What do you know that life-long civil rights activist, philosopher, and academic Angela Davis does not know?
By Omar Afra
By putting Biden up as the Democratic nominee, the DNC has slapped us all in the face. But another 4 years of Trump would be a shotgun blast to the belly. Which do you prefer: being slapped or shot with the shotgun in the stomach? The lesser of two evils is all we have right now and putting our heads in the sand will not improve the situation.
There is nothing ‘radical’ or ‘revolutionary’ about aiding and abetting Donald Trump. Sitting out this election would be exactly that.
This is one of the finer points I like to imagine a seasoned, wise activist of 5+ decades like Angela Davis could understand. Despite her own personal, ideological principles, Davis has fought enough battles and seen enough victories/losses to know that maintaining a sense of pragmatism is critical. In a recent interview with RT News, Davis made clear that a vote for Biden was a preferable alternative to Trump despite her Marxist-Feminist worldview.
“Biden is far more likely to take mass demands seriously. Far more likely than the current occupant of the White House. So this coming November, the election will ask us not so much to vote for the best candidate, but to vote for or against ourselves.”
Davis also took to the airwaves recently to voice her support for a Biden vote despite not advocating for Biden himself. She told Democracy Now , “To me, that is the only thing that someone like a Joe Biden represents. But we have to persuade people to go out and vote to guarantee that the current occupant of the White House is forever ousted.” Host Amy Goodman described Davis as a “renowned abolitionist, author, activist, professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, author of many books, including Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. ” The list is very short of others who have anywhere near the ‘radical’ credentials Davis has.
Davis should stand as an example to all ‘radicals’ that utilitarian approaches are often necessary and that there is no merit in ideological rigidity. If there was ever a time in American history to become practical and un-idealistic, that time is now. People’s lives literally depend on it.
For 4 decades now, I have been told that every presidential election “is the most important election of our lifetimes.” This is at once true and hyperbolic. The reality is, as the stakes get higher and managing the American Empire becomes more untenable, every election is dramatically more important than the last. This is part and parcel of the blowback of empire on an unwitting electorate.
With Democrats offering up the most lukewarm, centrist, old-guard candidate they could possibly find, more radical elements of the political left are making a moral symmetry between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Many Bernie Sanders supporters and those further to the ‘left’ have expressed their frustration with the Democratic National Committee by making promises to not vote for Biden. By equating a vote for Biden with a vote for Trump. By claiming that Biden and Trump are analogous — old, white men who want to cling to patriarchy, the deep state, oligarchy or one of the many other ‘fill-in-the-blank groups that do not have regular meetings or standardized membership.’ The par-for-the-course ambivalence and corruption of Biden is nowhere in the vicinity of Trump’s callous ineptitude and potentiality for authoritarianism.
Show Comments
joel
Yes
GIII
Demand that a canindate make some committement to pursuing economic policy that is abosolutely neccesary to making substantial economic change for the Black populace is not “radical”. Exceptng the same lack of interest in improving the wealth level of African Americans thats been going on for 30+ years with deplorable results for us is not “pragmatic”.
NDP
No. I have a lot of respect for Angela Davis, but I’m not voting for Biden (either). I’m going with either Hawkins/Walker or La Riva/Peltier (wish I choose all four).
This is non-linear. I really don’t want more of Trump but I cannot flush my vote with the interests Biden represents. My vote is going to people whose values and views I share more with. And I think more of you should vote with us.
I might be more inclined to play this game if corporate wing supporters had minimally held Clinton accountable for not only rigging the DP primaries, but the GOP primaries too. Their leaked emails showed they sent Trump minimally 50 percent of the way. He would otherwise be forgotten today, a footnote in Republican Party election history, back on reality TV. But if they can’t acknowledge what they did, and with changes laid out, when does this horrific election blackmailing of voters end? They offer no solution in exchange for our votes “yet again,” with each again getting worse and worse with each cycle. At this point, the DP is even being handed over to the ousted Bush cabal, with Kasich more welcome to speak at the convention than Bernie – who was “ not a real Democrat.” While Kasich is, we see!?
