to attack Hillary from the Left and smear this brilliant, tough, experienced and accomplished woman — who devoted her life to public service and social justice — as a war-monger, a whore for Wall Street and crony capitalists, and a phony, entitled, calculating, rich out-of-touch politician, in an effort to get disillusioned and disappointed Democrats and liberals to stay away from the polls on Election Day 2016.
And meanwhile, out of the other side of their mouths, they turned to their right-wing base and revived all the slanders from the politics of personal destruction from the Bill Clinton era, and additionally smeared Hillary as nothing less than a third Obama-Biden term promising little more than a continuation of out-of-control spending and reparations for unproductive black moochers and “illegal aliens,” crushing job-killing regulations, and endless apology tours and defenseless open borders for the benefit of terrorists and America’s enemies.
They went after her record of integrity and public service by falsely accusing her of corruptly using the Clinton Foundation as a personal slush fund, and undermined her standing with women by accusing her of viciously attacking the women who accused her husband of sexually assaulting them.
They were able to attack President Obama and Vice President Biden from the left as well, cynically mischaracterizing historic healthcare reform – which delivered the largest expansion of the social safety net since the establishment of Medicare – as nothing more than a corrupt backroom deal with insurers and pharmaceutical companies meant to foreclose on the chimera of a single payer plan that has no parallel in the world, one which features zero co-pays, zero deductibles, and zero monthly premiums and all paid for through taxes on the “fat cats.”
They similarly demagogued from the left against Dodd-Frank – the most significant and far-reaching banking regulation passed in 75 years – by decrying President Obama’s “failure” to break up the big banks and jail the Wall Street “banksters,” never mind that Dodd-Frank does authorize the government to unwind failing banks at no cost to the public if they are big enough that their collapse could damage the broader economy.
And never mind that, according to the Office of the Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) set up in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008, as of January 4, 2017, the government under President Obama charged 374 individuals in the finance sector – including 88 bankers who were criminally charged with fraud – secured 269 convictions, and sentenced 192 to prison, and recovered billions of dollars.
And due to the politically independent nature of the TARP Office of the Inspector General, investigative work into the abuses that led to the Crash of 2008 has continued into the Trump administration.
And because of these ongoing investigations, the total now stands at 428 individuals in the finance sector who were criminally charged with fraud, 369 who were convicted, and 283 who were sentenced to prison, as of July 12, 2019.
Others are either awaiting trial or awaiting sentencing.
And so, while prosecution of these complicated crimes has been difficult – partly because three decades of financial deregulation have legalized much of the activities relating to mortgage-backed derivatives that led up to the Crash – progress has been made in the area of fraud.
Over $100 billion in fines and penalties were levied against corrupt and predatory financial institutions as well as ratings agencies that corruptly rubber-stamped toxic financial products as triple-AAA rated investments and enabled them to be sold to an unsuspecting global public which included pension funds, government agencies, and private and institutional investors.
Also under President Obama and VP Biden, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established to root out fraud and abuse and stood up by the brilliant banking reform advocate Elizabeth Warren, who then passed off administrative duties to the bulldog prosecutor Richard Cordray, a former Ohio Attorney General.
The pretend Left ratf*ckers also denigrate President Obama’s record on climate action in their quixotic quest for some vague Green New Deal, mischaracterizing his historic achievements on renewable energy and transit.
But let’s look at his record.
President Obama and VP Biden, elected in the middle of a calamitous economic collapse, marshaled tremendous resources through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – better known as the stimulus program. As part of this massive effort, we committed $90 billion into clean energy – an unprecedented amount of funding into wind, solar, and other renewables – energy efficiency in every form; advanced biofuels; and electric vehicles, of which there are now more than one million on America’s roadways.
He protected more than 550 million acres of land and marine resources from development, through the creation of national parks and utilization of the Antiquities Act on behalf of conservation.
He put in place overdue pollution limits for power plant smokestacks, which are major sources of air toxins like mercury, as well sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which lead to smog, soot, and acid rain pollution.
