Guest post from a young voter going by PK.
Let me start off with this disclaimer: the 2016 election was my first election as I was 18 when it happened. I went into the presidential race as a neutral, but I pretty quickly started supporting Bernie and throughout the election season I advocated for him. I voted for him in the primaries and was extremely disappointed (furious, maybe) at the result of the DNC handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. But, I gritted my teeth and voted for Clinton because she was the lesser evil compared to Trump. To say I was disenchanted with the November’s result would be an understatement.
At first, I was confused, I asked myself: “How could this happen? Is the United States really this horrible? Why has democracy seemingly failed? What can I do now?” I searched for answers outside of my textbooks and history lessons. One of the things I learned is that Trump’s victory was not an anomaly or a disease, it was a symptom.
When elections are influenced more by dollars than necessity, when it costs thousands of dollars to get a word in the ear of your congresspeople or millions more to get your candidate elected, the needs of every day working people are ignored.
Every major presidential candidate made a salary that was at least double the national household income, most of the candidates are millionaires, and two are billionaires! I have more in common with folks depending on the altruism of others outside the BJ’s in Newport than I do with any of the candidates. How many of the candidates could actually tell you how much normal daily expenses were? Do you think Mike Bloomberg runs to the store to pick up milk? Do you think Joe Biden knows much printer ink costs? I doubt even Bernie Sanders knows what it like to live paycheck to paycheck.
The results from Super Tuesday were disappointing to me. I am now someone who has little trust left in the electoral system and the “system” as a whole. Bernie, while also a rather rich and probably disconnected (to some extent) politician, was probably the best shot at using the American political system and it’s economic power for some good.
If the Democratic Party really insists on nominating Joe Biden to run against Trump, well, just expect a result similar to 2016. If the choices are the memory of Obama and four more years of “it’s not that bad, plus it’s kind of entertaining”, I think a lot of apathetic, moderate, and fringe voters will vote for Trump.
I ask the Biden supporters this: what policies will actually be different between Biden and Trump? Will Biden close the concentration camps on our southern border? Will Biden come up with a plan to get medical care to all those who need it at an affordable price? What are his proposals that would actually make life better for a majority of the population? Sure, he would make a lot of symbolic gestures such as rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, but would he actually move towards more sustainable energy consumption? Biden sometimes talks a decent game, but I doubt his ideas, if any, will change anything.
Trump’s impeachment, countless scandals, media blunders, appointments, or his few policy changes have pissed off enough people, Biden might be able to win. But, I seriously doubt any real change for good would come of the election, regardless of the result.
But this election cycle is not as simple as Democrats vs Republicans. While Trump’s election and presidency have not been anomalies, however unorthodox it is, but Trump does represent something much more dangerous. Trump is the physical embodiment of reactionary hate, xenophobia, systematic racism, patriarchy, misogyny, and white nationalism.
His Twitter fingers do more than piss off your liberal family members. His advocation for white nationalists and their ideas is a gateway to fascism, what else would you call a reactionary political movement blaming their current situation on a small minority, calling back to a mythical history without the ‘other’ and taking real steps through military supremacy to remove them. Trump strengthens corporations and the rich with his tax breaks and weakens the working class with bad trade deals.
Trump has made it okay to say racist things; he’s made it okay to be a sexual predator; he’s made it okay to have fascist political views. All of this allows white supremacy groups of all variations like the KKK, 3%ers, Patriot Front, Proud Boys, and their propaganda outlets such as Turning Point USA, Breitbart, and the countless talking heads to flourish. If you think Delaware is safe from this, you’re wrong. The largest anti-Muslim and Islamaphobic group in the US, Act for America, has a chapter in Delaware.
The antithesis of Trump is Bernie. Everything that Bernie has worked for throughout his long career in politics stands in direct opposition to the ignorant hate that spews from Trump’s mouth and his brainless army of Red Hats that follow suit. I will never vote for Joe Biden, the epitome of the white moderate and I hope many of my fellow Delawareans, young and old, will join me in this.
Martin Luther King Junior wrote a powerful letter from behind the bars of the Birmingham Jail, and I think it applies to this situation.
“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
So after my pessimistic rant, you may find yourself asking, “well if voting is not worth it, what can I do?” And to that, I would add, everything. The government does not control the conscience of the people, if anything it should respond to the will and the want of the people it’s supposed to be representing. Organize your communities around you, whether it be political groups, neighborhood wellness programs, volunteering with Wilmington Food Not Bombs or one of the many other non-governmental organizations near you.
There are plenty of groups focused on mutual aid and helping those in need. Or you could form your own group at your workplace, neighborhood, school, your favorite park, or wherever you find your community.
We are all stronger and much more capable of caring for ourselves and our loved ones than the government would have us believe because they need us to need them. If their elections and representatives that they give you are not to your satisfaction then go do it yourselves.