Plus, this writer, apparently, wasn’t even a Bernie supporter. Yet she condescends this stuff to us? And after how we were treated? Hillary Clinton herself told us to get out of the DP on national tv. And I’ve been DP voter for over 40 years, campaigning and voting for her too. I can’t tell the amount of shit I took from people supporting corporate women like her and others who then threw us and our loved ones under the bus on health care, among other issues.
Anyway, I could go on, but short version, I’ve taken Hillary’s advice, not Angela’s. Biden’s too for that matter since I think Tara Reade is telling the truth (and he said “if that’s what you think, you shouldn’t vote for me!”) Though there are many other reasons in and of themselves that are enough too.
NDP
No. I have a lot of respect for Angela Davis, but I’m not voting for Biden (either). I’m going with either Hawkins/Walker or La Riva/Peltier (wish I choose all four).
This is non-linear. I really don’t want more of Trump but I cannot flush my vote with the interests Biden represents. My vote is going to people whose values and views I share more with. And I think more of you should vote with us.
I might be inclined to play this game if corporate wing supporters had minimally held Clinton accountable for not only rigging the DP primaries, but the GOP primaries too. Their leaked emails showed they sent Trump minimally 50 percent of the way. He would otherwise be forgotten today, a footnote in Republican Party election history, back on reality TV. But if they can’t acknowledge what they did, and with changes laid out, when does this horrific election blackmailing of voters end? They offer no solution in exchange for our votes “yet again,” with each again getting worse and worse with each cycle, and savagely pointing the finger at people who are guilty of nothing more than standing with their own principles and POV. At this point, the DP is even being handed over to the ousted Bush cabal, with Kasich more welcome to speak at the convention than Bernie – who was “ not a real Democrat.” While Kasich is, we see!?
Plus, this writer, apparently, wasn’t even a Bernie supporter. Yet she condescends this stuff to us? And after how we were treated? Hillary Clinton herself told us to get out of the DP on national tv. And I’ve been a DP voter for over 40 years, campaigning and voting for her too. I can’t begin to tell the amount of shit I took from people supporting corporate women like her and others who then threw us and our loved ones under the bus on health care, among many other issues.
Anyway, I could go on, but short version, I’m taking Hillary’s advice, not Angela’s. Biden’s too for that matter since I think Tara Reade is telling the truth (and he said “if that’s what you think, you shouldn’t vote for me!”) Though there are many other reasons in and of themselves that are enough for me to reject Biden, even it’s not what happened.
LuvstheCity
So you are good with Trump in the White House for four more years? Don’t look to us to get him out while you selfishly vote for who you want. Like the article says, now is the time for pragmaticsm.
DK
and don’t look to us to put your neoliberal corporatist in. You wanted the reppublican vote. win with them, and shove your pragmatism where the sun don’t shine. along with the pathetic appeal to authority with a side of typical DNC vote shaming the screed represents.
Asking me to vote for someone because they won’t hit me as hard isn’t democracy. It’s just blue colored Fascism.
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”
-George Orwell.
Thats what people like you and the rest of the #vichydems (as they back trumps budgets for endless war and DHS stormtroopers) are.
Jb
No comments, hmm. I believe Ms. Davis is astray from her mentor, Prof. Herbert Marcuse teachings. Also the major flaw is not opposing all oppression, 1 cannot pick Biden and not realize his Foreign Policy, like Obama’s was a Crime against the world. Even though Biden clearly leans to the AEI policies.
It’s beyond the personalities it’s Who Is Running Them.
One Dimentional Man and the Eros speak to this.
John Schiermeister
What a joke of an article. Fake news.
As if there were no real option, and actually call it the lesser of two evils.
I haven’t voted in decades from sheer apathy, as I watch other vote from fear.
Apathy no longer, I will se Dr. Jo Jorgensen POTUS 2020.
The zero evil candidate. Not a shotgun blast to the gullet, not a slap to the face. A sweet carress.
LuvstheCity
He won’t win. Don’t complain if Trump wins.
Alex Scala
What is this, the return of the Popular Front? I wouldn’t follow Angela Davis around the corner. Marxist-Leninists are shallow opportunists — the right wing of the left. “Pragmatism” ends inevitably in complicity in crimes. Biden may be less evil than Trump — the point is moot — but he’s not enough less evil to be interesting. The moral choice in the coming election is either to stay at home or to write in the name of your favourite ice cream.
