Biden’s Magical “Electability” is Magical Thinking

Why don’t the kids like Biden?

Here’s why:

Imagine you were on a boat that was rapidly capsizing.

Now imagine the captain of the boat said the only reasonable course of action was to find out what the rapidly rising sea water wanted and compromise between the needs of it and the drowning crew.

And furthermore, the captain has said that anyone who disagreed “needs to grow the f— up”.

You’d be ready to throw him overboard, no?

 

This primary season and the animosity directed toward Bernie Sanders has revealed, yet again, that the true struggle within our society is as Marx described it-not between the DNC and the RNC, but between the 1%, their enablers, and the rest of us. That the 1% has somewhat factionalized between the very rich with savior complexes and the very rich with victim complexes isn’t that relevant because both are acting as anti-democratic forces and can’t be trusted to do anything about the coming climate devastation outside of looting the remains.

Michael Bloomberg’s proposed path to the nomination was predicated on either a) a Super Tuesday triumph created by vastly outspending all other candidates in the relevant states, b) a brokered convention where it turns out the DNC and 50+% of the country would subvert the vote because they loved Michael Bloomberg as much as Michael Bloomberg loves Michael Bloomberg. Was it really surprising he crashed and burned as quick as he did? But more importantly, both paths just presume that somehow the popular vote, the basic idea on which democracy is founded, would be subverted. Elizabeth Warren is now floating the same idea. Messaging from the DNC suggests Biden would take similar action if Sanders doesn’t get a plurality. A large proportion of the candidates running basically presume that the voting process will be rendered irrelevant in the final rounds.

It’s been said that the primary rule of institutions is that people within them will by and large jockey for power within the institution over power in the larger sphere. Generally speaking this isn’t the worst thing since when the opposite happens you tend to see the rich come to an agreement to act as a coordinated criminal enterprise and loot the middle class and poor. That’s what’s happening now.  The bi-annual Republican “tax cuts” (re: massive handouts to the 1%) aren’t because the 1% need more money to live, but because they need to proportionately dominate a large percentage of liquid capital and infrastructure in order to permanently cement their authority.

What authority? The authority over democratic mechanisms, norms, and restrictions against poisoning (the Sacklers, Flynt), robbing (2008), and the use of the state’s monopoly on violence to beat down any attempts by the population at large to stop these exploitative and criminal practices (violent destruction of the OWS encampments).

But to go back again to the rule of institutions, this rule in action is causing the current crisis within the Democratic party. They are vociferously acting to protect their donors from their voters so they can maintain their positions on the sinking ship vs. righting the ship. As I illustrated with the sinking boat metaphor, the stakes of the current international crises (climate change, collapse of capitalism into surveillance feudalism, etc. etc.) make a moderate/centrist stance ironically but profoundly radical-if we value ourselves and our neighbors, the bare minimum we need from any candidate is a plan that will prevent us all from roasting to death in our own carbon emissions. You can call that “The Levine Test”.

Biden doesn’t pass that.

Sanders does.

The Biden campaign so far has entirely hinged on the big bluff of “electability”. There is no rational argument for this. It is a lie that has been repeated by scared rich people until enough scared people below them decided that was the truth.

If Joe Biden were a used DVD, the case would say “FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU 4 YEARS OF DONALD TRUMP: THE ONLY GUY WHO CAN BEAT DONALD TRUMP!! (TM) (we swear this time guys, super serial!!!)”

Outside of the sexism boost, Biden has a much weaker track record than Clinton and is a weaker candidate overall. If Clinton couldn’t beat Trump, why would we think this guy could?

If Trump decides not to relinquish power, what in Biden’s history suggests he wouldn’t just roll over and blame the Senate?

The argument that Biden will win conservative voters over from the Republican party ignores the radicalization of the GOP and their base-this is like expecting the Heaven’s Gate cult members to commandeer the spaceship and then mug Marshall Applewhite for his Nikes and applesauce.

We’ve already seen the Russian playbook against Biden in action: use the Hunter Biden Burisma stuff like Clinton’s e-mails in 2016. And we’ve seen no moves by the DNC or Biden suggesting they have any effective means of tackling it.

We haven’t seen anything similar for Sanders. This is probably because Putin, Trump et. al think a brokered convention is an inevitability if Sanders gets far enough and the damage done would be worth it whatever the outcome. Putin, Trump, et. al probably aren’t wrong to think this-they know the habits of the 1% firsthand.

Biden and the DNC’s greed and hubris are existential threats to the US and human society. The time for fucking around has long since passed.

5 thoughts on “Biden’s Magical “Electability” is Magical Thinking”

  1. Baring a major external event [stupidvirus kills half the population] uber Democrats must know Biden will lose to Trump. They can live with because and if the vast menagerie of downline candidates is sustained – from dogcatcher to governors to senators. That’s where the money and control is. And Sanders might put that machine in jeopardy.

    It’s a far better thing that large numbers of Democratic activists are furious that Again the party leaders have denied them their choice. Rather than to burn themselves into disillusion working for Bernie as a candidate who loses to Trump. It takes a lot of raw force to shake people out of their idiotic trust in the honesty of the political institutions.

  2. Imagine you were on a boat that was rapidly capsizing.

    Now imagine the captain of the boat said the only reasonable course of action was to find out what the rapidly rising sea water wanted and compromise between the needs of it and the drowning crew.

    And furthermore, the captain has said that anyone who disagreed “needs to grow the f— up”.

    Yes!!!

    Occupy Milwaukee?

      1. The DNC is being held in Milwaukee and people are already talking about staging protests. But how exactly do you find a place to stay in Milwaukee in the middle of a convention? I’ve already checked out Expedia and the cheapest hotel rooms are 800 dollars a night. So the best way to bring a mass of people to the DNC to protest would be to set up some kind of Occupy Camp. The fact that it will almost immediately be busted up by militarized police and lots of people will be thrown into jail on trumped up charges almost 9 years after the Occupy eviction will be highly symbolic. It would have actually been more symbolic if Bloomberg had managed to buy the nomination but he failed.

  3. How about the Democratic Kilkenny Cats?

    There wast two cats from Kilkenny
    One was Joe and t’uther was Bernie
    But they fought and they fit
    And they scratched and they bit
    Till excepting their hails and complete lack of sales
    Instead of two cats there were many

    With apologies. Maybe you have to be Irish.

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