{"id":14527,"date":"2020-05-06T01:08:50","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T08:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14527"},"modified":"2020-05-06T01:10:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T08:10:29","slug":"democrats-you-really-do-not-want-to-nominate-joe-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/06\/democrats-you-really-do-not-want-to-nominate-joe-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats, You Really Do Not Want To Nominate Joe Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>We urgently need to remember who Biden is and think carefully about what would happen if he were chosen.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14352\" srcset=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-1024x682.jpeg 1024w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-150x100.jpeg 150w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-300x200.jpeg 300w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-768x512.jpeg 768w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade-225x150.jpeg 225w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/BidenReade.jpeg 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/author\/nathan-j-robinson\">Nathan J. Robinson<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>filed 07 March 2020 in<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/category\/2020-election\">2020 ELECTION<\/a> (CurrentAffairs.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>The audio version of this article is available&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/34732792\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>The video version is available&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sSu3khaJunE\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are a Democrat, you may be thinking about the presidential primary something like this:&nbsp;<em>Joe Biden doesn\u2019t seem like a bad guy. He was a good Vice President under Obama, and he\u2019s certainly better than the monster we have in the White House right now. Biden may not be our perfect candidate\u2014but who is? Right now the race is between Biden and Bernie Sanders, and Biden is clearly the safe bet. Bernie wants to shake up the whole party and push a radical agenda that Americans aren\u2019t ready for. I agree with Bernie on a lot of things, but it\u2019s time to get serious about beating Trump. Super Tuesday showed that Democratic voters want someone stable and experienced; they don\u2019t want to throw out the \u201cestablishment.\u201d Bernie would be a reckless choice. Biden is likable and pragmatic, and we need someone who can end the craziness of the Trump era and return us to a time when things were at least relatively sane. I wish Barack Obama could run again, but he can\u2019t, and Joe\u2019s the closest thing we\u2019ve got. I doubt he\u2019ll be a historically great president, but he won\u2019t be an awful one either, and I think he is an empathetic and well-meaning guy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If this captures your thinking, I would like you to give me a chance to show that this argument for Biden, while tempting, is ultimately wrong in a very dangerous way. Biden is not what he seems to be, and there are some facts we need to confront. Democratic leaders have tried to conceal that Biden is actually more of an unprincipled political insider than an affable middle-class schlub, but a general election Donald Trump will expose it for all to see. Not only that, but when it comes to \u201celectability,\u201d Biden is weak and vulnerable, and while those weaknesses may be kept out of view in the primary, they will be on full display in the general election\u2014with devastating results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would ultimately like to invite you to come and join with Bernie Sanders, to show you why we who support Sanders see things in such a different way, and to explain why I think you will be proud to have voted for Sanders and helped him become the nominee. I will be grateful to you for listening to me, because this election is an incredibly urgent historical moment and the decision&nbsp;<em>you&nbsp;<\/em>make could have serious ramifications for many millions of human lives.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Not Biden?<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ve indicated to me that a big part of your reasoning for leaning Biden involves the desire to beat Trump and a feeling that, out of the two Democratic contenders, Biden is the man best positioned to do it. I am going to give you a very strong argument for why this is not the case, and Biden is not, in fact, the most \u201celectable\u201d of the two candidates. But first, and because it will ultimately be relevant to the electability question, I actually want to start with a different question. First let\u2019s ask: which candidate would we choose if we felt they had the&nbsp;<em>same&nbsp;<\/em>chance of beating Trump? What if we were just picking the person we thought would make the best president? Who can we trust with power? Who is honest and principled? Let\u2019s compare the candidates on these grounds first, and then I will discuss the ramifications for the \u201celectability\u201d issue. I\u2019ll show why the answer to the question \u201cWho would make the best<em>&nbsp;president<\/em>?\u201d affects the answer to \u201cWho would make the best&nbsp;<em>candidate<\/em>?\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because you are a Democrat, I assume you believe in things. You deplore racism, sexism, and inequality. You believe that people shouldn\u2019t die because they can\u2019t afford healthcare, you are disturbed by needless destructive wars, you think climate change is real and urgent, and you think Democratic social programs like Medicare and Social Security are vital for keeping seniors comfortable in old age. You think the criminal punishment system can be harsh and excessive, that a woman\u2019s right to choose is paramount, and that corporations shouldn\u2019t take advantage of vulnerable people. Perhaps you wouldn\u2019t describe yourself as a socialist like Bernie Sanders, but you do see how life for working people in America can be brutal and unfair, and you think it\u2019s the government\u2019s job to do something about it. The question, then, is which candidate can be trusted to best live up to your values, address the social problems that concern you, and fight for the things that are right.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason many of us are so turned off by Joe Biden is that, over the course of a many-decade career in Washington, he has let us down on the key issues when it matters most. Joe Biden has shown himself to be fundamentally weak, unreliable, and dishonest. He gets taken advantage of by Republicans, and he seems more interested in making friends than advancing Democratic ideals. Biden, ultimately, is truly \u201cjust another politician\u201d: a guy who will give you a warm smile and then sell you out behind closed doors, a person who will make terrible decisions and grubby deals and then cover them up with lies. He adopts a \u201cmiddle class\u201d image but sucks up to the rich and powerful, and has contempt for ordinary voters and their concerns. He\u2019s a man with little integrity or moral character, whose choices in office have caused a lot of people a lot of harm.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are serious charges. I will fully substantiate them. First, let\u2019s look at two of the most important issues a president will have influence on and needs to be trusted to handle well: war and the social safety net.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s start with Social Security: Biden has reacted angrily to Bernie Sanders\u2019 suggestion that Biden tried to cut Social Security, accusing Sanders of engaging in \u201cdishonest smears.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been fighting to protect\u2014and expand\u2014Social Security for my whole career. Any suggestion otherwise is just flat-out wrong,\u201d Biden said. But Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/01\/25\/joe-biden-social-security\/\">is lying when he says<\/a>&nbsp;he never tried to cut Social Security benefits for the elderly. You can even&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidsirota\/status\/1235745749368881153\">watch him<\/a>&nbsp;brag about it. Biden has proposed raising the retirement age and eliminating cost of living increases, and has said of Medicare and Social Security that \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2020\/01\/social-security-medicare-joe-biden-record-sanders\">you\u2019ve got to put all of it on the table<\/a>.\u201d Ryan Grim and Lee Fang unearthed material from the 1990s proving that senior advocacy groups had \u201c\u201d Biden for siding with the GOP, with an AARP representative saying Biden was endorsing \u201cnothing more than a raid on Social Security\u2019s trust fund.\u201d In fact, not only has Biden called for cuts to Social Security repeatedly over his political career, but he was intimately involved with an Obama administration \u201cfiscal responsibility\u201d effort that would have \u201cback[ed] cuts to Medicare and Social Security despite pushback from some Democrats who opposed touching entitlements.\u201d (Those included Bernie Sanders, who lost friends in Washington by forcefully&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/06\/02\/obama-wanted-to-cut-social-security-then-bernie-sanders-happened\/\">challenging the administration over Social Security cuts<\/a>.) This would have real human effects: People would have to retire later, and would have less money to live on in their old age. It\u2019s already tough being elderly in America, but Democrats who join with Republicans to cut benefits in the name of \u201creducing out of control spending\u201d will make life for the elderly even more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there\u2019s Iraq. In 2003, Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2019\/10\/15\/20849072\/joe-biden-iraq-history-democrats-election-2020\">was<\/a>&nbsp;\u201ca senator bullish about the push to war [in Iraq] who helped sell the Bush administration\u2019s pitch to the American public,\u201d who \u201cvoted for\u2014and helped advance\u2014the Bush agenda.\u201d He was the war\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/articles\/joe-biden-is-a-phony-plain-and-simple\/\">most crucial<\/a>\u201d senate supporter. Biden repeated the myth that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/CHRG-107shrg81697\/html\/CHRG-107shrg81697.htm\">saying that<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cthese weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.\u201d The resulting war was one of the most deadly catastrophes in the history of U.S. foreign policy\u2014the Iraqi death toll was in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-24547256\">hundreds of thousands<\/a>&nbsp;or possibly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/03\/19\/the-staggering-death-toll-in-iraq_partner\/\">even the millions<\/a>, and 4,500 American troops died. And that\u2019s just the dead: countless more were left permanently maimed, to suffer with PTSD for the rest of their lives. For every dead person, there is a family who will struggle forever to get over their loss. This is no trivial issue: In selecting a commander in chief, you want someone who doesn\u2019t launch catastrophic wars of aggression.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, you might be tempted to forgive Biden: Who among us hasn\u2019t made the occasional disastrous decision that caused millions of deaths? But most unforgivably, Biden hasn\u2019t reckoned with or atoned for what he did. Instead, he has simply lied about it repeatedly, because he knows how embarrassing the truth is. \u201cI never believed they had weapons of mass destruction,\u201d he said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/event\/conversation-joseph-r-biden-jr\">in October 2004<\/a>, even though he had told the American people the exact opposite. In this campaign, Biden has been saying things like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>President George W. Bush \u201cgot them in, and before we know it, we had a \u2018shock and awe.\u2019 Immediately, the moment it started, I came out against the war at that moment.<\/em>\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden had to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2019\/09\/09\/bidens-claim-that-he-opposed-iraq-war-moment-it-started\/\">admit<\/a>&nbsp;to fact-checkers that this was false. He has explained his conduct by saying that he wrongly placed his trust in George W. Bush to use his authority carefully, but the&nbsp;<em>Intercept&nbsp;<\/em>has reported that as early as 1998 Biden was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/01\/07\/joe-biden-iraq-war-history\/\">saying things like<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cthe only way we\u2019re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we\u2019re going to end up having to start it alone.\u201d If you want to understand the anger of the veteran who&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/komonews.com\/news\/videos\/their-blood-is-on-your-hands-veteran-confronts-biden-on-war-record\">recently confronted Biden<\/a>&nbsp;about his record on Iraq, saying he had \u201cblood on his hands,\u201d it\u2019s important to remember that Biden not only provided Democratic support for George W. Bush\u2019s criminal war of aggression, but he has lied about what he did and blamed Bush for his actions. He has been \u201crepeatedly suggesting he opposed the war and Mr. Bush\u2019s conduct from the beginning, claims that detailed fact checks have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2019\/09\/09\/bidens-claim-that-he-opposed-iraq-war-moment-it-started\/\">deemed wrong<\/a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/01\/06\/politics\/fact-check-biden-iraq-war-repeat-iowa\/index.html\">misleading<\/a>.