It’s the End of the World as We Know It: A Progressive’s Dilemma
I voted today. Surprisingly, it was not painful. I filled out my ballot at home, then dropped it into the steel box outside the Town Clerk’s office.
I used to believe change could come from within. That through electing good candidates to reform the existing power structure, the long arc of history would, in King’s words, bend toward justice. In 1972, my mom took me and my brother campaigning door to door for Shirley Chisholm; when George McGovern was nominated instead, we actively supported him.
Throughout my entire voting life, I voted Democratic, even when alternative candidates aligned more closely with my beliefs. I voted for Carter rather than Anderson in 1980, Gore instead of Nader in 2000, Kerry in 2004 despite the raw deal Howard Dean received, and in 2008 even though I preferred the progressive policies of Dennis Kucinich, I backed Obama when he was nominated. I have made thousands of phone calls, knocked on hundreds of doors, stood on street corners with signs, waved and honked, and in 1988 was a Jesse Jackson delegate to the Vermont convention.
Witnessing the electoral process over four decades, I learned unequivocally that our economic system based on exploitation — of people and the Earth — is upheld by both political parties. Red and Blue are two sides of the same coin, offense and defense of the same team, good and bad cop for the same precinct. Obama gave lip service to slowing climate change, pretended to drink the water of Flint, while continuing damaging social, environmental and foreign policies. It was clear to me that to preserve a habitable earth and a humane society, the entire structure of extractive relationships must fundamentally change. It was also clear that heir apparent, Hillary Clinton, would continue those policies.
Then Bernie Sanders declared his candidacy. Though calling himself a Democratic Socialist, Bernie would deeply reform but not dismantle capitalism. While I believe the latter is necessary to make real the promises of democracy, the changes Bernie proposed are essential first steps toward averting climate disaster, and could buy time for other significant reforms. I campaigned passionately for him.
The 2016 Democratic Party convention concluded a year of travesties: media that willfully ignored Bernie who was packing stadiums and winning the majority of delegates, but gave in-depth coverage to the pre-ordained nominee; Sanders supporters erased from polling lists and party affiliations switched without their knowledge; polling places closed, moved, or hours shortened so voters in districts favoring Bernie waited in long lines in baking heat; and primary vote totals that were skimmed or switched before our eyes in real-time on national television.
Throughout, and despite it all, I believed that the Party would not want to lose the presidency. In 2008, my dad, who lives in Ohio, observed, “Hillary Clinton can never become president because people in this part of the country hate her.” Every poll in the 2016 nominating process bore him out. Matched against any of the Republican contenders, Sanders won — usually by double digits — but Clinton couldn’t. Eventually, I was certain, the superdelegates would realize that the only way to win the White House would be to switch their support to Sanders.
According to the polling data, the one candidate Clinton could possibly beat was Donald Trump. So the Democratic Party elevated and legitimized Trump’s candidacy in the media. That information, those exact words, are in emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. It’s public record. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120 The Democratic Party is guilty of Trump’s presidency by deliberately helping him ascend to the Republican nomination, and by installing Clinton — who clearly could not win the Electoral College — to be the Democratic nominee.
For me, the general election was a time of mourning. To choose the lesser evil again, was no longer an acceptable option. It would condone the thievery of the primary process. Yet, I will never not vote. Too many people have sacrificed their lives to gain that right, and too many people still do not have that right, for me to squander it.
Discussing a friend’s refusal to participate in the charade, I asserted, “They count on people like you not to vote, so a minority can control the process.”
“Actually,” he countered, “they count on people like you, to vote for whomever they choose.”
After a voting lifetime of compromising my beliefs, when I cast my vote in 2016, it was against the Democratic Party’s systemic corruption. Knowing that Vermont is a deep blue state, I wrote in Bernie Sanders. Unlike the media that somehow forgot its own earlier polls in its rush to coronate Madam President, I was not shocked when Trump won. My dad and the data were correct.
My only surprise was how immediately after inauguration the process of destruction began. What I could not envision in 2016 was the depth of horror and hatred: the wanton dismantling of environmental and social safeguards, enriching the already rich, scapegoating the poor, the fomenting of violence and bigotry. In this, both the Republicans who thought initially they could “pull the plug” when Trump went too far, and the Democrats who voted for his major pieces of legislation have been complicit. Most heinous are this president’s blatant attacks on the Constitution, even creating a private military and threatening to declare martial law if he loses. He is following a familiar and effective playbook — from 1930s Germany. We are on a precipice.
In 2020, we witnessed the Democratic Party again steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders, and twist their own ever-changing rules to hide Tulsi Gabbard under an invisibility cloak. Through slick maneuvers the party elite once again imposed a candidate over the wishes of its rank-and-file voters, codified by the slogan: “Vote Blue No Matter Who.”
I am angry to be manipulated by those responsible for Trump’s presidency, those who have anointed a slightly less-bad candidate as our only option to prevent outright fascism. Joe Biden first came on my radar in 1991, when he gave us Clarence Thomas and destroyed Anita Hill. Biden will not address institutional racism, economic injustice, or the need to move from an extractive to an inclusive economy. He is not a progressive.
But our nation faces existential crisis. If Trump wins a second term, it will be too late to recover. At this moment, it is more important to fight the white supremacist, genocidal reign of Donald Trump, than to express legitimate outrage against the Democratic Party. Joe Biden, despite his profound flaws, including his promise to Wall Street that “nothing will fundamentally change,” is still an adherent of Constitutional rule of law. He will not dismantle almost two hundred fifty years of struggle toward comprehensive democracy.
The Democratic Party is not reformable from within. Too many are too wedded to their pieces of the current system. But it is essential to first reclaim our democracy. If Joe Biden wins — despite the understandable lack of enthusiasm, and despite the Republican Party’s voter suppression tactics — and IF peaceable transfer of power occurs, progressives must fight on for Ranked Choice Voting to break the two-party stranglehold, overturn Citizens United, abolish the Electoral College, and redraw gerrymandered congressional districts. Those are essential steps to creating true social democracy. If we have enough time left.
If Biden wins, we will likely continue free fall toward climate catastrophe, the extinction of humanity and most of life on Earth. But we must go down trying. We must not let our precious fragile vision of a government representing the voices of all the people die under megalomaniacal despotism. The danger cannot be overstated.
As I unfolded my ballot at my kitchen table, I’d expected to feel ill. Instead, I felt determined. We must everywhere, in an overwhelming landslide, reject the policies of cruelty, hatred, violence, and destruction. We must deprive Donald Trump any excuse to stage a coup to retain power. Mine is one more voice rising up in chorus against tyranny.
I filled in the oval beside Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I felt fine.
Naomi Bindman is a writer, award-winning educator, former SolarFest President, and artisan baker who has lived all her voting life in Shaftsbury, Vermont.