He established regional Climate Hubs and several initiatives to help farmers, ranchers and rural communities combat climate change and adapt to extreme weather, and a landmark agreement with Mexico providing greater flexibility in the management and restoration of the Colorado River, which ***allowed the river to reach the sea 1 for the first time in decades
He enhanced fuel efficiency and pollution standards for vehicles. Consumers are saving money at the same time that we’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our communities are breathing cleaner air, and auto manufacturing in America is resurgent. Cars were put on a path to average over 50 miles per gallon.
He enacted the first major environmental law in two decades, passed with bipartisan support, fixing our broken chemical safety system.
He banned drilling in the Arctic.
He got Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, to commit to getting half of its energy from renewable sources.
And he led a worldwide effort with the Paris Climate Accord and got almost 200 countries – including China, the world’s largest carbon polluter – to pledge to address climate change.
The stimulus produced the world’s largest wind farm, a half dozen of the world’s largest solar arrays, and America’s first refineries for advanced bio-fuels. It created a battery-manufacturing industry for electric vehicles almost entirely from scratch. It financed net-zero border stations and visitors’ centers, an eco-friendly new Coast Guard headquarters, and jump-started three long-awaited transit mega-projects in Manhattan alone: the Moynihan Station, the Second Avenue Subway, and the Long Island Railroad connection to the East Side.
And it would have jump-started a multibillion-dollar rail tunnel to New Jersey and a high-speed rail system in Florida as well if Republican Governors Chris Christie and Rick Scott hadn’t killed those projects, and it would have pumped billions into modernizing and rebuilding aging public schools if not for the adamant objections of Republican Senator Susan Collins, a crucial vote for the stimulus bill.
Also thanks to the stimulus, we built power lines, water treatment plants, sewage plants and fire stations; we weatherized government buildings, refurbished parks, libraries, aging pipe systems and train stations; made 22,000 miles of roadway improvements, repaired 2,700 bridges, brought water to Central California farms and plumbing to rural Alaska villages, and committed $7 billion to bringing broadband internet service to isolated underserved areas – a modern version of FDR’s rural electrification project.
Other components of the stimulus made crucial investments in health care – $27 billion to computerize our antiquated paper-and-ink based medical records system – as well as in transportation, medical and scientific research and the safety net, in addition to addressing the immediate needs of the cratering economy.
And despite the controversy over the historic size of the stimulus package, the Obama administration met every spending deadline, and it kept costs so far under budget that it was able to finance over 3,000 additional projects with the savings.
But for some, these massive efforts, accomplished in the aftermath of the worst financial collapse of our lifetimes and against massive resistance and obstruction from Republicans, were not enough, and were all dismissed as just half-measures.
It’s as if these people expected President Obama and VP Biden to fix all of the nation’s problems in a single election cycle, and when that didn’t prove possible, they punished his party in 2010, with disastrous results.
And too many people on the Left took the bait offered by the Right and determined that 2016 would be a change election.
And now the party of President Obama and VP Biden is seen as the party of craven centrists and corrupt corporatists by the followers of a man — a career politician who still portrays himself as an outsider and who opportunistically only adopts the mantle of the Democratic Party when he runs for office — who has spent an undistinguished 30 years in Congress with hardly an accomplishment to show for it.
With his thundering anti-establishment polemics and populist posturing he has already succeeded in turning our youth against the only party willing to fight for them, as they wait in thrall to his promised but as-yet still undelivered political revolution.
And while Republican base voters are ready to crawl through barbed wire and broken glass to get to the polls this year, too many of us dither and fret about our lack of perfectly perfect candidates, as we wistfully await the return of some mythical FDR – ( but not the actual one, who rescued the banking industry, refused to enact an anti-lynching law in an effort to mollify racist southern Democrats, who at times eased enforcement of antitrust statutes to mollify Big Business interests, whose original Social Security program shut out many African Americans from eligibility, who interred Japanese-Americans during World War II, and who didn’t do much at all in the way of jailing “banksters” ) – who will then unleash thunderbolts of righteous fire and brimstone on behalf of his “woke” constituents.
