Fine. He’s not the candidate I wanted. He’s definitely not the candidate that the Russian bots wanted, and thank goodness for that. He’s not the candidate a lot of people wanted. But he is the candidate a lot more people wanted – primary votes don’t lie, and things wrapped up dangerously quickly in a way that almost recalls how the media elected John McCain to be the Republican in 2008, and so here we are.
Yes, he has flaws. He has a forty year track record. He’s been on the wrong side of things in the past, and has got right on them now. It’s one thing to ding someone for something they thought as a younger person, but another to ding them for things they have disavowed, grown on, come around on. He’s four years too late, to be honest, although no one could begrudge him sitting out 2016 after his loss; the man has borne more personal tragedy than anyone should be asked to carry through a forty year political career. And under no circumstances should the media be allowed to get away with pressing him on things they let slide with the orange shitbag.
And this is the time to remember what I said all those years ago: politics is the art of the possible. If you want dreams, you should have majored in theater. There is no finish line – you come back to the coalface every day, and you have to dig out the future with your fingernails every day. You argue and fight to get your half a loaf, and maybe sometimes it’s not as big a half as you wanted, but you’re going to have to come back tomorrow and fight for a bigger half the day after, and after, and ever after. That’s how politics works – or was supposed to, anyway, and it’s the nature of the system. The opposite of politics is not kumbaya and come-let-us-reason-together, the opposite of politics is Syria.
People piss and moan about having to choose the lesser of two evils – well, that’s the world we live in. It is corrupt and fallible and evil, and you know why you choose the lesser of two evils? Because it’s fucking LESS. That’s how this works. You will not win the brave new “socialist” millennium? Well guess what, you’ll probably get some action on health care, some action on shifting the tax burden back toward those who fleeced the country for twenty years, some action on checking the unbridled power of Big Tech, and guess what? You definitely won’t have the kakistocracy of grifters and nut jobs and criminals led by a Fox News golem that we’ve had these last three-plus years, the ones that led us to a stagnant economy and a rampaging plague and the scorn of the world and the shame of our allies. If you genuinely believe that there is no difference between Biden and Tr*mp, that there will be no difference between a Biden Presidency and what we have now – then kill yourself. You’re too stupid to live and you’re definitely too stupid to vote.
For the rest of us – it’s over. It’s a binary decision. Stop the bleeding or die. Biden, or concede that the last four years have been acceptable and that worse is fine. Biden, or start begging for an Irish passport. Biden, or a long night with no dawn. Unless you think everything since November 9, 2016 has been just fine and dandy and wouldn’t change a thing, there’s only one legitimate thing to do this November.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, age 77, of Scranton, PA, Delaware ’65, Syracuse Law ’68 – you have less than seven months to save the world. Make it count.