\u201d Biden \u201cgot the Iraq war wrong before and throughout invasion, occupation, and withdrawal,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/how-biden-kept-screwing-up-iraq-over-and-over-and-over-again\">and worse<\/a>, he did so because of the foreign policy \u201cprinciples\u201d he now touts as giving him unique diplomatic judgment. Buying the obviously-flimsy rationale for the Iraq War in the first place (while others were loudly opposing U.S. conduct) clearly calls into question whether someone should be put in charge of a vast nuclear arsenal (where they will have to make lots of decisions like these and evaluate evidence). But you also can\u2019t forgive someone for something they\u2019ve done wrong until they fully admit what it was that they did.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why would Biden do these things, you might ask? He clearly didn\u2019t&nbsp;<em>desire&nbsp;<\/em>forhundreds of thousands of Iraqis to die, or for old people to suffer. But here\u2019s an important thing to understand about Washington: The worst human consequences of political decision-making don\u2019t come about because of outright malice, but because of indifference, self-interest, and ignorance. Politicians repeat facile dogmas about the need to \u201ccontrol the deficit\u201d or \u201cget tough on Saddam\u201d without thinking about what the real-world effects of their actions are on the people whose benefits are cut and whose country is invaded. Insiders like Biden (who has been in Washington since 1972) are out of touch with what the world looks like for the people their policies affect. They listen only to the opinions of those who surround them, and those people are often&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/04\/25\/joe-biden-presidential-bid-lobbyists-fundraiser\/\">self-interested lobbyists and donors<\/a>. Someone like Biden is more interested in protecting his own position than on how his votes could impact people like you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just look at Biden\u2019s stances on healthcare.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/sarahhansen\/2020\/03\/04\/healthcare-stocks-jump-on-bidens-super-tuesday-victories-heres-why-they-prefer-him-over-sanders\/#9967199f6c1d\">Health insurance industry stocks have jumped<\/a>&nbsp;thanks to Biden\u2019s recent success in the primary, and early on it was reported that the industry&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2019\/4\/26\/18515699\/joe-biden-2020-presidential-campaign-medicare-for-all?fbclid=IwAR32aQ9zieH9hbiTUEyVyKozSLlgNhlN4xK95kD4_SVTMNNf0dLDq6NhVCI\">seemed<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cto see Biden as their best chance to stop Sanders, or Warren or any of the other Medicare-for-all supporters.\u201d It\u2019s not surprising: Biden has promised to save their profits, while Bernie Sanders has said that healthcare financing should not be conducted by a for-profit industry in the first place. But the insurance industry&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2019\/09\/30\/healthcare-reformer-wendell-potter-profit-system-unraveling\">makes<\/a>&nbsp;those profits by denying people care and squeezing as much money as possible out of the sick and vulnerable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t need to remind you that many people die or go broke because they can\u2019t afford treatment. But as policy analyst Matt Bruenig&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peoplespolicyproject.org\/2019\/07\/15\/bidencare-system-will-kill-125000-through-uninsurance\/\">has noted<\/a>, not only will Biden\u2019s proposal\u2014to the extent one can understand&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t1.0-9\/87616111_2853133838085652_2283782077201514496_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&amp;_nc_sid=8024bb&amp;_nc_ohc=Yj-xR-nUWhUAX91CTdv&amp;_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-1.xx&amp;oh=f0eeb08cd87b87e3cded382cc65fec45&amp;oe=5E988156\">its confusing provisions<\/a>\u2014\u201ccause enormous amounts of insurance churn and instability, further immiserating people when they face hardships like loss of job, loss of spouse, loss of Medicaid due to income increase, and every other negative life event,\u201d but it \u201cdoes not even aim to provide universal insurance coverage,\u201d leaving millions uninsured. As Bruenig notes, this could lead to well over 100,000 unnecessary deaths per year, real people who will die because Biden wants to protect the industry that profits off those deaths. There\u2019s absolutely no need for this: \u201cMedicare For All\u201d is a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/s77WFV47q04\">sensible, pragmatic,<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2020\/2\/19\/lancet_report_medicare_for_all?fbclid=IwAR3rRRdslj8Vh0_UZd_gAjH9ydfexQd8FPWSIPEZd7EIUwUBBXav8oAEHBo\">fiscally responsible<\/a>&nbsp;proposal that would make sure nobody ever goes without insurance again. But Biden has chosen to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politifact.com\/factchecks\/2020\/feb\/13\/joe-biden\/does-medicare-all-cost-more-entire-budget-biden-sa\/\">spread right-wing lies about it<\/a>, and even his most ambitious proposals (presuming he chooses to fight for them and they don\u2019t get watered down and compromised) will leave you vulnerable in ways you wouldn\u2019t have to be if you had, like other countries do, a national health insurance plan that covered everyone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden\u2019s willingness to do the bidding of the rich and powerful in ways that hurt ordinary people has extended across many areas, and makes his claim to be an ambassador for the \u201cmiddle class\u201d seem sick and perverse. Consider his relationship with the finance sector, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2020\/02\/23\/joe-biden-serves-wall-street-not-main-street\">invested millions in him<\/a>. As good government advocate Zephyr Teachout&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jan\/20\/joe-biden-corruption-donald-trump\">has written<\/a>, \u201c\u2018Middle Class\u2019 Joe has perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans.\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2020\/02\/23\/joe-biden-serves-wall-street-not-main-street\">He<\/a>&nbsp;\u201csupported banking industry consolidation and Too Big to Fail Banks\u201d and \u201csupported the elimination of protections that limited Wall Street speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Teachout notes, while \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__www.opensecrets.org_members-2Dof-2Dcongress_contributors-3Fcid-3DN00001669-26cycle-3DCAREER&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=tq9bLrSQ8zIr87VusnUS9yAL0Jw_xnDiPuZjNR4EDIQ&amp;r=3IfSHiskg3NGgkCT6beCbBSrTvH4uMdWeRcNt-8-sGs&amp;m=A3uuGwiqXo-F_tRCTeN-azvcEfjORAbliiT-3Nec4nM&amp;s=oGwZJochneW3_EW9JgrMfSauUwvkYZWzDrK0Ug9IYxU&amp;e=\">bankrolled<\/a>&nbsp;by the credit card industry\u2026 [Biden] delivered for it by spearheading a bankruptcy bill that made it harder for Americans to<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__theintercept.com_2020_01_07_joe-2Dbiden-2Dstudent-2Dloans_&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=tq9bLrSQ8zIr87VusnUS9yAL0Jw_xnDiPuZjNR4EDIQ&amp;r=3IfSHiskg3NGgkCT6beCbBSrTvH4uMdWeRcNt-8-sGs&amp;m=A3uuGwiqXo-F_tRCTeN-azvcEfjORAbliiT-3Nec4nM&amp;s=HfOHR5TvawzmK9Nyi-JlCe6MyKgzHzQ2XN5msVQrIAI&amp;e=\">&nbsp;reduce their debts<\/a>&nbsp;and helped cause the financial crisis.\u201d The Consumer Federation of America said that he \u201cprovided a \u2018veneer of bipartisanship\u2019\u201d to stripping bankruptcy protections \u201cthat eventually helped the credit card companies win over other Democrats\u201d and Biden \u201cprovided cover to other Democrats to do what the credit industry was urging them to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That bankruptcy bill led to an infamous clash between Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who was then a law professor specializing in consumer bankruptcy issues. Warren was scathing of the way Biden wanted to make it harder for poor people to get out from under crushing debts and start fresh, and concluded that \u201csenators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening.\u201d In a scathing&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>op-ed, Warren&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2002\/05\/20\/opinion\/a-quiet-attack-on-women.html?referringSource=articleShare\">did not hold back<\/a>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>Do politicians like Mr. Biden who support the bankruptcy bill believe they can give credit-card companies the right to elbow out women and children so long as they rally behind an issue like abortion? The message is unmistakable: On an economic issue that attracts millions of dollars of industry support, women have no real political importance.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>As&nbsp;<em>GQ&nbsp;<\/em>reporter Luke Darby&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/joe-biden-bankruptcy-bill\">put it<\/a>, in times of economic downturn \u201cmillions more Americans could end up struggling with mountains of debt than they would otherwise had Biden not fought so hard to strip them of bankruptcy protection.\u201d Biden, who touts his loyalty to Obama as a key asset,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/08\/25\/us\/politics\/25biden.html?_r=1&amp;sq=MBNA%20biden&amp;st=cse&amp;oref=slogin&amp;scp=1&amp;pagewanted=all\">even<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cwent against Mr. Obama to help defeat amendments aimed at strengthening protections for people forced into bankruptcy who have large medical debts or are in the military.\u201d Biden also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/bidens-cozy-relations-with-bank-industry-825\">helped to kill<\/a>&nbsp;an amendment that \u201cwould have stopped corporations from \u201cjudge-shopping\u201d and going to the most-friendly venues for their bankruptcy case.\u201d Biden \u201cwas one of four Democrats who sided with Republicans to defeat an effort, supported by Mr. Obama, to shift responsibility in certain cases from debtors to the predatory lenders who helped push them into bankruptcy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t just the bankruptcy bill. Biden also \u201cvoted against a proposal to require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month.\u201d And \u201cas far back as 1978, he helped negotiate a deal rolling back bankruptcy protections for graduates with federal student loans, and in 1984 worked to do the same for borrowers with loans for vocational schools.\u201d And there was a corruption angle, too: The&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>reported that \u201cduring the years [Biden] was helping the credit card industry\u2026 his son had a consulting agreement that lasted five years with one of the largest companies pushing for the changes.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2008, when Biden was nominated to be Barack Obama\u2019s vice president, progressive commentators accurately saw it as a sign of Obama signaling to corporate interests that he had no intention of threatening them. Glenn Greenwald wrote that \u201cBiden is a reliable supporter of virtually every prevailing bit of conventional wisdom within the American elite political consensus, which is why his selection has been widely praised by the establishment, whose principal concern is that their fiefdom not be disrupted and that their consensus not be challenged.\u201d Will Bunch of the&nbsp;<em>Philadelphia Inquirer&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/philly\/blogs\/attytood\/Sen_Joe_Biden_D-MBNA_--_Whys_hes_no_friend_of_the_working_class_and_why_the_GOP_cant_use_it_against_him.html\">noted ruefully<\/a>: \u201cthe bottom line is that Biden\u2019s shameless kowtowing to the credit card companies won\u2019t hurt him or Barack Obama. The only ones getting hurt are you and me, and that poor struggling family at the kitchen table.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This is only the start. We can go through almost every issue that has mattered to progressive Democrats over the last several decades and find that Joe Biden\u2019s record on it was disappointing at best and scandalous at worst.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Women\u2019s rights and reproductive justice \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>Since 1974, when Biden gave the rather shocking quote that he \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/biden-in-74-women-dont-have-sole-right-to-say-what-should-happen-to-their-bodies_n_5c78409ae4b0de0c3fbf2b70\">didn\u2019t think a woman had the sole right to say what happened to her body<\/a>,\u201d Biden\u2019s record on women\u2019s issues has been deeply disappointing. In the 1980s, he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/29\/us\/politics\/biden-abortion-rights.html\">voted to let states overturn&nbsp;<em>Roe v. Wade<\/em><\/a>, which the National Abortion Rights Action League said was \u201cthe most devastating attack yet on abortion rights.\u201d In 2006, Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/06\/13\/politics\/joe-biden-abortion\/index.html\">described himself<\/a>&nbsp;as an \u201codd man out\u201d among Democrats on abortion because he held a more conservative position than Planned Parenthood\/NOW, and said he \u201cdid not view abortion as a choice and a right.\u201d Instead, abortion was \u201calways a tragedy\u201d and \u201cwe should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.