Sidney
Alex, your attitude will harm multitudes of poor and disenfranchised people by not voting or writing in your favorite ice cream flavor…bottom line you help move 45 closer to a win. Your non-vote is a vote for 45. If you’re a Trumpster just say so, there is no crime in being truthful is there?
AD
it’s sort of miraculous to me that liberals are always finding more radical voices that they are perfectly comfortable ignoring 99% of the time, and instead of engaging with the bulk of their ideas, just skim through their dialectic to find some vague caveat in their praxis that confirms their commitment to electoralism to bully people who have actually put in the effort of trying their reported theory of change and found it wanting.
DP
No. The People’s Front!
Splitter!
Bex
Jo Jorgensen is on the ballot in all 50 states. Not a Pedo nor racist nor controlled by corporations. Check her out, you might like her. Better than an ice cream flavor, it won’t be a wasted vote.
Don
Sure. I will vote for my pet goldfish and you vote for some guaranteed loser and when ICE destroys more lives, leaves others in terror and Trump sets climate change into irreversible hell on earth you and the rest like you can say you stuck to your principles.
Do you REALLY think the pandemic would have spun beyond control with all the lies, denials and looting and death were Biden in the White House?!
RyanH
When you say, ” when …Trump sets climate change into irreversible hell on earth “, you actually raise an argument against Biden. Every sign and metric shows that the trajectory for climate change has steadily accelerated (beyond even original fears); and this has continued regardless of which party held power. The twin threats that comprise the main ones underlying “The Doomsday Clock” are climate destabilization and risk of nuclear war. (Ironically, there is a growing nexus between those conditions, which I won’t go into here.) The “Clock” has been established as 100 seconds before the Midnight that marks the end of human civilization and much of the biosphere. We simply no longer have the time for the incrementalism and continued domination by private capital that is represented by “Status Quo” Joe.
Given that there is not a potentially winnable alternative, then, IMO we are far beyond pinning our hopes on any particular electoral outcome. By this I mean that the changes needed will likely primarily if not solely emerge from the grassroots. By that I mean that masses of people will have to force the changes via their only remnant collective power: that of their power over the economy, in the marketplaces and via their labor and taxes; i.e. their ability to influence and disrupt them.
I just don’t see another way because there really isn’t enough time left for anything short of a sweeping change of direction within the political leadership of this and other nations. Unfortunately, it has been my observation that whenever a Dem got into the White House, it tends to lead to quiescence by those who theoretically are democratic in leaning. Any “resistance” tends to be marginalized lest the boat be rocked. We saw that with Occupy, for example.
Stephen Verchinski
In a word, likely.
The beholden to big pharma and vaccine makers is well documented. The lies would be more circumspect. I cannot vote for this duopoly. Nader was right. That just gives your vote to those that are systematically in active rebellion against we the People. It will not end well if we continue to vote them in again and again.
N
It will literally be a wasted vote.
jack
Biden is a pure liberal on Roe, schools, unions, taxes, Social Security. Attacked Big Oil, agribusiness, donors, insurers; Chamber of Commerce hates him. Biden is dirt poor, doesn’t take special-interest money; got into office because his sister rode around with fliers.
Biden pushed Reagan on climate, pushed Obama on gays, got Obamacare through Congress, got Anita Hill to tell her story, kept Bork off the Court, passed the assault weapons ban and the Violence Against Women Act, fought apartheid, almost arrested fighting segregation.
If you people think Biden is some kind of centrist traitor, then you’re as delusional as the MAGAs.
Michael Goldenberg
My favorite ice cream flavor is Tulsi Gabbard.
Gerard
not much to say another dembot vote shaming article, using Davis.
Sorry you dems blew it big time.
It’s not just that biden is the worst candidate out of all of them,
it’s also just the extreme amount of corruption, rigging, voter suppression, slandering ,attacking,etc. of Sanders from all democrats i.e. dem media,dnc, dem voters.
Democrats keep slapping the left in the face,every inch of the way.
Now it’s them saying biden with his task force has come up with the best progressive proposal ever.
There’s absolutely nothing progressive in it.
And as is mentioned in this same ole dem article, every election democrats say
‘this time we really mean it, you have to vote dem, we can’t have ….in office,
or ‘we know he’s the lesser of two evils,but that’s the way it is
or ‘just vote democrat then we’ll look into some progressive policies.
