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Voting Your Conscience Versus Making Sure Trump Is Out: The LEV Argument

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Bill Homans, musical voice of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in Washington DC, 2011
Bill Homans, musical voice of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in Washington DC, 2011
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https://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-the-left-s-case-for-le-by-Jonathan-Cook-Democrats_Donald-Trump-Campaign_Joe-Biden_Joe-Biden-2020-Campaign-200523-385.html#startcomments

No comments on this column? I am truly surprised.

Jonathan Cook states the very simple crux of the problem facing American voters in the presidential election of 2020:

"Everyone on the left must dig deep into their conscience and make a decision based on their assessment of how relatively evil Biden and Trump are, and whether that evil will be minimized by voting for Biden."

Any choice I make in this election will be based on exactly the same rationale I used in 2008. That year, I reckoned that Obama was a family man, intelligent, even brilliant, calm, and was far less likely-- my conscience speaking here-- to blow the cover off the earth than his opponent, a 40-year untreated case of Vietnam-War PTSD after his POW experience.

I do not find Biden to be evil. The other criticisms the author makes are to be considered, particularly whether he is truly suffering cognitive decline. Ronald Reagan was beginning his Alzheimer's Disease, he really was out of the loop on Iran-Contra.

Thus far, the Tara Reade case is the only negative factor in Biden's history that falls in the same category with any of Trump's most glaring negatives, and Trump's history is replete with NDAs and credible accusations from a dozen women, besides decades of lying and cheating in business.

I am not as defeatist as Mr. Cook is about the surety of Sanders and his colleagues making sure that it is they who guide the policies of the Democratic Party come January 20, 2021. He writes,

"The credibility of the older left's lesser evil voting strategy is being severely tested right at this moment - and is being found disastrously wanting. With Biden the presumptive Democratic candidate, now is the time when the progressive left ought to be leveraging its electoral clout to get Sanders and his political allies positions inside a future Biden administration.

"This is the moment when the Sanders camp ought to be able to parlay their substantial voting bloc into influence over who is chosen as Biden's vice-president and his senior cabinet ministers, as well as over the main planks of Biden's platform.

"But rather than seize this historic moment, the older left - including, tragically, Sanders himself - are using this period primarily to undermine the progressive left, by bullying them into submission to the Biden campaign whatever it decides to do. #MuzzlingDelegates."

I'll bet a dollar at 2-1 that Sen. Sanders actually has a place in the Biden Cabinet waiting, though that may or may not be announced in the remaining months of this campaign. Whatever cognitive decline Joe Biden has or does not have, he knows he has to at least keep the Democratic voters he has. I don't know whether saying "Bernie's my Secretary of (fill in the blank) now!" now will gain more voters, or lose more, in November.

That's a question I'm sure his campaign is wrestling with as the days tick by and pressure gradually builds on his Veep pick. I don't reckon Biden has to decide on an announcement until the Convention. He can pick Trump apart just by taking notice of Trump's inevitable errors.

One characteristic of Sen. Biden that Trump lacks completely is the capacity to listen to others. I will predict that Biden's cabinet is not filled with grey neo-liberal (i.e. conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virgina, for example) eminences.

I will not be surprised if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is being vetted by the Biden campaign for an economic advisory or Cabinet position. One absolute recommendation for voting Biden over Trump is that Biden's appointments WILL be vetted, whereas Trump's never are, and that is a Republican defect going back a long time, but notably to 2008, when Sarah Palin might have been vetted for five minutes before Sen. McCain chose her as his running mate.

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William P. Homans Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

My name is William Perkins Homans the third, but probably more people know me as the bluesman (and artist) Watermelon Slim.

I've been in the fight against war, fascism, injustice and inhumanity for 47 years. I was at MayDay, 1971, (more...)
 

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