\u201d In 2019, he was still saying he supported the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion, which Toni Van Pelt, head of the National Organization for Women,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/now.org\/media-center\/press-release\/joe-biden-must-renounce-his-support-for-the-hyde-amendment\/\">called<\/a>&nbsp;a \u201cshocking,\u201d \u201cunacceptable,\u201d and \u201cunsupportable\u201d position. The NOW president did not mince words: Anyone without clear opposition to Hyde \u201cshould consider leaving the race\u2026 the girls and women of our nation deserve better.\u201d Last year, Biden\u2019s spokesman \u201cdeclined to detail Mr. Biden\u2019s current views on specific policies he once supported, including banning all federal funding for abortion services and research.\u201d Finally, Biden succumbed to pressure and reversed his position, having had to be forced by decades of activism. (We also cannot discuss Biden\u2019s record on women\u2019s issues without mentioning that he has a long history of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/joe-biden-allegations-women-2020-campaign-2019-6#ally-coll-a-former-democratic-staffer-told-the-washington-post-that-when-she-met-biden-in-2008-he-complimented-her-smile-squeezed-her-shoulders-and-held-her-for-a-beat-too-long-1\">making women deeply uncomfortable<\/a>&nbsp;by violating their personal space, sniffing them, stroking them, and rubbing them. Eight women have accused Biden of inappropriately touching them, and in response Biden has literally said he is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/wireStory\/latest-biden-opens-speech-joke-hugging-62198386\">not sorry for anything that I\u2019ve ever done<\/a>.\u201d I do not understand how there is any world in which this is not immediately disqualifying, and we can expect to see quotes in TV ads like \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/2019\/04\/joe-biden-accuser-accusations-allegations.html\">I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me,<\/a>\u201d and \u201cI thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth\u2026 He was the vice president\u2026 I was a nobody,\u201d and \u201cIt doesn\u2019t even really cross your mind that such a person would dare perpetuate harm like that.\u201d)<\/li><li><strong>Criminal Punishment \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>The American criminal punishment system is hideously unjust. The \u201cfreest\u201d country in the world&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonstudies.org\/sites\/default\/files\/resources\/downloads\/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf\">has the most people<\/a>&nbsp;locked up per capita\u20142.2 million total. Biden contributed significantly to that problem. He was one of the key Congressional figures in refashioning the Democratic party as a \u201ctough on crime\u201d party. Biden collaborated with unrepentant segregationist Strom Thurmond to create the \u201cBiden-Thurmond bill,\u201d which restricted use of the insanity defense (shifting the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant) and abolished parole. Biden \u201cunblushingly cited his and Thurmond\u2019s leading role in enacting laws allowing for the execution of drug dealers convicted of homicide, and expanding the practice of civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement\u2019s plunder of property belonging to people suspected of crimes, even if they are neither charged nor convicted.\u201d He warned of juvenile \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/03\/07\/politics\/biden-1993-speech-predators\/index.html\">predators on our streets<\/a>\u201d who \u201cwarrant exceptionally, exceptionally tough treatment,\u201d suggesting they were beyond hope of rehabilitation and simply needed to be cordoned off from the rest of society. Biden collaborated with the hard right to expand the death penalty,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/did-liberals-put-black-america-behind-bars-297096\">boasting that<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cthe liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties.\u201d Indeed,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2019\/7\/26\/8931612\/joe-biden-death-penalty-tough-on-crime\">people&nbsp;<em>did&nbsp;<\/em>get sentenced to death<\/a>&nbsp;because of the law Biden himself wrote. Biden was proud of his role in cracking down on crime, a staffer recalling him saying: \u201cWhenever people hear the words \u2018drugs\u2019 and \u2018crime,\u2019 I want them to think \u2018Joe Biden.\u2019\u201d He hoped that he could \u201cmaybe take the politics of crime out of the upcoming election,\u201d and \u201cwarned Republicans that they cannot claim they are tougher on crime than Democrats.\u201d It\u2019s often said that Democrats in the 1990s who led the crime crackdown were responding to a genuine crime wave, which is true, but Biden went far beyond the others. He was truly vicious. Biden promoted&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2018\/08\/joe-biden-democratic-party-military-hawk\">measures that<\/a>&nbsp;\u201ccreated more heavily armed police forces increasingly focused on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/obamas-drug-war\/\">&nbsp;locking up people<\/a>&nbsp;for minor drug crimes.\u201d Citing ecstasy use, Biden called for \u201cstiff criminal penalties for anyone who had a rave,\u201d demanding&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indy100.com\/article\/joe-biden-rave-bulldoze-jail-edm-video-2020-election-us-president-8966651\">rave venues be bulldozed and proprietors be put in jail<\/a>. This is sheer madness (and it comes from Biden\u2019s more lucid years). As late as 2010, Biden was saying of marijuana \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/tomangell\/2020\/03\/06\/joe-biden-is-frustrated-people-think-he-still-believes-marijuana-is-a-gateway-drug\/#dcca1829aa2f\">I still believe it\u2019s a gateway drug\u2026 I think it would be a mistake to legalize<\/a>\u201d though he now gets annoyed when people try to hold him responsible for the consequences of this belief. (He has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marijuanamoment.net\/joe-biden-walks-back-marijuana-gateway-drug-comment-after-week-of-criticism\/\">flip-flopped<\/a>&nbsp;during this campaign over whether marijuana&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marijuanamoment.net\/biden-says-marijuana-might-be-a-gateway-drug\/\">may be a gateway drug<\/a>.) As criminal punishment historian Naomi Murakawa&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2015\/08\/joe-biden-presidential-run-why-its-a-bad-idea.html\">put it<\/a>, \u201cThere\u2019s a tendency now to talk about Joe Biden as the sort of affable if inappropriate uncle, as loudmouth and silly\u2026 But he\u2019s actually done really deeply disturbing, dangerous reforms that have made the criminal justice system more lethal and just bigger.\u201d Let\u2019s remember: \u201cmass incarceration\u201d is not just an abstraction, something vague and far away. By locking tens or hundreds of thousands of people in prison to serve his political career\u2014people who would have otherwise been free\u2014Biden has caused indescribable pain. In the U.S., a prison sentence makes it almost impossible to live a fully normal life afterward. This system has robbed children of their parents, mothers of their children. It&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/almost-addicted\/201801\/solitary-confinement-torture-pure-and-simple\">tortures people<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/kalief-browder-1993-2015\">makes them kill themselves<\/a>. It\u2019s a horror, and instead of repairing it Biden threw more people into it.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Civil Liberties \u2014<\/strong>&nbsp;Biden voted for the infamous PATRIOT Act, which he called \u201cmeasured and prudent.\u201d In fact, \u201che would have liked it to go further, regretting that measures handing police more extreme powers had been removed,\u201d and he has even bragged that the PATRIOT Act was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/andrewkaczynski\/surveillance-joe\">based on a bill he himself wrote<\/a>&nbsp;long before 9\/11, but hadn\u2019t been able to get through thanks to the opposition of civil liberties groups. Biden says John Ashcroft told him of the PATRIOT Act \u201cJoe, I\u2019m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.\u201d Branko Marcetic documents Biden\u2019s role in eroding civil liberties in the 1990s as well, by proposing measures that civil liberties advocates said would \u201cerod[e] constitutional and statutory due process protections,\u201d and extend \u201csome of the worst elements of crime bills of the recent past.\u201d Biden even said it was \u201ctime to revisit\u201d the centuries-old ban on using the military for domestic policing, which was meant to prevent the rise of an authoritarian state. Biden, citing the government\u2019s need to efficiently fight terrorism, pushed for increased government wiretap power and reduced accountability for law enforcement, and he voted for a bill that gutted federal habeas corpus protections, the \u201cAnti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act,\u201d which has been called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/the-destruction-of-defendants-rights\">surely one of the worst statutes ever passed by Congress and signed into law<\/a>.\u201d Marcetic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2018\/08\/joe-biden-democratic-party-military-hawk\">writes<\/a>&nbsp;that Biden has \u201cproven himself a reliable supporter of an ever-expanding national security state during his time in Congress\u201d and that Biden\u2019s bill \u201cmandating that tech companies create \u2018back doors\u2019 in their products for law enforcement to snoop through\u2026 so alarmed<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2012\/12\/joe-biden-private-email\/\">&nbsp;one programmer<\/a>, it spurred him to develop email encryption.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Immigration \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>The Obama administration deported hundreds of thousands of immigrants,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers\/story?id=41715661\">more than any other administration<\/a>, a process that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/regulation\/208397-immigration-activists-protest-obamas-deportation-policy\">tore countless families apart<\/a>&nbsp;and has served as Donald Trump\u2019s go-to rationalization for his own brutal immigration policies. Biden has sometimes simply&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politifact.com\/factchecks\/2019\/sep\/13\/joe-biden\/fact-checking-biden-use-cages-during-obama-adminis\/\">lied about this and pretended it didn\u2019t happen<\/a>. The Obama administration misled the public about what it was doing, and reports&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2017\/05\/15\/obamas-deportation-policy-was-even-worse-than-we-thought\/\">concluded that<\/a>&nbsp;\u201ccontrary to Obama\u2019s avowed policy, a huge part of ICE\u2019s enforcement efforts resulted in the separation of families, and a much smaller portion went toward deporting people who posed legitimate public safety threats.\u201d For countless children, this meant \u201cpain and trauma [that] stunts their growth and development.\u201d Under the administration Biden served in, \u201cthe budget for immigration enforcement jumped at one point to a staggering $18 billion annually,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/immigration-enforcement-cost_n_2425647\">&nbsp;more than<\/a>&nbsp;all other law enforcement agencies\u201d combined.&nbsp;<em>Splinter\u2019s&nbsp;<\/em>Natascha Elena Ulmann&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/splinternews.com\/joe-bidens-terrible-record-on-immigration-should-haunt-1836627903\">documents<\/a>&nbsp;Biden\u2019s horrific record on immigration over the years and the impact it had on immigrant communities. Biden \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/legislative\/LIS\/roll_call_lists\/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&amp;session=1&amp;vote=00013\">voted<\/a>&nbsp;to uphold an HIV travel ban that authorized the<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us-turned-away-thousands-of-haitian-asylum-seekers-and-detained-hundreds-more-in-the-90s-98611\">&nbsp;indefinite detention<\/a>&nbsp;of Haitian refugees despite a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2019\/04\/joe-biden-anti-immigrant-deportation-policies\">&nbsp;wave<\/a>&nbsp;of public sentiment in their favor.\u201d He \u201ccalled for a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/joe-biden-illegal-immigration-mexico-fence_n_5cd70515e4b0796a95dcddd4\">&nbsp;crackdown<\/a>&nbsp;on employers who hire \u201cillegals\u201d and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/andrewkaczynski\/joe-biden-was-opposed-to-drivers-licenses-for-undocumented-i\">&nbsp;fought against<\/a>&nbsp;driver\u2019s licenses for undocumented immigrants.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Climate change \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>Since I am assuming you are a Democrat, I\u2019m going to assume you accept the scientific consensus on climate change: that is, you agree that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/energy-and-environment\/2019\/2\/23\/18228142\/green-new-deal-critics\">it\u2019s a fucking emergency<\/a>&nbsp;and we need immediate national action to curb emissions and prevent future catastrophe. Congressional Democrats have so far considered climate change a secondary priority, to the point where one&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2019\/01\/climate-change-2020-democrats-green-new-deal\">wonders if they are even serious about it at all.