Bernie was never my number one choice for president. I much preferred Pete Buttigeig or Elizabeth Warren. But when they dropped out and it became a contest between Biden and Sanders I had little choice.
I’m overall progressive. Am I sure that Bernie’s way is the right way? Not entirely.
Biden doesn’t have the creativity or guts to steer this country to a better future. As promised he’s likely to put us back on the same course we were before. The silver lining of Trump, amid all his destructiveness, was that he agitated. He got the reaction going again. In an apathetic country with opulence and poverty stratifying at uncontrolled rates, Trump was the alarm bell. An alarm that should have been a long time sounding for good citizens finally went off when we elected a wrecking ball to the White House.
The danger of the ‘just defeat Trump’ strategy is that it creates a false victory. Yes, it’s true that he should be removed (voted out but under a normal Congress would likely have been convicted in his impeachment trial). The path we were on before Trump was one of certain ruin, in less time than it took for Roman Civilization to end.
I’m fully convinced that we have all the resources, ideas and technology available to have our country prosper sustainably. It is not for lack of these things that we fail. It is a lack in moral character, in our credo as a country. Should we adopt different ideas we could be put on the right path.
Not sure that Bernie had those groundbreaking ideas, but he was changing things. It’s not a good sign that even his slight changes were seen as radical and extreme. People may think I’m crazy by saying his changes were slight but if you imagine this country already provides free healthcare for people over 65 (on which the majority of public healthcare money is spent), then the idea of extending free public healthcare to every American Citizen is just a slight change, at least conceptually.
Yes, practically some things are hard to do. Tradeoffs exist. I’m not saying that’s not an obstacle. But if we can’t agree on the goals, the concepts, our fundamental values, then this country is in decline.
I started writing this because I wanted to say that part of me wants to vote for Trump. Because of how disappointing our Biden pick was. When the guy with most name recognition wins it’s pretty sad. All elections are popularity contest but we should try to minimize that effect in our national elections. People trust him. I don’t.
But voting for Trump is a lie. A lie to myself, because I don’t like him. I wouldn’t want the record to imply that. I’m searching for protest. As I’m sure many are. And I don’t know the best way to air it. For the 2nd of 3 total national elections I’ve participated in, I feel completely unheard. Thanks Biden.
I won’t vote for Trump. And because elections are dumb and I live in MA, it really doesn’t matter if I vote. So I guess that opens the possibility of just voting for the 3rd party person, knowing that probably that won’t affect the race between Trump and Biden. If it did then no one can blame me for voting my conscience. Blame the election system and not me.