And in contrast with a disillusioned and disaffected Left, these people can be counted on to enthusiastically vote for the Republican candidate, because they’ve been spoon-fed so much hate, bitterness and resentment that they fully support:
caging the children of refugees and asylum seekers and detaining them in inhumane conditions without the benefit of emergency medical care,
withdrawing from an historic U.S.-led arms control agreement reached between Iran and the world powers, even though this withdrawal can mean an inevitable slide toward war,
obstructing an investigation into the possible coordination between Trump’s presidential campaign and agents of our adversary Russia,
arming public school teachers as a response to mass shootings,
anti-choice politicians who call for “heartbeat” bills, death certificates for stillborn babies under penalty of law, and medically impossible procedures such as surgically re-implanting ectopic pregnancies,
politicians who prioritized the failure of America’s first black president,
taking hostages and shutting down the government as a means for accomplishing things that they cannot enact legislatively,
domestic terrorists who point semi-automatic weapons at government agents seeking to collect long-overdue fines from a scofflaw rancher in arrears of more than $1 million in grazing fees on federal lands,
police officers who gun down unarmed black men and boys with impunity,
a Christian Identity preacher who publicly and provocatively burned a Koran which led to the death of our soldiers in overseas missions,
radio talk show hosts who slut-shame women who defend the provision of medical contraceptives in insurance plans,
citizens who demonize a black boy gunned down for jaywalking and left on the street by police,
mocking the choke-hold used on a black man who was killed by police for selling loose cigarettes on the street, and
right-wing candidates who pose fully armed in their campaign literature and who casually resort to violent language.
This authoritarianism, and a party marching in lock-step behind it, is what we are now up against – and not a center-left candidate for the Democratic nomination – and if feckless voters had not foolishly taken the bait and made 2016 an election about radical change we would not be in this crisis.
And once again some voters are intent on splitting the Democratic vote and this time making 2020 a referendum on single-payer instead of a dangerous, corrupt administration that has demonstrated contempt for our constitutional system of government.
And so here we are, with all these ribbons in our hair – all our deeply held and cherished liberal ideals and unchallenged, untested assumptions – and already we are all too willing to throw a Democrat with the national name recognition and network of supporters and contributors necessary to mount a winning challenge against a Republican presidential candidate under the bus as if he already were damaged goods, the Great Betrayer, and all in favor of …
Who?
Who is the candidate we feel we should get behind? Who else is going to challenge Trump and the Republicans in 2020? Who can check all the boxes, pass all the litmus tests, and single-handedly lead us into the Promised Land?
Or, rather, will we examine the pro’s and con’s of our candidate and unite behind an admittedly imperfect presidential candidate and a slate of Congressional and state candidates – and yes, heaven forbid, maybe even accept the lesser of two evils – as part of an effective, coherent campaign to loosen the death grip of the Reactionary Right?
Or will we continue to eat our own and allow ourselves to be divided and demoralized?
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Nice marshaling of evidence, Randy.
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Thank you. Sorry for submitting you and your readers to these very lengthy posts –and I did struggle with the length. But I just didn’t know where to stop.
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Randy,
I don’t have space limitations. You are always welcome to leave a comment, especially because you know what you are talking about.
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If there were LIKE buttons, I’d like your two posts 1000 times! Thank you.
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Thank you.
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I certainly cannot vote for Trump (one must have some sense of manners); if it is to be the frail geriatric Biden I suppose I will have to vote for him, but not with enthusiasm.
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The twittersphere has recently been aflame over Bernie Sanders’ decision to suspend his presidential campaign, and then his recent endorsement of frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden.
His most fervent supporters contend that Biden offers them nothing beyond a “not-Trump” candidacy.
This is what I say to them.
How about a sane immigration policy that does not separate families in crisis or lock children in cages?
How about health care policy that would boost subsidies for struggling families, lower the eligibility age for Medicare, provide a public option, and negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical firms?
How about forgiving student debts for low income students that were incurred at state and community colleges and historically black colleges and universities?