<\/a>&nbsp;If we&nbsp;<em>are&nbsp;<\/em>serious about it, we need a president who has the necessary sense of urgency and the political will to get things done. But climate activists have been consistently disappointed by Joe Biden\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/archive\/climate-change-town-hall-biden\/\">lackadaisical approach<\/a>&nbsp;to the greatest challenge of our time. It shouldn\u2019t be that surprising: Biden\u2019s campaign is stuffed with fossil fuel executives. His climate adviser is a former<a href=\"https:\/\/readsludge.com\/2019\/05\/10\/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company\/\">&nbsp;board member<\/a>&nbsp;of natural gas company Cheniere Energy, one of his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/readsludge.com\/2019\/09\/05\/joe-biden-has-multiple-ties-to-liquefied-natural-gas-pioneer-cheniere-energy\/\">fundraisers<\/a>&nbsp;co-founded natural gas company Western LNG, the pro-Biden Super PAC has a former<a href=\"https:\/\/readsludge.com\/2019\/10\/30\/super-pac-backing-middle-class-joe-is-lead-by-lobbyists-corporate-consultants-and-democratic-fundraisers\/\">&nbsp;gas lobbyist<\/a>&nbsp;on its board, and his national campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, \u201chas one of the most pro-industry voting records on fossil fuel issues among all congressional Democrats.\u201d And as many know, at one point Biden\u2019s son Hunter was being paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to serve on the board of a Ukrainian fossil fuel company. This is troubling, because in order to combat climate change, we\u2019re going to need to take on the industry; their continued profits are in conflict with the needs of humanity. But how likely is someone to effectively challenge an industry, when those close to him are tied to it? It\u2019s very likely that Biden will be talked out of doing anything that could seriously threaten the financial interests of those in his circle. Sure enough, Biden\u2019s original climate change plans&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-election\/jay-inslee-tops-greenpeace-climate-grades-joe-biden-gets-d-n1011996\">got a D-<\/a>&nbsp;from Greenpeace (he quickly reversed course and the grade was improved), and the Sunrise Movement\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/scorecard.sunrisemovement.org\/\">climate plan ratings<\/a>&nbsp;show his proposals falling well short of Sanders\u2019. The&nbsp;<em>MIT Technology Review&nbsp;<\/em>says Sanders and Biden have \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/615318\/joe-biden-bernie-sanders-climate-plan-comparison-democratic-primaries\/\">sharply contrasting visions<\/a>\u201d on the scale of what needs to be done and the speed with which it must occur. Biden\u2019s approach to politics, which emphasizes compromise and incremental steps, is simply deadly and irresponsible when there is an actual crisis facing us. Crises demand ambitious, energetic, and sometimes \u201cdivisive\u201d action, of precisely the kind Biden seems disinclined to ever take.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>On issues like war, economic policy, climate change, and healthcare, Biden would almost certainly do the bidding of the powerful in ways that hurt ordinary people around the world. He does not have the kind of record that should lead us to think he deserves the honor of the Democratic party nomination. In fact, I can\u2019t think why any Democrat should want to vote for him. Biden himself, upon first getting elected to office,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/fact-check\/joe-biden-civil-rights-quote\/\">said<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cWhen it comes to civil rights and civil liberties, I\u2019m a liberal but that\u2019s it. I\u2019m really quite conservative on most other issues. My wife said I was the most socially conservative man she had ever known. \u2026 [W]hen it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I\u2019m about as liberal as your grandmother.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we\u2019ve seen, this is not true: He is not even a champion of civil rights and civil liberties. But he was honest about his general orientation. Biden is not a progressive. (Later, he would become less forthright about this, simply misstating his voting record and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politifact.com\/factchecks\/2019\/may\/06\/joe-biden\/joe-biden-claims-he-was-staunch-liberal-senate-he-\/\">pretending to have been more liberal than he was.<\/a>)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I also want to talk about Biden\u2019s character and values. It\u2019s not just that he\u2019s bad on the issues: It\u2019s also that he\u2019s a sleazy and dishonest person, the kind who should not be rewarded with a position of extreme trust like the presidency.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s always worth remembering that Biden had to leave his first presidential race in disgrace, because he was caught copying his speeches directly from a British Labour leader (including not only mimicking his gestures, but lifting references to the leader\u2019s wife and his coal mining background\u2014Biden said he was the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/content.time.com\/time\/specials\/packages\/article\/0,28804,1895156_1894977_1895081,00.html\">first in his family<\/a>&nbsp;to go to college, which was true of the guy who wrote the speech but not of Biden!). The scandal was compounded by a lie that he had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/cd977f7ff301993f7976974ba07c5495\">finished in the top half of his law school class<\/a>&nbsp;when he had finished near the bottom, and his having&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/09\/18\/us\/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html\">plagiarized his academic work in law school<\/a>. Lies like this may seem small in the age of the Grand Trumpian Lie, but they are real red flags about a person\u2019s character: If Biden can so easily say things about himself that aren\u2019t true, and do so convincingly and with that warm smile that makes you trust him, what else might not be true?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, a whole lot: At various points over decades, Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/theintercept\/status\/1235784672480620544\">literally fabricated an entire fictitious career as a civil rights activist<\/a>. He told audiences he \u201cparticipated in sit-ins to desegregate movie theaters,\u201d when he did no such thing. Recently he told a black audience an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CZGDOyB35gA&amp;feature=emb_logo\">extremely specific story<\/a>&nbsp;about his involvement in the civil rights movement and his anti-segregation activism. It appears to be entirely made up. He did this over and over, as Shaun King documented. (King\u2019s report is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/shaunking.substack.com\/p\/2-truths-and-31-lies-joe-biden-has\">devastating<\/a>&nbsp;and it\u2019s shocking that it hasn\u2019t gotten more media attention.) Biden said that he was arrested in South Africa on his way to see Nelson Mandela, which also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/02\/28\/biden-south-africa-arrest-118134\">wasn\u2019t true<\/a>. Lies like this are an insult to the people who actually did put their lives on the line during the Civil Rights and anti-Apartheid struggles, which Biden&nbsp;<em>could&nbsp;<\/em>have participated in but chose not to. Pretending to have been a civil rights hero is like pretending to have been a decorated soldier: People are honored for this work, and fakers like Biden are trying to take that honor for themselves without having done the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The South Africa lie was recent, meaning that Biden is still doing exactly the sort of thing that he was forced to drop out in 1988 over. It\u2019s not clear why this time the press has decided not to care, because the underlying conclusion should be the same: This is a person who is not honest enough to be the Democratic nominee.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden has lied about matters large and small. He claimed, without evidence, that the other driver in the car crash that killed his wife and daughter&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2019\/oct\/18\/joe-bidens-false-claim-about-drunken-driver-draws-\/\">had been drunk<\/a>, leading the man\u2019s family to call on Biden to apologize for publicly smearing him. When confronted about his terrible record on abortion by the&nbsp;<em>New York Times<\/em>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theslot.jezebel.com\/joe-biden-lies-to-the-new-york-times-about-his-attempt-1841060920\">Biden<\/a>\u2019s \u201cresponse was to lie about his well-documented record,\u201d by saying he was on the opposite side of the one he was actually on. A Biden delegate defended his South Africa arrest lie by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jamie_agust\/status\/1236035251778043907\">saying<\/a>&nbsp;that \u201ceveryone does\u201d this. But that is not the case. Only incredibly dishonest people do it.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Character is about more than telling the truth. It\u2019s also about knowing which side is right. Bernie Sanders is often criticized for \u201cnot being a Democrat\u201d\u2014he\u2019s an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Joe Biden frequently contrasts himself with Sanders by emphasizing his pride in his party affiliation. But in fact, perhaps no Democratic politician has done more to cozy up to and help Republicans\u2014and excuse their wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden\u2019s cozy relations with, and endless excuses for, the worst right-wing Republicans, have been documented extensively in both&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2019\/03\/everybodys-chum\">this magazine<\/a>&nbsp;and Branko Marcetic\u2019s excellent&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/652731\/yesterdays-man-by-branko-marcetic\/\"><em>Yesterday\u2019s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden<\/em><\/a><em>.&nbsp;<\/em>Marcetic takes us back to the 1980s, when in keeping with his benefit-cutting philosophy, Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2020\/02\/yesterdays-man-case-against-joe-biden-new-deal-reagan\">said<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cthe election of Ronald Reagan is more consistent with the budgetary thrust that a guy like me .\u2009.\u2009. has been going for for the past few years.\u201d Indeed, he voted for the Reagan budget that saw \u201cscores of federal programs for health, education, and social services drastically cut back, weakened, or outright eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>The cuts threw countless lives into chaos, with 270,000 public service workers losing jobs, more than 400,000 families thrown off the welfare rolls, and more than one million workers ineligible for extended unemployment benefits, just to name a few. The Reagan onslaught marked \u201cthe reversal,\u201d wrote the Washington Post, \u201cof two great waves of government intervention, the New Deal and the Great Society,\u201d a verdict shared by lawmakers on both sides of the issue.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden also voted for Reagan\u2019s tax cut, which Marcetic calls a \u201clopsided giveaway to the very richest that led almost instantly to ballooning deficits and widening economic inequality,\u201d and pushed for the reduction of federal spending on social goals, saying the government should be \u201cless involved in direct social questions like day care, education or health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/652731\/yesterdays-man-by-branko-marcetic\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-07-at-12.02.31-AM-1024x523.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14124\"\/><\/a><figcaption>BUY BRANKO\u2019S BOOK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Personally, I am quite cynical about Democratic legislators, but even I was shocked when I began to look into Biden\u2019s history, which included partnering with and making excuses for outright racists like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. As Norman Solomon notes, Biden \u201cspouted&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/games-cdn.washingtonpost.com\/notes\/prod\/default\/documents\/3d9be388-6871-4993-ae53-869a88c3c6eb\/note\/f8e04c01-66d9-44be-87e1-5ef753b81b83.pdf\">white backlash rhetoric<\/a>, used tropes&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/bidens-tough-talk-on-1970s-school-desegregation-plan-could-get-new-scrutiny-in-todays-democratic-party\/2019\/03\/07\/9115583e-3eb2-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.1673c23e88f4&amp;wpisrc=nl_evening&amp;wpmm=1\">pandering to racism<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/04\/11\/politics\/joe-biden-busing-letters-2020\/index.html\">teamed up with arch segregationists<\/a>&nbsp;against measures like busing for school integration. As I noted in my article :<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>In the 1970s\u2026 Biden opposed efforts to racially integrate the American school system. He lamented that busing \u201chas been an issue that has been in the hands of the racists, and we liberals have rejected because \u2018If George Wallace is for it, it must be bad.\u2019\u201d Biden proudly said that by breaking with other members of his party on the issue, \u201cI\u2019ve made it\u2014if not respectable\u2014I\u2019ve made it reasonable for longstanding liberals to begin to raise the questions I\u2019ve been the first to raise in the liberal community here on the [Senate] floor.