#i hate the posts that go ''hey you know the single one dem legislator you like?

[unless-we-choose-to-reverse-it]

A Biden presidency would be worse for the long-term goals of progressives in the United States than a second term for Trump would be.

So now that I’ve gotten your attention with a title like that, I should explain what I mean.

There are some posts going around progressive Tumblr that I’ve seen that amount to “hey, Biden isn’t all that bad, you should vote for him,” and I want to offer a counterargument.

The short answer: conservative Democrats hate you, and if Biden wins, they will never listen to a single thing that progressives and socialists have to say ever again.

The long answer: did everyone just forget that politicians lie to score brownie points, and fail to live up to their promises? This is a thing that politicians are infamous for doing. But now that Joe Biden has very suddenly released a list of progressive platforms that he “”“intends”““ to realize while in office, everyone has forgotten that.

Let’s be frank about Joe Biden’s record. He supported segregation way past the point of it being a dominant position. He was good friends with arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond, to the point of delivering the eulogy at Strom’s funeral.

Joe Biden acted as the architect for the modern war on drugs in many ways, including the use of harsh prison sentences for tiny amounts of drugs, both of which are currently being used to terrorize black and brown communities and uphold what is essentially a system of legalized slavery.

Joe Biden acted as a bag man for the banking industry during his time as senator for Delaware, consistently killing any legislation that might prevent banks to avoid taxes by basing themselves in Delaware.

Joe Biden supported the war in Iraq. This alone should be disqualifying.

Given his record, his sudden adoption of progressive policies should be interpreted as being a little suspicious. He is representative of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, which has done little to oppose the worst excesses of modern capitalism, and has, in fact, done a great deal to exacerbate those failures. But now, there’s a more progressive wing; a wing that the conservative wing has routinely expressed their opposition towards, from Nancy Pelosi dismissing the Squad to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that Bernie Sanders never got anything done.

Do you really think that these people are suddenly going to adopt all those progressive policies, just as it looks like their guy is winning the race?

If you answered “yes” to that previous question, I think I have a bridge to sell you.

The Democratic Party believes it does not need to go left, because in their minds, there is nowhere else for progressives to go. American politics are expressly designed to make third parties an impossibility, so if progressives have nowhere else to go, then they don’t actually need to cater to those progressives in any way other than lip service. That’s what these promises amount to: lip service. I promise you, the second a Biden presidency takes power, all of those promises will go out the window. What’s more, progressive political forces will be ignored. After all, there’s nowhere else for them to go, so in the minds of the conservative Democrats, they cannot represent a meaningful threat to the Democratic party.

Of course, they’ll posture towards progressivism. But they’ll do so without actually making it happen, which will poison the politics around it. I believe that Justin Trudeau has done more harm to left-wing politics in Canada than any conservative politician, because his posturing towards progressive positions angers and energizes the right, but his politics fail to achieve left-wing goals.

And that’s the other side of why a Biden presidency would do so much damage. The right is going to think you’re a communist no matter what you actually do; think of what they did to Barack Obama, another man who ran as a progressive but governed as a conservative. It would energize the American right, it would sap the power of the American left, all the while the centrists prevent any meaningful change and the situation in the US just gets worse and worse.

And that’s the brutal reality. Neither Trump nor Biden will make the situation better. Both will make the situation worse in their own special ways. There’s no chance in hell that the Democratic party would actually make an effort to prevent the caging of children at the border, or the Gestapo-like behaviour of ICE; they’ve had four years to do that, and they’ve done nothing aside from complain about it, even when they’ve held Congress.

The fact is, the current Democratic party knows that progressive ideas are popular. But they have no intention of actually realizing those ideas, or fighting for any position, really. They maintain power through fear, by telling voters again and again that to expect anything better is a sure road to defeat, that the only way to win is to pick the most milquetoast, conservative candidate possible. They hate us progressives far more than they hate the Republicans; they can take the moral high ground over the Republicans, but we can take the moral high ground over them. Therefore, they will never change, unless forced to.

So, what’s my conclusion?

Just don’t vote.

I can already hear people calling me a privileged brocialist for suggesting that anything is more important than beating Trump, probably some people who are going to say that I don’t actually care about people and just want my team to win. To those people I say: I do care about people. That’s why I’m making this argument. A Trump win and a Joe Biden win hurt the American people in their own ways, and while a Biden presidency might help a bit in the short term, the long-term consequences will be disastrous.

I don’t want to be right. It would be fantastic if Joe Biden starting putting out progressive policies all over the place, and started listening to the progressive wing of the party. But I don’t think that’s a realistic assessment of the situation. Everything I’ve seen leads me to a different conclusion: Joe Biden will not help us.

So that’s why I say to not vote.

Because there’s a possibility that if the Democratic party loses here, they might actually start to consider that they actually need to move left in order to remain relevant. They will curse and spit every second of doing so, but it might convince them that serving progressive interests is necessary, that they can’t just rely on progressives caving to pressure and voting no matter what. It might force them to come to the table.

For my evidence, I turn again to Canada, and to the province of Quebec. People often wonder why Quebec gets so much attention in Canadian politics. It’s a large province, sure, but the sway it has on federal politics vastly outweighs its size. Some have suggested political correctness overrepresenting French Canadians, others have suggested political tradition, given how long Quebec has been a part of Canada.

I suggest that it’s because Quebec turns on a dime, politically speaking.

Basically every federal election in Canada of the past few decades has seen Quebec switch almost entirely from one party to another, sometimes inexplicably. The fact is, no party can call Quebec safe territory, and if the Quebecois feel like their needs are not being met, they tend to go for an entirely different party. Party loyalty isn’t really a thing in Quebec. So when election season comes around, every party is clamouring for Quebec’s attention, and after the election, they put in a lot of effort to make sure that the Quebecois like them. This means actually following through with their election promises.

The same is true for swing states in America. If you want politicians to meet your needs, then you need to make it clear that you might vote for them, but only if they’re serving your needs.

It’s gonna hurt like a sonofabitch, it’s true. But if you want progressive policies to have any hope of reaching the halls of power, it is your obligation to not vote in the American election in November, to demonstrate to the conservative wing of the Democratic party that victory is only possible by giving progressives a seat at the table. That can only be done by showing them what happens when they don’t have it.

Also, don’t vote for Trump to spite the Dems. That’s actually moronic. Just don’t vote.