Biden / Harris – Why should I vote for them?
I posted in 2019 about my struggle to vote for Biden.
So, why should I vote for him now?
He is a bland centrist, he is too old, and * most importantly * I think he lacks the knowledge and will to use the Republican’s own methods against them. My biggest complaint about the Democratic party is their resistance to using Republican tactics against Republicans. They like to stick to informal rules that haven’t existed for 25 years and they need to recognize that the Republican party is no longer the Republican party of old. It is a cult run on fear and Fox news. If the Democrats do not start playing by the new rules they will lose the war to determine the soul of this country.
By not playing the new rules they have already allowed the Republicans to play the game without offering real solutions to the American people. The Republicans only have fear mantras that their supports recite, have you ever seen a Republican plan to improve anything we face? Health care? Climate change? Growing inequality? Clean water?
I should note, I am not a Democrat, I switched from being an Independent to a Democrat after Trump. I felt I had no choice and wanted to register how utterly disgusted I am by the modern Republican party. The Democratic party and I have many differences, but the Republican party’s war on data, good governance, science, education, clean water, clean energy, good capitalism, and minorities is insanity.
But back to Biden/Harris…
I will suck it up and vote for them.
Why?
Because at the very least they are competent. Joe Biden is too old to be President but Kamala Harris is uber competent. We need competent people at the helm during this crisis. I am also hopeful that out of this crisis we can reboot significant parts of our society and economy to make them more resilient. It might be too early, but my hope is this is the right time for FDR level change. And, I have hope that Kamala recognizes the new rules.
I won’t lie, a big part of me thinks this country needs 4 more years of Republicans and Trump. Why?
Because only then will enough people be in REAL PAIN to drive REAL change. We are too rich and too stupid. Too many poor white people are voting Republican and too many rich white people are stuck in their bubble, unable to see past the Republican fear mantras.
P.S. Republicans of old used to have many good ideas. We need to move to a personal and corporate territorial tax system like the rest of the world. We need to safeguard the USD as a tool internationally. We don’t need to balance the federal budget, but we need to get it under control and build some better planning around how and when we flex it (see the prior point about safeguarding global USD dominance), we need to increase taxes or lower military spending, we need to bring in economist and data and experiments into government programs to make sure they are effective, we need to reduce and streamline rules, we need to de-license some of the license economies that have grown up, we need to look at the pros/cons of the monopolies we have created in a globalized world, etc, etc.
There are lots of great people who vote Republican. It is easy to see why. Simplistic solutions are easy to sell and easy to fit into your world narrative. We live in an uber complex world and it isn’t easy to sell the complexity. For example, keeping our water safe for consumption is HARD, we are failing at that in many parts of the USA yet the EPA gets railed on for overreach and hurting business by the Republican party. I want to live to see a future where the Republican party cares about giving people clean water to drink instead of pretending the EPA is some anti-business boogeyman.
P.S. 2. I think Joe Biden is a superb human being. And, someone who has dedicated his life to public service. I just don’t think he is the leader we need right now. I hope I am wrong :).
Recent Comments