\u201d\u2026 The sole African American senator at the time, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts [called] the Biden measure \u201cthe greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Asher Smith&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2018\/04\/joe-bidens-record-on-racial-integration-is-indefensible\">notes that<\/a>&nbsp;Biden joined with Jesse Helms\u2014a man who called every black man he met \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2001\/09\/03\/sheer-helms\">Fred<\/a>\u201d\u2014on a measure that would have prevented \u201cthe Justice Department from bringing desegregation lawsuits that could result in court-mandated busing.\u201d Whatever you think of the efficacy of busing in achieving civil rights gains, it was not defensible to partner with segregationists to lift the George Wallace agenda and claim it for the liberals. One of the major problems with what Biden did is that he sanitized the legacy of his white supremacist friends, portraying them as good people who had atoned when they clearly hadn\u2019t; they had just morphed from open racists to advocates of \u201ctough on crime\u201d policies and \u201cstates\u2019 rights.\u201d I noted&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2019\/03\/everybodys-chum\">when I wrote about it last<\/a>&nbsp;that when you do this, you dishonor the victims of white supremacy, and that acting as a friend to people who oppress others means acting as an enemy to the oppressed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s precisely what so horrifies me about Biden\u2019s warmth toward Dick Cheney: \u201cI actually like Dick Cheney, for real\u2026 I get on with him. I think he\u2019s a decent man,\u201d Biden said. Cheney was the architect of a criminal war of aggression and oversaw the construction of a torture regime. To call him \u201cdecent\u201d is to erase his victims and bury the truth. And if that weren\u2019t ludicrous enough, Biden once&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\/i-watched-joe-biden-give-an-award-to-george-w-bush-so-you-dont-have-to-f780aeb725f9\">presented George W. Bush with a \u201cliberty medal<\/a>,\u201d praising him effusively. (Cheney, for his part, said he would \u201clove\u201d to see Joe Biden run in 2016). Someone who makes these men out to be nice guys who made slight mistakes is altering the historical record in a shameful way. These men committed a terrible crime and we can\u2019t bury it for the sake of D.C. decorum.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, Biden doesn\u2019t really see conflict between Republicans and Democrats as particularly significant. As Andrew Cockburn put it in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2019\/03\/joe-biden-record\/\">useful article<\/a>&nbsp;on Biden\u2019s history, Biden is the \u201chigh priest of the doctrine that our legislative problems derive merely from superficial disagreements, rather than fundamental differences over matters of principle\u201d who thinks \u201cpolitical divisions can be settled by men endowed with statesmanlike vision and goodwill\u201d and he says he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink we should look on Republicans as our enemies.\u201d Biden constantly praises the decency of his right-wing colleagues, proudly saying that he never questions their motives, and his \u201cpolitical career has been defined by his enthusiasm for Senate relationships.\u201d (He has described the Senate as \u201chome.\u201d) But you&nbsp;<em>need&nbsp;<\/em>to question their motives, and as Ezra Klein&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2019\/6\/26\/18715650\/joe-biden-2020-primary-democrat-senator-segregation\">writes<\/a>, Biden\u2019s view is totally ignorant of the way that the powerful white men who were his colleagues and chums were reinforcing the the inequality of race and class:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>But sometimes, the inside of an institution can deceive you as to its true nature. It can lead you to explain away the compromises and abuses, to ignore the larger forces constraining decisions. When you work every day with individuals, when you hear their rationalizations and sympathize with their decisions, you can lose sight of the structures shaping their behavior\u2026 In extolling [the system\u2019s] virtues, Biden ignores its horrors. This civility was built atop a boneyard. The coalitional politics of the US Senate gave outsize power to unreconstructed racists\u2026 what he sees as a virtuous era of compromise reflects a shameful period in our history.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>One reason Biden\u2019s attitude is so dangerous, and leads to getting taken advantage of and making bad policy, is that Republicans certainly think of us as their enemies. Eight years of hell-bent Republican efforts to destroy Barack Obama and turn back the modest amounts of social progress we have made should have told Biden that. Unsurprisingly, Biden\u2019s failure to notice this leads to naivete and being taken for a chump,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/21856\/joe-biden-cut-medicare-social-security-retirement-age\">and<\/a>&nbsp;his \u201ceagerness to cut a deal with the Republicans [has] sometimes elicited outrage from his fellow Democrats, who felt he was giving too much away.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Biden maintains the delusional notion that if he is elected president, Republicans&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/05\/14\/biden-republicans-trump-1321377\">will stop their intransigent opposition to liberal social reforms<\/a>. He doesn\u2019t understand how deep the ideological differences between left and right are, and is thus incapable of fighting Republicans on key issues. He has even&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/biden-says-he-s-open-republican-running-mate-n1108931\">considered picking one as his Vice President<\/a>, which would mean that if anything happened to him, power would immediately be thrust into the hands of the GOP. His lack of commitment to advancing Democratic values means he is very likely to sell those values out\u2014and that it\u2019s not really clear why \u201cbeing a Democrat\u201d is so important to him. He doesn\u2019t realize, or doesn\u2019t care, that with Republicans in power, we\u2019re talking about the criminalization of abortion, the gutting of food stamps and the social safety net, the unleashing of catastrophic climate change, and a reckless foreign policy that can plunge the globe into a nuclear arms race. But maybe he does understand\u2014with his record on war, criminal justice, banking, racial integration, same-sex marriage, and abortion, Biden often might as well have been a Republican all along. It\u2019s not surprising that he has welcomed the endorsement of Michael Bloomberg, a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/briebriejoy\/status\/1235737984198160384\">plutocratic racist Republican<\/a>, whose big money infiltration of the Democratic Party is precisely the sort of thing that any principled party member ought to full-throatedly oppose.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like Bloomberg, Biden has even&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/01\/23\/us\/politics\/biden-speech-fred-upton.html\">directly helped Republicans keep Democrats out of office<\/a>. In 2018, he accepted $200,000 to give a speech to a Republican audience in which he heaped praise on Republican representative Fred Upton, which helped Upton defeat a Democratic challenger by 4.5 points, and \u201cbuoyed the GOP in the Midwest.\u201d Biden \u201cset his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party,\u201d even though Upton had helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act that Biden spends so much time defending. The local Democratic party chair was furious, saying \u201cthe former vice president had badly damaged the Democratic cause.\u201d Biden didn\u2019t care. He had pocketed his 200k.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any assessment of Biden\u2019s character should mention the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings, where his failures were on full display. Biden has been controversial for his handling of the hearings, in which Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2019\/04\/joe-biden-is-running-to-be-the-nominee-of-a-party-that-has-in-many-ways-left-him-behind\/\">was criticized<\/a>&nbsp;for \u201chis decision to allow aggressive questioning of Hill by a panel exclusively comprising white men\u2014while he prevented<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/03\/20\/anita-hill-joe-biden_n_5002189.html\">&nbsp;three women<\/a>&nbsp;from testifying about other instances of alleged inappropriate behavior by Thomas.\u201d As one Democratic adviser said, \u201cBiden agreed to the terms of the people who were out to disembowel Hill\u201d and a fellow legislator said that \u201cJoe bent over too far backwards to accommodate the Republicans.\u201d Biden even said of Thomas that \u201cI believe there are certain things that are not at issue at all\u2026 and that is his character,\u201d when that was exactly what was at issue.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden has shown a mixture of contrition and defiance about the period, saying he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/26\/us\/politics\/biden-anita-hill.html\">wished he \u201ccould have done something\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;to help Hill, when the entire point is that he was the very person who had control over the proceedings\u2014he was the chairman of the committee! Years later, when Biden finally gave Hill a pitiful semi-apology, it left her \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2019\/04\/anita-hill-eviscerates-bidens-apology-in-scathing-interview\">deeply unsatisfied<\/a>.\u201d Biden also said that he \u201cbelieved Hill from the beginning,\u201d but his fellow senator Arlen Specter said Biden told him privately that Biden thought she \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/memoir-contradicts-bidens-claim-of-having-believed-anita-hill-from-the-beginning\/\">was lying<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here we see several Biden traits in one incident: the failure to stand up for women\u2019s rights, the excessive deference to Republicans that allows them to get whatever they want, and the tendency to distort his record after the fact in order to avoid taking full responsibility for his shameful conduct. It\u2019s not the worst thing he ever did. It\u2019s just a good example of the kinds of thing he does constantly.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D2uAT3G-B0c?feature=oembed\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Personally, as a millennial who believes there are crucial social and political challenges facing our country that we need to meet, it\u2019s not just that Joe Biden is inadequate. It\u2019s that he fundamentally does not understand my values, or seem to care about the things I care about. Biden himself conceded in 2008 that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>\u201cI may not be what the party\u2019s looking for. I may be too \u2018muscular\u2019 on foreign policy. I may not be \u2018pure\u2019 enough about abortion rights. I may not have been \u2018energetic\u2019 enough about gay marriage.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>These are, of course, euphemisms: by \u201cmuscular\u201d he means that he helped initiate a disastrous endless war, by \u201cpure\u201d he means that he was actively fighting against women\u2019s rights groups over abortion, and by \u201cenergetic\u201d he means that he voted for the homophobic Defense of Marriage Act.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;I felt like I knew everything I needed to know about Joe Biden when I heard him tell rich donors that \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2019\/06\/19\/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected\/\">nothing would fundamentally change<\/a>\u201d if he was elected president, and when he said of people in my generation that he had \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/mbpxx8\/biden-trashes-millennials-in-his-quest-to-become-even-less-likable\">no empathy<\/a>\u201d for our concerns, like being overwhelmed by student debt and unable to afford kids. Why would we want a president who promises no change? There needs to be change. How can I become even slightly enthusiastic about someone who says he has no empathy for me? One of Joe Biden\u2019s supposed best qualities, according to his boosters, is that he is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/485786-samantha-power-votes-for-biden-praises-his-empathy-and-decency\">overflowing with empathy<\/a>. But he openly states that he doesn\u2019t care about me or the others in my generation. Surely Democrats can do better than this.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Bernie?<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, at this point, you may be saying:&nbsp;<em>Okay, but nobody\u2019s perfect.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we don\u2019t have to settle for this terrible candidate! Remember: We have another Democratic option we could choose. (Note: We\u2019re still talking in terms of \u201cwho is better,\u201d not \u201cwho is more electable,\u201d which we will get to shortly.) We could pick Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On every issue I\u2019ve discussed, Bernie Sanders is better than Joe Biden. Sanders voted against the horrific war that Joe Biden helped to cause, because Sanders knew it would be a catastrophe. Sanders fought to protect Social Security as Joe Biden was trying to cut it. Sanders\u2019 healthcare plan covers every single person, so that hundreds of thousands of people don\u2019t die from uninsurance. Sanders has never made up a fictitious history of civil rights activism\u2014he doesn\u2019t need to, because&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagomag.com\/Chicago-Magazine\/Felsenthal-Files\/March-2016\/Bernie-Sanders-Arrest-Kartemquin-1963\/\">he has a&nbsp;<em>real&nbsp;<\/em>history of civil rights activism<\/a>! Joe Biden is the kind of oily politician who makes up heroic deeds he never did; Sanders actually got arrested fighting to end segregation, but it isn\u2019t the kind of thing he likes to brag about. Which kind of person do you want to be president: Someone who makes up their accomplishments, or someone who actually has them?