What bullshit.
I’ve been voting over 40 yrs. It’s the same all the time.
The big thing is tho democrats could replace biden with sanders any time.
What dnc was caught cheating in super tuesday , dnc said ‘we don’t have to follow the rules’.
So they can give biden the boot anytime. Biden has no chance.
Those polls are biased democrat polls that say he’s ahead in the polls.
I don’t know, one can make it a conspiracy theory, but almost seems like dnc wants trump. WHy would they push the weakest,worst candidate out of all of them?
Something to thing about.
I’m over it.
Democrats are on their own
Nicole
YES!! I respect Angela Davis a LOT and was interested in hearing her argument. But this article was garbage. “Lives depend on it”, pretty sure people’s lives depend on having access to medical care too, AKA Medicare for All, which Biden’s promised to veto. He and his team also want nothing to do with decriminalizing marijuana, which would be incredible for the lives of those who’ve been incarcerated & harrassed & murdered for petty “drug” crimes. Of course, he was the author of the crime bill, so who’s really surprised? Biden listens to the money which is in direct opposition to the rest of our interests. If there’s any credit to give to Trump, it’s that he listens to his voters. What makes anyone think once Biden’s in he’s going to start listening when he won’t while he’s “running”?
Anyways, for these people trying to vote shame, you’d better not sit back on the sidelines if Biden gets in office. At least with Trump there people are willing to fight and get involved. Make sure it’s for more than just swapping one problematic president for another.
Bex
There are other viable candidates who are NOT part of the problem. Jorgensen is on ballots in all 50 states and wouldnt be a wasted vote at least.
Don
Yes lives depend on it! On what planet do you reside? The grotesque denial of the current president concerning a global pandemic is causing massive devastation like nowhere else on earth, except for Brazil, where another egomaniac president refuses to wear a mask! Obama established an international strategy to combat future threats of this nature and Trump abolished the department that Obama created for this purpose. Americans can no longer travel to Canada or Europe. I’m surprised Mexico isn’t cheering Trump on to build the wall! One highly credible source estimated that there will be 240,000 dead by November and another said when it gets cold what we have faced so far will look like a walk in the park.
Thanks to Americans who cannot grasp the enormity of the tragedy we are living with there’s no end in sight while other countries have contained the virus and now want nothing to do with us!!!
Bex
“Democrats are on their own” yep because they pushed us away. Personally and morally, I’m voting for Dr. Jo Jorgensen this time. Only way I would be able to sleep at night come November.
Mia
You’re pretty evil if you’re able to sleep at night knowing you helped Trump win and directly contributed to the deaths of those less privileged than yourself.
I’m principled enough to care more about peoples’ lives than feeling fake-good about myself.
Gerard
the writer of this article is david icke turner. Relations to david icke?
Either way, it’s just another weak, gaslighting democrat blabber
Douglas Presler
I’m voting for Biden, but you know what? Fuck you, Turner. Biden would be a shotgun blast to the belly, too, you centrist asswipe. It’d just be a smaller caliber blast.
Happy Bastille Day, shit.
dianne
So-o-o, Trump again? Just wondering.
Linda Hill
It is so hard to set aside our beliefs, opinions, stands, attitudes and come to the table to listen to everyone’s ideas. Ms Davis will always be a hero to many American women. She belonged to an organization that did not revere women, but she joined hands and worked with many, many people to further her agenda. She is a shining example of what she is asking each of us to do in November. Bitching about the system is good. Pressuring the system is better – and only large numbers can do that. Mango Mussolini is literally killing people with his policies. While the Democrats have certainly killed their fair share of Americans, most certainly they at least “say” they care. From saying it we can exert the pressure needed to actually make them act on it. It is a pleasure to hear from a Revolutionary who understands the day to day struggle all people are going through because of this Administration.
Sa Silva
Imagine in election day be forced to vote on a rapist or a rapist lmao. Angela Davis betrayed the communist movement.
Tony
I would say voting for a pedophile, racist is not at all a good choice. I would think women would be more supportive of voting for a woman who actually has freedom in her mindset over either of the old creepshows running for the Republocrats. Vote #JoJorgenson2020 #JoJo2020
John Tavernier
Biden is much, much, much worse than Trump. Biden is like Ebola and Trump is like having the allergies, since we’re doing analogies.