How about raising the minimum wage?
How about an end to trade wars that has led to closures of factories and job losses among exporting industries?
How about an end to reckless foreign policies that are bringing us to the brink of war?
That’s nothing?
Regardless, we don’t have the luxury of demanding enthusiasm, and pointing out a lack of enthusiasm can depress moral and voter turnout.
Fortunately, we don’t have to hold our noses to campaign, support, and vote for Biden.
This country is facing probably the most monumental challenge in its history. Our economy is on life support and a disease outbreak is rampaging through the country.
Our relations with our allies is in crisis, and in that vacuum of leadership authoritarians are on the march.
This is a time for tough, proven leadership that knows how to exercise the levers of power.
During the eight years that followed the debacle of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama-Biden administration brought the economy back to almost full employment, reformed the healthcare industry and provided coverage for 20 million people, enacted banking reform to curb the worst abuses of the financial sector, rescued two iconic automakers from insolvency, made massive investments in renewable energy, restored our strained alliances and standing in the world community, and honorably ended an ill-conceived and ruinous war.
And Biden’s considerable talents and abilities were pressed into service on Day One.
In 2009 this nation was in the throes of what was then the worst economic and financial collapse of our lifetimes, and President Obama entrusted Vice President Biden to oversee the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – better known as the stimulus.
And despite the controversy over the historic size of the stimulus package, the Obama administration met every spending deadline, and it kept costs so far under budget that it was able to finance over 3,000 additional projects with the savings.
And unlike the current coronavirus stimulus program, in 2009 we put active monitoring and oversight systems to avoid waste, mismanagement and fraud.
And VP Biden was able to convince three Republican Senators – Snowe, Collins and Specter – to break the logjam, cross the partisan aisle, and vote for the stimulus package.
A year later, he convinced Specter to switch parties and provide us with the deciding 60th vote for the Affordable Care Act.
His role in contentious negotiations with obstructionist Republicans also helped reauthorize unemployment insurance during the Great Recession, resolve a taxation deadlock, avoid a fiscal cliff, and diffuse the debt ceiling crisis.
Biden is also a recognized expert on international relations and a former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his stature and relationships with world leaders will be vitally needed as we try to repair the frayed relations that were a result of Trump’s misguided hyper-nationalist misadventures.
As a Senator, Joe Biden also chaired the Judiciary Committee and led efforts to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included the Assault Weapons Ban and the Violence Against Women Act.
As Vice President, he was integral in President Obama’s attempt to uphold our values and America’s leadership role.
As part of that effort, President Obama wisely enlisted Biden’s talents in the use of diplomacy to solve problems and bring people of various nations together.
When we convened the US-Africa Leaders Summit — and brought along 500 business men and women to forge greater economic ties with one of the world’s fastest growing regions — we reached out to these nations as equals, and that effort culminated in the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allowed sub-Saharan countries to sell their goods in the United States duty-free and forge stronger ties with American interests.
An historic agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions provided the potential to prevent a nuclear arms buildup in an already unstable Middle East and ease regional tensions, and also possibly free up Iranian oil and gas for the European market, with the potential to undercut Russia’s ability to use its own oil and gas supplies as a geopolitical weapon to counter economic sanctions imposed by America and an energy-dependent Europe in response to Russia’s incursions into Ukraine and its illegal annexation of the Crimea.
Through years of negotiations and diplomacy, we managed to enlist the world’s great powers in the effort, overcame criticism that we would fail to engage the hostile and untrustworthy Iranians, and countered accusations that he was ensuring an Iranian doomsday bomb and exacerbating an existential threat to our ally Israel.
And finally, an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes — unprecedented in the scope and aggressive intrusiveness of its inspections and enforcement regime – had been passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council and upheld by Congress.
And due to Biden’s mastery of diplomacy and his effective use of personal relationships, this historic effort was not derailed by China’s and Russia’s habitual use of their veto powers in the UN Security Council.
