Tradition is something this blog cherishes, and here's another. Your periodic reminder to the subset of readers who have a vote in the US presidential elections to cast their ballots for the Democrat. Writing on the eve of the election
four years ago, in the event of Donald Trump winning a wise old sage suggested "every racist, every fascist will be emboldened to carry through their imagined grievances against hispanics, blacks, Muslims, Jews, LGBT people, women. The so-called liberal elite, variously identified with journalists, academics, and lawyers are also threatened. And because the US remains the world's preeminent superpower, it will boost the politics of reaction everywhere." A terrible told you so one should not draw the grimmest of satisfactions from.
In 2020, the stakes are even starker. A Trump win means more racism, more impunity for the police, a free hand for the world's worst polluters, the continued looting of US infrastructure, the suppression of minority communities and their purge from electoral rolls, more power to the fundamentalists and the bigots, and a shot in the arm for right wing projects everywhere just as the wheels are coming off populist parties and authoritarian governments. A win for Biden, on the other hand, is a stop gap. The defeat of the forces of blackest reaction in an election is a good
in and of itself. It demonstrates to Americans as well as the rest of the world that their politics
can be defeated, that history isn't going their way. It shows the mobilisation of our people can work.
There's little point sugarcoating Biden, nor is there any need to. Everyone on the left knows him, his politics, his record and, ultimately, his unsuitability. He is the establishment's continuity candidate, the one who'll Make America Normal Again and steer politics back to the predictable mainstream. By winning from the centre left (in American terms) versus the death drive of the necrotic right, he'll reassert the primacy of moderate politics and incentivise the GOP to block fringe candidates in the future and make the Republicans safe for decent sensiblism. The disparities in wealth and power aren't going to be addressed. The frackers will carry on fracking. Politics for the rich by the rich continues its unbroken stretch. And yet even so, the marginal improvements the Biden/Harris ticket offers is preferable to a land of permanently stagnating living standards, more people denied health care, and a social security system barely qualifying for the name.
And then there is the most important issue of all. Under Donald Trump the handling of the Coronavirus crisis is the United States' greatest peace time disaster since the Spanish flu a century ago. The worst infection rate and the worst death rate in the world with infections ramping up. This is America afterall, and everything has to be bigger. Even tonight, Trump is
still tweeting his opposition to any effort aimed at controlling the virus. For hundreds of thousands of Americans, the difference between Trump and Biden is whether they'll live to see a vaccine or not, and millions more will carry on being exposed to the risk by an uncaring government. People who are disproportionately working class women of colour, the very backbone of our movement.
There is also a
positive reason for supporting the Democrat ticket on this occasion. The Bernie Sanders insurgency, and the winning of several Congressional races by the left opens up American politics in ways completely unthinkable a decade ago. A Biden victory provides more permissive circumstances for this project to consolidate itself and advance. True, the Democrats are a ruling class party
as much as the Republicans are, but the difference is their vote is progressively oriented and the peculiar structure of American parties offers opportunities for the left in ways not possible in our "proper" Labour Party. To suggest the misery of another Trump term would ultimately benefit socialist politics is either trolling, or the most mechanical accelerationism of the stupidist kind.
These then are the stakes. Four more years of Trump and all the death and mayhem that follows. Or four years of Biden and the possibility of something better. I don't have a vote, but if I did out would come the nose peg. Vote Biden, vote Democrat, and carry on organising.
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