Biden is not the lesser of two evils. Hell, Trump isn’t even an evil. But, Biden is.
Mia
Are you seriously that delusional? You have to be a troll. Nobody is that dense. Biden is slightly right leaning at worst, while Trump is literally a fascist who has riled up and emboldened the nazis to come out of the woodwork and cause a dramatic surge in hate crimes, not to mention pages worth of other stuff that could be mentioned, but I’m pretty sure you’re just trolling. Again, I refuse to believe anyone is that dense.
J Bernard Jones
I don’t like or agree with how this article starts (“By putting Biden up as the Democratic nominee, the DNC has slapped us all in the face.”) because Democratic VOTERS — led by Black voters — chose Biden as the nominee in overwhelming numbers. This kind of intellectually dishonest dissembling is nothing less than erasure of those voices INCLUDING the Black & brown ones suggests that Black and brown folks didn’t make this EXACT SAME STRATEGIC CALCULATION that Davis did not “the DNC”, but the rest of this is 100% on point
Diane
I’m voting for Biden. To sit home and not vote this November is pre-school politics. To dismiss the peoples’ votes that selected Biden over Sanders as some sort of DNC conspiracy is the actual slap in the face.
RyanH
Diane, enough with the vote-shaming and moral/intellectual superiority, ok? When you write with such oversimplification and lack of understanding, you have no claim to such.
I suspect that no one has said that Biden voters were a conscious part of some DNC conspiracy. But to deny the existence of the latter, and the fact that it mirrored 2016’s heavy rigging to block that “socialist” Sanders, is either absurdly naive or extremely dishonest.
You can deny as you will that, or all the instances in which the Democratic Party organs tried (and often succeeded) in blocking progressives by pouring money into the coffers of those who’d carry on the DP’s love-affair with concentrated capital, war, fracking, etc. (e.g. the DSCC recruited and chose Colorado’s John Hickenlooper (“Frackenlooper”) over the popular, progressive candidate who’d defeated him in the caucuses and at county conventions… and with their money “Frack” and his allies flooded the airwaves with attack ads against the progressive, which paid off the investment handsomely, as expected.)
But very many others recognize what has transpired and may not be willfully blind nor forgiving, notwithstanding their other considerations in these matters.
Didier Ortiz
The author is definitely not a Communist, much a less a Marxist-Leninist!lol
Ron Robinson
All of those black folk who turned the tide for Biden are NOT the DNC. But white supremacist-lite neo-progressives can’t come right out with their anti-black racism and resentment of blacks who over 95% will vote for Biden in the general. So they’ll talk about the DNC instead, to make themselves feel less racist. Their white privilege allows them to NOT see Trumpf as an existential threat and insulates them from what us black folk experience every time Republicans take over Government. And those few black folk they’ll quote – the ones who vote AGAINST the rest of the 95% of black folk – they parade around like right-wingers do Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson, to make it look like they really care about black folk when all they care about is fealty to their ideological narcissism and search for supremacy and superiority.
Avi
You don’t like facts, do you? Look at the jurisdictions in which Blacks experience the worst conditions, especially violent crime. With perhaps a single exception, they are _all_ run by Democrats, and most have been for decades. Take MI, for example. The governor flips between Democrat and Republican, but Detroit has had a Democrat mayor since before I was born.
Republicans don’t care about Blacks any more than they care about Whites. If there’s anything you could say about Republicans, it’s that they are classist. But most people are, so that’s meaningless.
Connie
So you’re telling me that I should choose between the person who will kill me without the benefit of a blindfold, and the one who’ll do the same, but he’ll give a chance to say good-bye to my cats. Seriously? If others wants to sell out their morals, that’s their business. As far as I’m concerned, Angela Davis sold her political soul to the highest bidder a long time ago, and her no longer credible Marxist credentials are about as legitimate as used cat litter. This article is just insulting and sloppy, as it assumes that anyone who dares to voice a contrary opinion or votes for someone other than Biden is a blithering Trump-supporting imbecile.