In addition, easing travel restrictions and normalizing relations with Cuba marked the end of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere and promised to relieve isolation for Cuban citizens, marginalize hardliners, strengthen the hand of reformers, and undercut attempts by Russia and Venezuela to forge wider hemispheric links.
We also reached an agreement with China, the world’s largest carbon polluter, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions — a first for China — and provide 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030; we secured an understanding with India on greenhouse gas emissions; and enlisted 190 countries, including China, to reach a historic agreement, the Paris Accord, to address climate change.
Also under President Obama and VP Biden, we also assembled a 65-nation coalition of allies — and adversaries — to combat the ISIS terrorist group, and overcame ethnic and regional rivalries in order to stand up a regional fighting force that also had the potential to serve as the model for wider regional cooperation, including eventually transitioning into an ongoing regional peacekeeping force and a regional economic development and trade partnership.
We beat back the H1N1, zika and ebola virus, and proactively placed scientists and health professionals in medical hot-spots around the world — including in China — to monitor the emergence or spread of dangerous contagious diseases.
Our attempts to broker a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, our success in rallying Western Europe to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, our success in getting Syria to surrender its chemical weapons without a fight, our determination to assemble a coalition to combat the terrorist group ISIS on their home turf, and ongoing attempts to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy marked a renewed attempt to organize a world community around something besides war and an attempt to dominate other peoples:
Under President Obama and VP Biden, we strove to reaffirm and uphold the principles that inspired us to save the world from fascism and authoritarianism, and strengthen a community of nations with the capacity to coexist and resolve problems peacefully.
Free trade agreements under negotiation with European and Asia-Pacific powers promised to establish enforceable worker and environmental protections — standards that typically are not championed by the free trade advocates and have not been enforced in past agreements – and blunt the efforts of the investor classes and financial elite to outsource jobs and factories, exploit impoverished citizens in developing countries, pit countries against each other in competition for jobs and investment, and escape the labor and environmental regulations of developed Western nations.
But all that progress is now at risk under an administration that has overturned or undermined consumer protections and regulations designed to protect the public from predatory business practices and the environment from pollution and profiteering, and has alienated longtime allies and security and trading partners.
And so now here we are, facing a restive and anxious set of allies around the world who are now as uncertain of our commitments to them as we now are of our own place in the world — and in an international order which we ourselves largely created and have led for over 70 years.
And our adversaries are increasingly becoming emboldened, more adventurous, and eager to exploit those doubts that we have engendered by our lack of clarity and direction.
And in this rapidly changing state of affairs the world is being forced to call into question our previous assumptions and position of moral authority, status, and fitness for leadership.
And because of Trump’s moves to upend and withdraw from existing agreements and alliances, and because of the ambivalence he has displayed toward allies and security and trade partners, the world is now undergoing a realignment that threatens to leave the U.S. increasingly isolated diplomatically, economically, culturally, and militarily.
In just three years under Trump, the U.S. has gone from the recognized, respected, and undisputed Leader of the Free World to something akin to rogue superpower status.
And in the event of a miscalculation or ill-conceived policy that leads to a general economic reversal or collapse, a widespread outbreak of war, pandemic, or humanitarian crisis, the U.S. could find itself a pariah nation.
We now face a choice between two competing visions and sets of values.
One calls for us to work within and strengthen a hard-fought community of nations and shared values, and to coexist and resolve problems peacefully without a desire to dominate and exploit other peoples.
The other calls for us to look to other nations with suspicion, to enact policies that provide additional benefits and privileges to the richest and most powerful, that limit redress and representation among the most marginalized and powerless, and that act as the ‘muscle’ behind a new global colonialism driven by moneyed interests and unaccountable dealmakers loyal to no country’s flag and which do not enjoy the consent of its people.
For the past 70 years, we have led the way in making the world more free, more safe, and more prosperous, because the rest of the world was convinced of the strength, not just of our economy or military, but also of our principles.
We led because of our commitment to freedom, liberty and justice.
And today, if we are to regain our stature as the leader of the free world, that indispensable nation, and first among equals, we need to restore our moral leadership, and for that we need a man of honor.
And that man is Joe Biden.
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