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a stark contrast between the moral character of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Biden was not just a booster of an illegal war based on a lie (which shows a lack of perceptiveness at the very least), but lied about it afterward instead of owning up to the true devastating human consequences of his actions. Go through the past 40 years of American political history, and on almost every issue, you\u2019ll see Joe Biden on the wrong side and Sanders on the right one. When Biden was saying that a woman shouldn\u2019t have the \u201csole right\u201d to determine what to do with her body, Sanders was literally&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PhilipElliott__\/status\/1235982659848937473\">calling out politicians for telling women what to do with their bodies<\/a>. While Joe Biden was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonblade.com\/2019\/07\/11\/in-1996-sanders-and-biden-were-on-opposite-sides-of-doma-vote\/\">voting for the Defense of Marriage Act<\/a>, Sanders was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2015\/9\/9\/9295867\/bernie-sanders-gay-soldiers\">sticking it to Republicans<\/a>&nbsp;who dared to question the loyalty of gay soldiers. The president needs to have good judgment, and&nbsp;<em>this&nbsp;<\/em>is what good judgment looks like: understanding what is important at your particular historic moment in time and acting on it, not screwing up on issue after issue and then having to fudge, lie, and apologize years later when it becomes embarrassing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden and Sanders are both around the same age, so their parallel lives are useful lesson in the two kinds of person you can be: someone who cares more about making friends in the Senate or someone who cares more about standing up for the powerless, even when doing so loses you friends. It\u2019s true that a lot of people in Washington&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/21\/us\/politics\/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html\">don\u2019t like Sanders<\/a>, although it\u2019s a myth that this has kept him from being an effective politician. In fact, for an Independent whose positions are strongly opposed by party leadership, he has been impressively effective at getting stuff done. He passed more roll call amendments than any other House member for many years, and has an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2015\/10\/bernie-gets-it-done-sanders-record-pushing-through-major-reforms-will-surprise-you\/\">impressive track record of getting through reforms<\/a>&nbsp;considering his position outside the structure of the two-party system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The big fear of Sanders, of course, is that he\u2019s a \u201cradical.\u201d But he isn\u2019t really. He\u2019s actually pretty moderate. Consider what his big plans are (the supposedly utopian ones, which will inevitably get watered down before they actually pass): a national health insurance program of the kind that exists around the world, a living wage that can cover the cost of rent and food, providing free college tuition the same way we provide free high school tuition, and an ambitious climate change response strategy of the kind that we very clearly need in order to avert disaster. Even the&nbsp;<em>Wall Street Journal,&nbsp;<\/em>when describing what \u201cBernie\u2019s America\u201d looks like,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/what-a-bernie-sanders-presidency-would-mean-for-business-11580929716\">depicts it as having only modest differences<\/a>&nbsp;with the country we have today, and economists who strongly dislike Sanders, like Paul Krugman,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/paulkrugman\/status\/1231546447339892737\">admit that he\u2019s not going to damage the economy<\/a>. There has been a lot of ludicrous hyperbole around Sanders, with publications like the&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>printing allegations that he represents the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/02\/27\/opinion\/bernie-sanders.html\">end of liberalism<\/a>\u201d and had a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2020\/03\/06\/bernie-sanderss-soviet-outreach-wasnt-unusual-it-was-reagan-initiative\/\">soft spot<\/a>&nbsp;for authoritarian Soviet governance. But these are simply not true: Sanders has always fought for the civil liberties of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnsnews.com\/blog\/craig-bannister\/bernie-sanders-defends-ann-coulter\">people he disagrees with<\/a>&nbsp;the most strongly, and when he was mayor of Burlington&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/USA\/Politics\/2020\/0304\/From-our-archives-What-did-Bernie-Sanders-do-when-he-was-mayor\">he was a fiscally responsible progressive<\/a>. His long record does not show him attempting to do anything dictatorial or abusive: quite the opposite, it shows him as a principled champion of freedom and the improvement of working people\u2019s living conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if we get past the heated rhetoric in the press about how Sanders is shouty, angry, divisive, etc., and try to evaluate him as fairly and objectively as possible, we see that he is not in fact any kind of threat. One Biden surrogate said she was \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bern4Bern\/status\/1236041926673121280\">terrified and traumatized by the prospect of a Sanders presidency<\/a>,\u201d and would not vote for him if he was the nominee, which is ludicrous and irresponsible given the scale of the threat Trump poses. (That\u2019s why, even as a staunch opponent of Hillary Clinton in the primary, I was telling people in 2016 they&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2016\/07\/why-leftists-should-have-no-problem-voting-for-hillary-clinton\/\">really needed to vote for her<\/a>&nbsp;if they lived in a swing state.) In fact, Sanders would probably be a good president who would push for social democratic programs that everyone would benefit from. Just look at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/berniesanders.com\/issues\/\">his agenda<\/a>. Read his book&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Our-Revolution-Believe-Bernie-Sanders\/dp\/1250132924\"><em>Our Revolution<\/em><\/a>. Listen to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bsCkoFqCWAA\"><em>him<\/em><\/a>, not what people say&nbsp;<em>about&nbsp;<\/em>him. He might not get done everything he proposes. He may have to change or soften some initiatives. He will make some bad calls, and we\u2019d need to be vigilant in criticizing him when he does. But he would clearly fight for things that are worth fighting for, and we have every reason to believe that he is honest, authentic, and tends to be proven right by history. The case that Bernie Sanders is the better man to be president is difficult to seriously dispute.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who Can Beat Trump?&nbsp;<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, you say:<em>&nbsp;I admit that Joe Biden has a history of showing egregiously poor judgment on nearly every political issue I care about, fabricating his biography to make himself look good, defending the worst Republicans, and actively doing harm to progressive causes. I admit Bernie does not share Biden\u2019s history of telling outrageous lies, undermining women and LGBT people, and sidling up to banks, insurance companies, and the fossil fuel industry. But I still think Biden is the best candidate to run against Trump. He\u2019s simply more electable.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, to me this seems a little counterintuitive: I\u2019d think it would be quite difficult to run someone as uninspiring and untrustworthy as Biden, because it would make it tough to convince Americans that that person would be a good president. When Joe Biden tries to point out that Donald Trump is a serial liar with bad judgment and a history of being creepy and corrupt, Trump will just say that the same things are true about Biden. It will be difficult to draw a clear contrast of character, and Biden has built&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/b514f6905ee44d25bbbdd7146fca8c62\">his central case against Trump around their supposed contrasting characters<\/a>! To me, you\u2019d be better off running the person you think makes the best potential president, because it will be easier to make the case that they&nbsp;<em>are<\/em>&nbsp;the best potential president.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, isn\u2019t it a little strange that all of the above qualities don\u2019t affect people\u2019s thinking about Biden\u2019s \u201celectability\u201d? Surely taking ignorant, unprincipled positions and lying about them is something that\u2019s going to come up. I\u2019ve separated discussion of the \u201celectability\u201d question from the question of whether Biden would be good as a chief executive, but I actually think those questions are one and the same: Voters are&nbsp;<em>going&nbsp;<\/em>to think about these things when they decide who to vote for. It\u2019s harder to run someone who lied about doing sit-ins than someone who actually sat in, because those fictions will be exposed and they will turn people off. Every single thing I\u2019ve mentioned\u2014from Hunter Biden\u2019s consulting gig with the credit card companies pushing Joe Biden to strip consumer bankruptcy protection to African Americans victimized by Biden\u2019s punitive drug sentencing\u2014is going to be put in ads run against Biden, and Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars to blast those ads far and wide. They will be effective, because they will be correct. And if you do not think Trump would run ads criticizing Biden on behalf of incarcerated African Americans, you do not know Trump:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/02\/donald-trump-will-run-to-the-left\">He\u2019s already been doing exactly that<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To Democrats, it may be self-evident that Joe Biden is far better than Donald Trump, and so they assume that all the bad things he has done will not matter to anyone.&nbsp;<em>Any Democrat in the White House is better than Trump<\/em>, I hear a lot, and I agree with it. But if you are going to make a clear and powerful case against Trump, you need to be free of the kinds of dirt that are going to muddy your case. If we\u2019re going to point out that the president has been accused by dozens of women of inappropriate touching, we don\u2019t want that message to come from someone who themselves has been accused of inappropriate touching (and who said they are \u201cnot sorry\u201d for it). If we\u2019re going to accuse the president of being reckless and warlike, we don\u2019t want the argument being made by a candidate who pushed the most reckless war in the last several decades. If we\u2019re going to accuse Trump of being corrupt, we don\u2019t want a candidate who has done the bidding of the credit card companies while his son took a cushy job with them. If we\u2019re going to call Trump out for separating families, we don\u2019t want a candidate who deported hundreds of thousands of people themselves, and if we\u2019re going to call Trump a racist, we don\u2019t want a candidate who was best friends with segregationists and helped build modern racist policing and imprisonment regime. As with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden\u2019s record is so bad that he\u2019s unable to effectively attack Trump on the areas where Trump is most vulnerable. This is one reason Biden has to resort to simply attacking Trump\u2019s \u201ccharacter\u201d and his \u201cmalarkey\u201d\u2014but as I\u2019ve pointed out, Biden himself is of poor character and half of what comes out his mouth is malarkey! He\u2019s exactly the sort of corrupt, sleazy insider politician D.C. is full of, and who we need to get rid of if we\u2019re going to advance the cause of justice.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, the parallels with Clinton are striking. As this magazine&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/static.currentaffairs.org\/2016\/02\/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency\">pointed out in early 2016<\/a>, Clinton was a uniquely weak candidate against Donald Trump, because she had the kind of record on issues like trade, war, and Wall Street that his \u201cpopulist\u201d campaign could hit an \u201cestablishment\u201d politician hard on. She was the perfect foil for his message, because she embodied the D.C. insider culture he was trying to whip up hate against. Trump thrives on dirt and scandal, and Clinton was tainted by enough corruption and misconduct allegations that he had an easy time landing blows. Mehdi Hasan&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpittingBack\/status\/1235380664041697280\">puts things very well<\/a>&nbsp;when he says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>I just don\u2019t get why Democrats\u2026 think that you can just rerun the 2016 playbook and not think that Donald Trump will rerun his. I mean, they tried to run a pro-Iraq War, pro-Wall Street, establishment Democrat with a history of dubious claims and dodgy dealings and dodgy comments about mass incarceration and superpredators. Where did that end up? What\u2019s the old saying? Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, Biden shares many of Clinton\u2019s exact weaknesses. He voted for NAFTA, the \u201cbad trade deal\u201d Trump loves to attack for shipping Rust Belt jobs overseas. (Sure enough, Trump has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hollyotterbein\/status\/1235732504109334528\">already started bringing up NAFTA<\/a>.) Biden is a creature of the \u201cswamp\u201d that Trump has vowed to drain, a pal of lobbyists and bankers. (The&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>even called his staff \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/28\/magazine\/joe-biden-2020.html\">more than a bit swampy<\/a>.\u201d) And then, of course, there is the corruption. Ryan Grim of the&nbsp;<em>Intercept&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/10\/09\/joe-hunter-biden-family-money\/\">reports that<\/a>&nbsp;Biden\u2019s \u201cfamily has been cashing in on his career for decades,\u201d something Democrats have not wanted to admit.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/articles\/884677\/democrats-are-sleepwalking-into-biden-disaster\">Biden<\/a>&nbsp;\u201chas not even bothered to come up with a persuasive answer to his son Hunter\u2019s involvement with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.\u201d Even pro-Biden centrists like Jonathan Chait&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2019\/12\/hunter-biden-is-the-new-hillary-clinton-email-server.html\">admit<\/a>&nbsp;that \u201cBiden\u2019s responses to questioning on his son\u2019s role, which range from challenging his interlocutor to a push-up contest to trailing off awkwardly, have hardly allayed the concern.\u201d As Eric Levitz put it, \u201cHunter collecting $50,000 a month to sit on a board for which he had no qualifications was clearly corrupt influence peddling.\u201d Hunter Biden and Joe Biden\u2019s stories are in conflict, too: Joe Biden says he never discussed it with his son, while Hunter says they&nbsp;<em>did&nbsp;<\/em>talk about it and all Joe said by way of objection was \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-hunter-biden-ukraine\/what-hunter-biden-did-on-the-board-of-ukrainian-energy-company-burisma-idUSKBN1WX1P7\">I hope you know what you\u2019re doing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re a Democrat, you probably don\u2019t want to hear about any of this. Let\u2019s be honest: Many Democrats are simply lying to themselves and pretending that Biden is someone other than who he is. (A&nbsp;<em>Detroit Free Press&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/opinion\/editorials\/2020\/03\/05\/joe-biden-endorsement-free-press-michigan-primary\/4882845002\/\">editorial<\/a>&nbsp;says Biden has \u201coccasional lapses of judgment but not of character\u201d and is as \u201cinnocent of venality as any politician in Washington.\u201d As if pretending to have been a civil rights hero is not a \u201clapse in character\u201d! And as if we didn\u2019t all know how disgustingly venal most Washington politicians are.) But brace yourself, because in a general election, you\u2019re going to hear about all of this all the goddamn time for months on end. And you\u2019re going to wince as Biden struggles to come up with an explanation of what Hunter\u2019s role at the Ukrainian energy company was, or responds by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/nidhiprakash\/joe-biden-iq-test\">challenging honest critics to a push-up contest<\/a>. (Expect to hear the phrase \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MA7DBjA5YjY\">Quid Pro Joe<\/a>\u201d about 10 billion times. Also, if you haven\u2019t heard of&nbsp;<em>Jim&nbsp;<\/em>Biden, get ready:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2020\/02\/the-benefits-of-being-joe-bidens-brother\/\">you will<\/a>.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One worrying thing we\u2019ve learned about Biden over the course of this election is that he needs to be kept away from voters. Not many show up at his events in the first place, but when they do, his interactions with them are often excruciating. He has told them to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/politics\/2020\/01\/joe-biden-tells-iowa-climate-activist-to-vote-for-someone-else.html\">go vote for his opponent<\/a>. (In Iowa, 85 percent followed his advice.) He&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macon.com\/news\/politics-government\/article240150483.html#storylink=cpy\">even called<\/a>&nbsp;one young woman a \u201clying dog faced pony soldier\u201d after she asked him a tough question. She was horrified:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>\u201cIt was kind of humiliating to be called a liar on national TV by the former vice president. Instead of answering that question straightforward, his immediate response was to attempt to invalidate me by exposing my inexperience.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The Biden campaign\u2019s response is that Biden was attempting to quote a movie, which explains nothing and makes no sense. Get ready for a hell of a lot more of this in a general election, and get ready for Donald Trump to mercilessly mock and repeat every single Biden misstep. (Often by turning Biden\u2019s indefensible acts into&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1113862077842640898\">amusing memes<\/a>.) Trump\u2019s specialty is brutal attacks on DC politicians, which he does with a knack for entertainment that those who come out of the Senate instead of television can hardly hope to match.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m actually something of an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Trump-Anatomy-Monstrosity-Nathan-Robinson\/dp\/0997844779\">amateur Trump scholar<\/a>, and one thing I have found many Democrats do not sufficiently understand about him is that Trump is a genuinely formidable political opponent who is good at crushing the weak. Trump packs stadiums and is bringing in campaign cash in the hundreds of millions. It should be of serious concern, then, that even though Biden has ultimately been able to consolidate centrist voters behind him, his fundraising has been anemic,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/05\/28\/biden-energy-crisis-1345359\">his events poorly-attended<\/a>, and his on-the-ground campaign apparatus bare bones. Until Democratic leaders rallied around to revive him, Biden \u201chad&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/10\/16\/us\/politics\/democratic-fundraising-joe-biden.html\">less than a third<\/a>&nbsp;as much cash on hand as Bernie Sanders\u201d and was doing so poorly that he eventually had \u201cto&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2019\/10\/24\/biden-super-pac-056816\">abandon his pledge<\/a>&nbsp;to not accept support from corporate-backed outside super PAC groups.\u201d One reason for this is that Biden doesn\u2019t inspire confidence; even Barack Obama was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/obama-to-biden-dont-run\">reportedly nervous about running him<\/a>&nbsp;in the primary. Democrats might be resigned to putting Joe Biden up against Donald Trump, feeling they have few other options, but you won\u2019t meet many who are<em>&nbsp;excited&nbsp;<\/em>for his campaign, and he\u2019s hardly likely to build a grassroots movement of volunteers and donors in the fall.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make matters worse, Joe Biden does not seem to be in excellent form at the moment, to say the least. The more people see of him, the worse he looks. The gaffes, always a Biden trait, have become near-constant: forgetting the first words of the Declaration of Independence (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/you-know-the-thing-biden-botches-declaration-of-independence-quote-during-campaign-stop\">We hold these truths to be self-evident\u2026 you know, all men and women are created by the, go, you know, you know the thing<\/a>\u201d), forgetting which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xGymiFlyl0E\">office he is running for<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2019\/08\/28\/does-biden-forget-obamas-name-crimea\/\">forgetting Barack Obama\u2019s name<\/a>, forgetting that the Parkland shootings&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/08\/11\/politics\/joe-biden-parkland-victims\/index.html\">did not happen<\/a>&nbsp;while he was in office,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnsnews.com\/blog\/craig-bannister\/joe-biden-confuses-wife-sister-then-blames-women-they-switched-me-they-didnt\">mixing up his wife and his sister<\/a>, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TimMurtaugh\/status\/1201124132869607424\">telling bizarre, rambling stories<\/a>&nbsp;that make Grandpa Simpson look like a man who&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-o-7MmhqNfA\">gets straight to the point<\/a>. This may well be why his advisors had to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2019\/5\/29\/18637055\/joe-biden-campaign-events\">keep him from doing too many public events<\/a>, preferring&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/politics\/biden-visits-bay-area-but-again-holds-no-public-campaign-events\/5589773\/\">quiet private fundraisers<\/a>&nbsp;to rallies and town halls. Biden surrogate John Kerry was reportedly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-election\/john-kerry-overheard-discussing-possible-2020-bid-amid-concern-sanders-n1128476\">making desperate calls from Iowa<\/a>, telling Democrats that Biden wasn\u2019t up to it, and wondering if Kerry could step in to replace Biden on the ticket.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/12\/us\/politics\/joe-biden-gaffes.html\">Other<\/a>&nbsp;Biden-sympathetic Democratic officials on the ground said Biden didn\u2019t \u201cseem to have his heart in it or the energy for the slog.\u201d The disgraced Chris Matthews, no Bernie sympathizer, criticized the Biden campaign for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/chris-matthews-calls-out-biden-for-avoiding-media-interviews\/\">hiding the candidate from the press<\/a>, and the&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>chased Biden for months to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2019\/06\/joe-biden-new-york-times-busy.html\">answer some basic questions<\/a>. Even now, in the wake of Biden\u2019s big Super Tuesday resurgence, Rachel Maddow has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CANCEL_SAM\/status\/1235767082052136961\">struggled to get him to appear<\/a>&nbsp;on her show alongside the other candidates.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This should be a giant red flag. If Biden is not in peak fighting shape, he will lose and lose badly. Donald Trump is the King of the Bullies. When he senses weakness, he pounces. You need to have boundless energy and stamina and fire to counteract him. And they can\u2019t hide Biden away forever. Sooner or later, if you\u2019re running for president, you\u2019re going to have to make some appearances. It is not a good sign if your allies&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/457486-biden-allies-float-scaling-back-events-to-limit-gaffes\">are suggesting<\/a>&nbsp;you scale back events so that voters don\u2019t accidentally hear you speak off the cuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Democrats do not want to talk about the question of whether Biden is up for this. And none of us want to say the word \u201cdementia\u201d when we don\u2019t actually know whether that\u2019s true.&nbsp;<em>Politico&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2019\/08\/02\/joe-biden-age-media-227499\">reports<\/a>&nbsp;that journalists have shied away from answering the question of whether Biden is mentally capable of his task. But it\u2019s a serious issue: If you choose a nominee who is going to embarrass themselves in front of the country, you\u2019ve just thrown the entire election. It\u2019s a colossal risk. We can\u2019t&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;<\/em>confront it, because Trump is coming. Trump has already begun to bring up Biden\u2019s mental health, noting that Biden \u201csaid 150 million people were killed with guns and that he was running for the United States Senate.\u201d (Biden did say both these things.) Trump will compile all of the flubs, go through them in excruciating detail at his rallies, and talk about how sad it is to see someone in such obvious decline. He will compare Joe Biden\u2019s brain to the Democratic Party itself, and will ask why anyone would want someone in charge of the country who cannot be trusted to remember&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/458705-biden-mistakes-new-hampshire-for-vermont-during-campaign-stop\">which state he is in<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/03\/03\/biden-asks-for-support-on-super-thursday-in-yet-another-blunder\/\">which day of the week Super Tuesday is on<\/a>, or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/mix-up-biden-confuses-theresa-may-with-margaret-thatcher-for-second-time\">who the Prime Minister of Great Britain is<\/a>. It will not be easy to answer this question.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be ready for what is going to come at Biden in a general election. Just look at Trump\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1235945259370041344\">tweets<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1133119875272994816\">for<\/a>&nbsp;a preview of what we\u2019re going to see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>I will protect your Social Security and Medicare, just as I have for the past 3 years. Sleepy Joe Biden will destroy both in very short order, and he won\u2019t even know he\u2019s doing it!<\/em><\/li><li><em>Super Predator was the term associated with the 1994 Crime Bill that Sleepy Joe Biden was so heavily involved in passing. That was a dark period in American History, but has Sleepy Joe apologized? No!