The Democratic party is just another pat of the military/industrial/corporatist duopoly whose only reason for its existence is to try and shut down any dissenting voice. The fact that much of the protests against the police murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Abery are being watered down by the Democrats’ infestation to get people to NOT riot, is proof they don’t care. They want to quell any dissent, no matter how small so they can continue to support the failing and flailing American empire. Angela Davis is not the only voice that matters, and we shouldn’t be led down the primrose path just because she’s choosing to vote for Biden. The Democrats want to continue to use the politics of fear, and when you vote your fear, you’ll get the government you fear. That’s what happened four years ago; that’s what too many people want us to do right now. This article is drowning in fear and twisting night sweats. Biden is no different from Trump, and anyone saying otherwise is delusional.
Bex
You don’t have to waste your vote on Biden nor Trump. Make it count and vote for a third party. These “if you don’t vote for [poop sandwich] then you’re voting for [diarrhea slushie] and we’re all gonna die!” Facist scare tactics are getting tiring. Vote for change. For for good, not an evil.
Jo Jorgensen is on ballots in all 50 states. Check her out. I can guarantee you won’t agree 100% with her platform, but at least she’s NOT a racist pedo predator bought out by corporations, and hangs out with sex traffickers.
No, Dr. Jorgensen is a mom and Professor with political experience who wants every American to be free and safe. Jorgensen is pretty cool. I think you’ll like her.
Don
Like she’s going to win because you live in a dream world? Our country is on the brink with Ginsburg again in the hospital and you would be lecturing about fascist scare tactics if this were 1933 Germany. Do you need to be locked up in a concentration camp to wake up? You sound as delusional as those who thought Covid-19 is just a hoax, nothing more serious than the flu, then caught the virus and lamented their stupidity on their death bed!
RyanH
The author says, of the putative choice between Biden and Trump, “Which do you prefer: being slapped or shot with the shotgun in the stomach? ” This is a sadly disingenuous and childishly simplistic statement of the case.
Given the rapidly accelerating (and now, converging) existential threats of climate-destabilization- fueled collapse and nuclear annihilation (per the “Doomsday Clock”…now set at 100 seconds before midnight), and Status Quo Joe’s history and statements, the choice is more akin to one between being the shotgun or the thousand cuts by the knife blade.
This is not to argue that anyone who chooses to vote Biden in order to terminate Trump is immoral or unreasonable. Such choices are almost always logically and morally defensible, for they are made within the contextual limits of the voter. Yet that’s exactly why the author comes across as arrogant, engaging in a form of moral superiority and vote-shaming of those who may consider the choice in a broader, longer-term context – one which makes clear that neither fortress liberalism nor incrementalist, “slightly better” will change the trajectories of the looming cataclysms.
Connie
So you’re telling me that I should choose between the person who will kill me without the benefit of a blindfold, and the one who’ll do the same, but he’ll give a chance to say good-bye to my cats. Seriously? If others wants to sell out their morals, that’s their business. As far as I’m concerned, Angela Davis sold her political soul to the highest bidder a long time ago, and her no longer credible Marxist credentials are about as legitimate as used cat litter. This article is just insulting and sloppy, as it assumes that anyone who dares to voice a contrary opinion or votes for someone other than Biden is a blithering Trump-supporting imbecile.
The Democratic party is just another part of the military/industrial/corporatist duopoly whose only reason for its existence is to try and shut down any dissenting voice. The fact that much of the protests against the police murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Abery are being watered down by the Democrats’ infestation to get people to NOT riot, is proof they don’t care. They want to quell any dissent, no matter how small so they can continue to support the failing and flailing American empire. Angela Davis is not the only voice that matters, and we shouldn’t be led down the primrose path just because she’s choosing to vote for Biden. The Democrats want to continue to use the politics of fear, and when you vote your fear, you’ll get the government you fear. That’s what happened four years ago; that’s what too many people want us to do right now. This article is drowning in fear and twisting night sweats. Biden is no different from Trump, and anyone saying otherwise is delusional.
Emily
There are many beautiful photos of Angela Davis. Why choose one where she is smoking? This photo, taken years ago, glamorizes a deadly practice.
Chuck Taylor
Would you choose Gorby or Stalin?
