But what about Trump? Answering the “lesser of two evils” argument
Tens of millions of people across the country are deeply concerned about the prospect that Donald Trump will return to the White House. Faced with this profoundly troubling possibility, many feel like they have no choice but to view the election purely as a referendum on whether or not Trump comes back into power, regardless of who his opponent is. But for people who want to defeat the racist, pro-corporate, anti-women, war-mongering and planet killing politics that Trump represents, this would be a big mistake.
Is Biden really that different from Trump?
Every election year, whoever the Democrats nominate pledge that they’ll protect the rights of the people, improve conditions for working families, and promote equality over bigotry. And every time they’re elected, these politicians who promise us the world do essentially nothing they said they would. In fact, we can see many examples of how Biden’s actual policies in office have been so similar to Trump’s.
Take the genocide going on in Gaza against Palestinians. Both Trump and Biden have given Israel their unconditional support and pumped billions of taxpayer dollars into the apartheid regime’s military. When he first came into office, Biden kept using Trump’s “Title 42” policy to kick out virtually everyone who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum – and recently replaced it with an immigration policy that is just as restrictive and effectively the same as Trump’s “safe third country” rule. Far from the historic expansion of social programs that he promised, Biden has actually presided over the end of vital COVID-eta safety net programs that froze evictions, provided payments to working class parents, subsidized childcare and froze student loan repayments.
Trump and Biden sound different on some issues. Trump, for instance, speaks in disgusting and degrading ways about women. But we should keep in mind that when the Democrats had control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first two years of Biden’s term, they could have passed a law legalizing abortion once and for all but chose not to.
Is it better for people’s movements if Biden is president?
Some progressive people make the argument that while Biden is no friend of the people, it is more likely that he will grant concessions when met with people’s struggle. In general, this argument holds that in election years we should work to elect Democrats, and then spend the rest of our time pressuring those Democrats to follow through on their promises.
This position means that the movement gives up most of our leverage before we even start using it. Any Democrat running for a given office will typically be somewhat less terrible than the Republican running for that office. If that’s all that’s required to earn progressive people’s support, what incentive do the politicians have to make any concessions at all? The Democratic Party elite easily can – and in fact do – adopt the arrogant attitude: “If you don’t like it, what are you going to do? Vote for the Republican?”
This is why the Democratic Party keeps moving further and further to the right over time. That, in turn, allows the Republicans to move further and further to the right, eventually resulting in the rise of figures like Trump. Obamacare, for instance, was modeled off of a right wing proposal implemented by Mitt Romney when he was the governor of Massachusetts. A single-payer system that guarantees healthcare to all is not even on the table, despite the fact that it is overwhelmingly popular and exists in most other wealthy countries. Things won’t change unless we call their bluff.
Do we have to vote for Biden to save democracy?
But even with all of this in mind, there are still some who argue that Trump is uniquely dangerous in that he intends to shred every basic democratic right and implement a form of dictatorship or fascism. Voting for Biden then becomes incidentally the way to “save democracy”.
There is no doubt that the civil rights that were won over generations of struggle are under attack. The Voting Rights Act is being dismantled. An unelected Supreme Court is slashing people’s rights. The electoral system is being modified to allow the right wing to win with a minority of votes. And the rise of Trump’s ultra-right movement with its hateful and violent tendencies is of course a dangerous expression of this anti-democratic tendency – Trump himself is now openly promising a form of semi-dictatorial rule if elected.
But the rise of far right politics is a symptom of profound problems in society. Demagogues like Trump talk about these problems but identify false enemies and offer false solutions. Take the opioid crisis for example – a dire crisis for working people, but one caused by executives at pharmaceutical corporations, not by immigrants or China like Trump says.
Biden and the Democrats say that everything is basically fine, and their main complaint about Trump is that he is an unpredictable and incompetent manager of the status quo. It will be completely impossible to build the kind of grassroots people’s movement that we need to defeat the anti-democratic far right if that movement’s program is essentially “let’s get back to normal.” We can only unite broad sections of the working class in the massive numbers necessary to defeat Trump if our movement also takes up the demand for the right to healthcare, education, a job, housing and a life with dignity.
Voting for Biden does nothing to defeat the enemies of democracy, shifts the entire political spectrum further rightwards, and in most cases won’t even result in different policies than if Trump were in office! There is nothing strategically or tactically smart about it.
What will make a difference is if we use our vote to send a message to the ultra-rich elite who rule this country. That’s why the Party for Socialism and Liberation nominated the Claudia De la Cruz/Karina Garcia presidential ticket. Every vote for Claudia and Karina is an unmistakable signal to the millionaires and billionaires that there is a growing movement that aims to end their rule once and for all.