<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you think \u201cSleepy Joe\u201d is up to the challenge of proving Trump wrong? Probably not even on a good day, because Biden\u2019s record on Social Security and criminal punishment is not defensible and gives Trump the upper hand. But lately, even Biden\u2019s good days have been few and far between, and I shudder to think of his flailing responses (probably his go-to will be \u201cchallenge Trump to a push-up contest\u201d). I hope the Democrats who have suddenly come together behind Biden have a good reason for having changed their minds and concluded he is ready for what would hit him. But I suspect they\u2019ve just tried not to think about it.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v3S4ttnR1sM?feature=oembed\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So: The central argument for nominating Joe Biden is&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;that he would be a good president, because, for all the reasons I went into, he clearly wouldn\u2019t. The only case for him is \u201celectability\u201d\u2014even Joe Biden\u2019s wife (not sister), Jill Biden, makes the argument this way: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-election\/jill-biden-you-may-another-candidate-better-husband-most-electable-n1044151\">You know you may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who\u2019s going to win<\/a>.\u201d But the electability argument for Biden might be&nbsp;<em>the worst argument of all<\/em>. Biden is a corrupt, inept, dishonest, undisciplined, rambling con man. This makes him less electable, not more. It makes him exactly the person we&nbsp;<em>don\u2019t&nbsp;<\/em>want to use to make those very same charges against Trump. Because Biden is a man with almost no message, a bunch of scandals including feeling women up against their will, a seemingly addled and confused brain, a long history of inventing nonsensical stories, and a record and agenda that will inspire no one, the electability case seems thin. Much is made of the difficult challenge Sanders faces in increasing youth turnout, but I\u2019m not sure why&nbsp;<em>anyone&nbsp;<\/em>under 30 would show up for Joe Biden, a man who has contempt for them and has spent his life embodying everything about the Democratic Party that turns them off politics. If there is a Biden plan for mobilizing and exciting ex-Sanders voters, I struggle to think what it could possibly be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, the only way the \u201celectability\u201d case can even begin to be made is by saying that whatever Biden\u2019s chances are, Sanders\u2019 are worse.<em>&nbsp;Yes,&nbsp;<\/em>you may say,<em>&nbsp;I admit Joe Biden is a disaster waiting to happen<\/em>.&nbsp;<em>But Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist<\/em>. I\u2019ve discussed&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/editor.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/01\/donald-trump-we-are-coming-for-you-3\/\">at great length before<\/a>&nbsp;why I think this concern is actually backwards, and that a populist outsider like Bernie Sanders will have a much easier time running against Trump than Democratic insider politicians. In fact, Trump himself was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2020\/01\/25\/only-one-i-didnt-want-her-pick-secret-recording-trump-admits-fear-clinton-picking\">afraid Hillary Clinton would pick Bernie Sanders<\/a>&nbsp;as her running mate, because he guessed that she would have won with Sanders on the ticket. (In the end, spite won out over pragmatism, and she picked a guy with a terrible record on abortion rights whose name and face you may not even remember.) Sanders is very good at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/k8cIx2toZi4\">talking to Trump\u2019s own voters<\/a>, in a way that respects their concerns but doesn\u2019t validate their racism, and has far less contempt for so-called \u201cdeplorables\u201d than many Democrats do. I won\u2019t repeat my full case for Sanders\u2019 electability, which I have done so&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2019\/02\/there-is-still-only-one-clear-way-to-get-rid-of-trump\/\">at length elsewhere<\/a>, but I would ask that instead of assuming that received wisdom is necessarily true, you take a moment to question it and wonder whether the many talking heads who insist Sanders cannot win might be just as wrong as they were about whether Hillary Clinton\u2019s victory was inevitable.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>\u201cHow much more so, as I believe, nay, am certain, that the sage Freston, who stole my closet and books, has converted those giants into mills, in order to rob me of the honour of their overthrow, such is the enmity he bears me; but, in the end, all his treacherous arts will be little avail against the vigour of my sword.\u201d<\/em><br>\u2014 Miguel de Cervantes,&nbsp;<em>The Achievements of the Sage and Valiant Don Quixote de La Mancha, Part One, Book I<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I was depressed after Super Tuesday, as you can imagine, because to me&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/03\/what-the-stakes-are\">the stakes of this primary are incredibly high<\/a>. I was alarmed to see the increased odds of choosing a disastrous candidate like Biden to run against Trump, with all of the human misery Trump\u2019s reelection would ensure. So on Wednesday, I spent my morning in a coffee shop in the French Quarter, reading&nbsp;<em>Don Quixote<\/em>, because I\u2019d never read it and needed something apolitical to take my mind off things. As I was leaving, a&nbsp;<em>Current Affairs&nbsp;<\/em>reader recognized me and came up to introduce himself. He asked what I was reading, and then said it was \u201ctopical.\u201d I hadn\u2019t thought of it that way, but then he explained: Don Quixote, the old, confused member of the social elite, who doesn\u2019t notice that the world has changed around him, is living in a fantasy of the past. Half-demented, he fancies himself winning when he is losing, and when his delusional worldview comes into conflict with obvious facts (as when the giants he attacks turn out to be windmills), he simply modifies his story so that he can never be wrong (by saying a sorcerer must have turned the giants into windmills at the last minute to deny him his rightful victory).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the Democratic party elite in general, and Joe Biden in particular. They still believe that everything operates according to the old rules. In 2016, it should have been evident that this was not the case: Donald Trump violated every rule of decency and civility, brazenly flouted the most basic political norms, and then won. But, like Don Quixote, instead of accepting that they had been wrong, and trying to understand this new world, they simply made up new stories that allowed them to rationalize continuing to do the same thing (Trump was illegitimately put into office by the sorcerer Putin, not by their own failures to effectively counter his messaging.) In 2020, they will do precisely what they did in 2016: run an uninspiring establishment candidate, with no clear agenda or reason for being in the race beyond self-advancement, whose criticisms of Trump ring false because of hypocrisy. And when they lose again, it will not even cause them to finally wake up and see the windmills. Even as the party falls apart, they will be clueless as to why.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is my fear: A narrative is rapidly going to take hold that Bernie Sanders is on the outs, and Joe Biden is rising from the ashes. The race is still technically close, but Biden has \u201cmomentum\u201d as top Democrats coalesce around him. They will say: Bernie\u2019s revolution didn\u2019t happen, everyone go home, time to Get Serious and pick Joe. People will temporarily forget what Biden is like; his name will just be a codeword for \u201cModeration\u201d and \u201cThe Everyman.\u201d The&nbsp;<em>New York Times&nbsp;<\/em>has gone hard after Bernie recently with a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BernieWatchdog\/status\/1236021894828249089\">flurry of negative stories<\/a>, and Bernie is going to have a tough time turning the narrative around before the next primaries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Democrats do not realize that the only reason Biden appears strong is that they have managed to temporarily suppress discussion of all of the things that make him such a terrible general election candidate against Trump. Yes, if we don\u2019t talk about his long history of involvement with all of the worst policy blunders of the last 40 years, or the ways Biden makes women uncomfortable, or his long history of outrageous lies about himself, or his son\u2019s shady Ukrainian gas money, or his inability to organize a campaign rally or complete a sentence, or the total lack of answer to the question \u201chow will Biden get Bernie\u2019s supporters, especially young people, to turn out for him?\u201d\u2014if we just bury that, then we can make Biden seem like a reasonable choice. But those things do not go away. They are coming back, and they are going to hit Biden like a freight train the moment he faces Donald Trump. And, as Biden did in 1988 and 2008 and in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will likely crumple before you know it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we do not have to do this. We have a window, albeit a small one, to turn this around. I hope you, and everyone you know, will do whatever you can to help elect Bernie Sanders. We can bring a worthy fight to Donald Trump, instead of trying to put up a relic of the most discredited brand of Democratic politics. We do not have to settle for Joe. We can have a campaign, and a presidency, in which we can truly take pride. It is Biden, not Sanders, who would be the risky bet. A Sanders presidency is nothing to fear, but a Biden nomination certainly is.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading<br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>For more on the \u201celectability\u201d question, see my colleague Paul Waters-Smith\u2019s article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/01\/a-biden-nomination-means-a-second-trump-term\/\">A Biden Nomination Means A Second Trump Term.<\/a>\u201d For a good case for Bernie as a pragmatic candidate, see Paul\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2019\/11\/why-you-should-take-a-chance-on-the-socialist\">Why You Should Take A Chance On The Socialist<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>For a good dive into Biden\u2019s legislative record, see Andrew Cockburn\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2019\/03\/joe-biden-record\/\">No Joe!<\/a>\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Harpers.&nbsp;<\/em><\/li><li>For thorough documentation of Biden\u2019s lies about his Social Security record, see Ryan Grim\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/01\/13\/biden-cuts-social-security\/\">Joe Biden Has Advocated Cutting Social Security For 40 Years<\/a>\u201d in the&nbsp;<em>Intercept.<\/em><\/li><li>For the basic list of ways in which Biden has spent decades serving the interests of Wall Street, see Kenneth Peres\u2019 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2020\/02\/23\/joe-biden-serves-wall-street-not-main-street\">Joe Biden Serves Wall Street, Not Main Street<\/a>,\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Common dreams.&nbsp;<\/em><\/li><li>For an explanation of what it means for Biden to be a \u201ccreature of the system,\u201d see Ezra Klein\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2019\/6\/26\/18715650\/joe-biden-2020-primary-democrat-senator-segregation\">Joe Biden will never give up on the system<\/a>\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Vox.&nbsp;<\/em><\/li><li>For a deeper look at how Joe Biden\u2019s relationships with monstrous people have led him to be complicit in injustice, see my \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2019\/03\/everybodys-chum\">Everybody\u2019s Chum<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>For details on Joe Biden\u2019s immigration record, see Natascha Elena Uhlmann\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/splinternews.com\/joe-bidens-terrible-record-on-immigration-should-haunt-1836627903\">Joe Biden\u2019s Terrible Record on Immigration Should Haunt His Campaign<\/a>\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Splinter.<\/em><\/li><li>For more on the history of Biden\u2019s shameful opposition to desegregation efforts, see Asher Smith\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2018\/04\/joe-bidens-record-on-racial-integration-is-indefensible\">Joe Biden\u2019s Record on Racial Integration is Indefensible<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>For the world\u2019s most thorough account of Joe Biden\u2019s many atrocious actions, see Branko Marcetic\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/652731\/yesterdays-man-by-branko-marcetic\/\"><em>Yesterday\u2019s Man<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;and his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/author\/branko-marcetic\">many&nbsp;<em>Jacobin&nbsp;<\/em>articles on Biden<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We urgently need to remember who Biden is and think carefully about what would happen if he were chosen. Nathan J. Robinson filed 07 March 2020 in 2020 ELECTION (CurrentAffairs.org) The audio version of this article is available&nbsp;here. The video version is available&nbsp;here. If you are a Democrat, you may&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/06\/democrats-you-really-do-not-want-to-nominate-joe-biden\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14530,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527\/revisions\/14530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}