G
The dumbass disorder that this has
Eric Brooks
Angela Davis is a personal hero to me, but she is not infallible. While she is an incredibly incisive analyst and critic of the capitalism, racism, and the policing and prison industrial complex, she clearly does *not* understand how Washington DC politics work and how electing neoliberal Democrats has made our situation, both locally, and globally, massively worse than before Bill Clinton brought the neoliberal Democrat juggernaut forward to dominate. This is not about ‘ideals’ or being radical for the sake of radicalism, this is about knowing the actual facts around the destruction that is actually going on in the world, and who is causing it, and then mustering the common sense to stop perpetuating and worsening that destruction, and to stop voting for the destroyers.
Biden has been an active advocate and coordinator of every war persecuted by the US under his tenure for decades. And in the Obama administration he helped start five new wars in the Middle East and North Africa, killing and displacing millions of people. Biden oversaw a *literal* Nazi coup in Ukraine which was nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to insanely start a war with Russia, which could potentially end life on Earth as we know it. Trump has started *no* new wars and clearly is not seeking war with Russia.
Here is a comparison of Biden’s and Trump’s actual records showing that our votes are far better given to third parties to help them grow, than to either of these monsters.
– Biden and Secretary Clinton started 5 new wars, killing and displacing millions of innocent people. Trump has started *no* new wars.
– Biden and Secretary Clinton insanely maneuvered (along with neocons like John McCain) to start a WAR with RUSSIA. Trump is not seeking a war with Russia.
– Biden authored the Crime Bill which doubled the prison population from 1 to 2 million people (most of them people of color) a law directly responsible for thousands of deaths of people like George Floyd. Trump (even though he is indeed a cynical, racist, asshole) has not done anything remotely that destructive to people of color.
– Obama, Biden and Secretary Clinton deported more undocumented immigrants than Trump.
– Biden and Secretary Clinton engineered 4 coups against foreign governments (3 of them democratically elected) and the coups (totally illegal under international law) succeeded in Ukraine, Honduras and Libya. Trump has attempted one (in Venezuela – where Obama, Clinton and Biden also attempted a failed coup).
– Biden, Clinton and Obama presided over the largest expansion by any administration in *history* of the US fossil fuel industry, and they *created* the global fracking industry.
– Biden has restated *during* this pandemic that he will *veto* Medicare for All.
– Biden undermined Anita Hill and shut down other victim witnesses to make sure that ultra right wing sexual harasser Clarence Thomas became a Supreme Court Justice. (Biden also voted for Justice Antonin Scalia.) Trump appointed Kavanaugh. Same/Same.
– Biden is a *rapist* just like Trump.
– Biden has dementia. Should we be putting a man with dementia in charge of the entire United States nuclear weapons arsenal? Clearly, the answer is no.
Naw Fam
“By putting Biden up as the Democratic nominee, the DNC has slapped us all in the face“
The DNC didn’t “put up” Biden as the nominee, fool. THE VOTERS did. In particular, BLACK voters In the South overwhelmingly chose him and saved his floundering campaign.
Jack Din
Oh…is it finally time for white centrists to pay attention to Angela Davis? That only took 50 years. Which part are we paying attention to? A lifetime of support for Black liberation? Marxism? OH!!! Vote for Biden. Right. Gotcha.
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TJ
I can’t even believe that there are people on here (and thus representative of others outside this conversation) that are even considering not voting. Are you people ignorant?! Insane?! Your lack of action will bring us another 4 years of Trump pain. Seriously. Think of your action compounded by 1000’s. Bush won Florida in 2000 by only 537 votes, which pushed him on to win the presidency. Think about that before you decide to not go to the polls this year.
And I’m sorry but as regal as it is to vote for Jo Jorgensen, it’s a vote for Trump because it’s one less vote for Biden. I had to look up who she is. I’m sure most don’t know her. And while she might be the moral better choice, it’s just not the reality. Morally your choice is not wasted but in terms of big politics, it will be (especially if you have any conscious to take Trump out of power)
Aghast
if we’re gonna vote shame people maybe we should focus on Trump voters?
lol, David Icke Turner is the weirdest fucking pen name dude. What the hell is this website?
Lol no
Please do the world in favor and end your miserable existence since you’re so fearful of an open white supremacists over a closeted one.
