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“I Am Done Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils. I Will Not Vote for Joe Biden in 2024.”
(inthesetimes.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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electoralism
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The lesser evil argument for Biden is very weird to me because as a non-American it doesn't materially seem better than Trump. Objectively it's been equally bad if not worse, and while not all of that is due to particular features of Trump or the Dems, a think a decent amount is due to how viciously hawkish and shamelessly imperialist the Biden regime has been, from Ukraine to Israel and a lot more in between. Like on the international level I'd argue that Biden has been demonstrably more destructive.
The most convincing 'lesser-evil' argument seems to me to basically be that a Trump presidency would be worse for minorities, for immigrants, non-white people, and LGBT people. Now I agree that they would be more likely to introduce federal-level legislation if they could, but I also haven't seen any real effort by the Biden gov to combat transphobic legislation by fascistic Republicans at the state or local level, or to do anything real for them for that matter. Again LGBT folks and racial minorities are a woke virtue-signalling marketing asset to be invested in for the Dems, as they base their electoral campaigns now no longer on class points, no longer appealing to working class interests (whereas the Republicans have positioned themselves as doing so), but instead appealing to those with college educations. I have comrades who argue that Trump would crack down harder on the left and make it more difficult to organize, but I'm not completely convinced by this. It's not become easier under Biden.
In any event, I don't know how people can make a non-nationalist lesser-evil argument once you've seen Biden literally go on stage with Bibi and give unconditional support to apartheid, settler-colonialism and ethinic cleansing.
In terms of foreign policy democrats have been dogshit, and as BynarsAreOk pointed out this isn’t new. I think it’s worth giving context why even a number of leftists are saying that Biden is the lesser of two evils with regards to FP, which really boils down to the fact that Trump’s more heavily genocidal policy aspirations were heavily dampened by resistance from dems and dissenting republicans. He basically called for BLM protestors to be massacred, he would be even more dogmatically in support of the Palestinian genocide based on what I know of him (and accordingly zionists love him), he started and popularized the sinophobic rhetoric and really ramped up anti Chinese FP in a way no other president that I know of has. Now, Biden hs continued many of these problems but a pattern seems to be established that the far right normalizes these things and the right (“moderate” republicans) and center right (dems) continue them. One of the major fears is that another term with Trump at the helm, especially if he has a republican majority in congress, the political ratchet will keep moving further at a much faster pace.
He also went from some concrete steps towards normalizing relations with Iran under Obama to an actual exchange of fire with them. An attack on Iran is one of the more realistic imperialist ambitions and it would kill the most people of anything short of a nuclear exchange. He also stepped backwards on Cuba, though not to anywhere near the same degree.
I think you can make a case that Republicans do worse things abroad in general, but that is quickly undercut by libs abandoning any sort of anti-imperialist sentiment whenever their guy is in the White House.
...the problem with that point is that libs railing against wars under a Republican president does not result in a Democratic president meaningfully changing anything. Where something approaching meaningful change has happened under a Democrat (the withdrawal from Afghanistan) libs have panned or ignored it, too (and of course Biden is sanctioning the hell out of Afghanistan now and I'm sure we're still fucning around with some version of the Islamic extremists we've bankrolled for the last half century, see the ETIM and Pakistan, generally).
"Trump and Republicans are bad because he nearly started a war with Iran"
Biden: hold my beer