Vernellia Randall
Angela Davis and I are the same age. And when we were young we had different paths. She was definitely more revolutionary than me
However, Like me, Angela Davis is an academic, professionally raised and grown in white institutions.
But unlike me, she has become a supporter of neoliberal democrats. Remember she said Barack Obama, free-market capitalism, was an inheritor of the Black radical tradition. I objected then and I object now.
Yes. I am too revolutionary to vote for a neoliberal. even if Angela Davis is not.
Lin Kaatz Chary
Wow, this is my first time on this site and I had no idea that I was such a traitor to the left or that I was so ignorant of my own motives for voting for Biden. See, I thought I was voting and this is not to vote shame anyone, although I guess I can see how it could be taken that way, not because I think there is anything about Biden I admire or like or respect but because I think we have to get Trump out of the White House.
I have less than no expectations of Biden/Harris, other than they’re not Trump and true, less overtly dangerous than Trump. The degree to which Trump has actively encouraged and facilitated the rise of antiSemitism, anti-Muslim hatred, homophobia, misogynist and racist violence in this country cannot be allowed to continue and while I believe they are all baked into the capitalist system, I don’t think that in a Biden/Harris White House they will get the same amount of oxygen and that’s an important difference. I also happen to believe that it is neither traitorous nor delusional to recognize reformism for what it is, it’s role in capitalism, and its utility at certain times. Do I feel good about voting for Biden. No I feel disgusted. But isn’t it the epitome of white privilege and class privilege to vote shame anyone who isn’t riding the moral high horse in refusing to vote for Biden/Harris when they have no real skin in the game?
Sure, hold your head high, keep your hands clean, sleep at night – it’s probably not your ass on the line with the police every time you step out your front door, it’s probably not your unemployment benefits that are running out, you’re probably not an “essential worker” with no health insurance, it’s probably not your landlord ready to evict you because you can’t make the rent so of course, it makes no difference whether you vote for Biden or Trump because they’re both exactly the same and you don’t want to touch either one so you’ll vote for the 3rd party or you’ll just not vote at all and feel very proud of yourself for sticking up for your principles. You probably won’t vote in any senate or house elections either, especially ones out of your own state, because what is worse than the way capitalism invites outside interference?
Back in 1980 I was part of a communist organization that took the line that there was no difference between Carter and Reagan (Tweedledee and Tweedledum)and people shouldn’t vote because it didn’t matter who won, nothing would really change. But you know what? We were really really wrong. There were big differences which we were too “radical” to consider important. And of course we couldn’t see the future. How Reagan’s victory established the beachhead for the emerging group of bright young radical right-wing conservatives like Newt Gingrich who working with Dick Armey and Richard Viguery, were building the foundation of what would culminate in Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham et al.
The people who would sweep the Congress in 1994 with the Contract with America and later the Tea Party. Iran Contra. A major shift of the entire political landscape – including the Democratic liberal left – dramatically to the right as demonstrated by the Clintons who in any other era would probably have been liberal Republicans but felt perfectly comfortable in the Democratic Party of the 1990s.
So all you purists can look down on us sell-outs all you want because we’re going to fight like hell to get Trump out of the White House and Biden in and not waste our votes on 3rd Party candidates who are no doubt wonderfully utopian but whose candidacy isn’t doing jack shit to hold the line against what Trump has unleashed. Getting Biden elected is just one more step in fighting this ongoing struggle against the forces of fascism that have taken hold here, between the corporate oligarchy and the rise of groups like QAnon.
You all seem to somehow have decided that those of us who are working to get Biden elected see this as the be all and the end all instead of one necessary tactic. Maybe when the election is over you’ll decide to descend from the rarefied heights of the righteous and join us mortals here on the ground in carrying on the struggle which either way will still be going on.
Seth
“But you think you’re too revolutionary for that”
Condescending articles like this make me increasingly uninvested in a Biden victory and exemplify how neoliberals are non-stop shitting on Progressives. We are constantly being treated like captive voters as Democrats think they are *entitled* to our votes even though they absolutely HATE Progressives more than they hate Trump and the alt right.
I will be writing in Bernie as I have absolutely nothing in common with Biden.
And while I would rather Biden be president than Trump, I also think it’s dangerous long term to give neoliberals another 8 years, potentially 16 years, of control over the party.
mamaligadoc
With respect !!!