The Lesser of Two Evils? Really?!
A Black Eyed "Come To Jesus"
Find an audio reading of this Black Eyed “Come To Jesus” above
Throughout the first half of the pandemic and its shutdowns, throughout the streets of every George Floyd/Breonna Taylor Black Lives Matter protest, throughout every weird moment of the 2020 campaign season—the fly landing on Mike Pence’s head and Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”—there was a frenzy of calls for folks to vote the devilment of MAGA out of the White House. Deconstructing Christians who used to vote Republican in the name of Jesus were telling everyone who would listen to vote for Joe Biden, to vote for love and not hate, to vote for real lives not just unborn lives. We were determined to make it to the polls or at least a drop-in ballot box, Covid be damned! Nothing was gonna stop us from saving ourselves from Trump and his antics.
And when we did what we set out to do… we were literally praising, shouting, woo-hooing, bell-ringing, dancing and blaring sirens in the streets!!!
Remember this?
Suddenly, the same Instagram and Twitter and TikTok feeds that begged—and frankly shamed—followers into voting for Biden in 2020 are now calling the man every kind of devil incarnate they can think of and telling anyone who will listen not to vote at all in 2024. Why? Because, according to them, Biden is evil too. People—progressive, liberal people—are calling Biden a dictator. What…is…happening?!?!
Time Magazine | If He Wins: How Far Would Trump Go, April 2024
In an article for Atlantic Monthly called The New Propaganda War: Autocrats in China, Russia, and Elsewhere Are Now Making Common Cause with MAGA Republicans to Discredit Liberalism and Freedom Around the World, Anne Applebaum, a Polish-American, best-selling author and Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and historian writes:
Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy, coupled with disgust and disdain for democracy: This is what modern autocrats sell to their citizens and to foreigners, all with the aim of destroying what they call “American hegemony.”
This is true for both the right and the left. Both groups are targeted.
She also writes:
Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers…
Their goal is to persuade their own people to stay out of politics, and above all to convince them that there is no democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong. The democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.
Vanity Fair | Trump’s Plans for a Second Term Are So Bad That They Almost Make the First One Look Good, September 2023
I get it. There’s a genocide occurring right now this very minute and people are justifiably frustrated with the Biden administration’s funding and involvement with the government committing these war crimes. I’m frustrated with that too. But I am not frustrated to the point of inaction. The truth of the matter is as bad as anyone feels about Biden, the alternative is far worse. We can’t afford for Donald Trump to win this election. Not just our lives but also the lives of the very people we are fighting for in Palestine are at stake because this isn’t a presidential election. We are not voting for a new president. Nope. This is a democratic election—we are voting for or against democracy. Trump and his MAGA movement know this. Biden and his administration know this. The far-right extremists and QANON devotees know this. The only people who don’t know this are progressive, liberal-leaning, anti-war, anti-racist activists who somehow believe that not voting or casting their vote for a candidate they know will not win (ie., RFK or Cornel West) is the most humane thing they can do to save people in Palestine. It’s not. The most humane thing any of us can do is to vote to save our democracy. Because if Trump wins—and we all know this election is only between Trump and Biden no matter who else decides to join the ticket—we will lose everything we’ve been working towards. We can vote for a flawed president who can change or we can vote for a madman who refuses to change.
Not voting or voting for a lesser candidate who can’t win and won’t win (an independent like RFK, Cornel West, or someone from the Green Party) will not save Palestinians. Sure, it will punish Biden and send a clear message to him. But what is that message? Is the message that people who voted for him last time are suddenly okay with Trump possibly being president again because Biden hasn’t yet solved the Israeli & Palestinian conflict that’s been going on since 1947? Or is it that people would rather lose our democracy to man who tried to overturn our democratic elections rather than vote for President Biden again?
Really? Make it make sense.
The Atlantic Monthly | The Danger Ahead: If Donald Trump Returns to the White House, He’d Bring a Better Understanding of the System’s vulnerabilities, More Willing Enablers, and a More Focused Agenda of Retaliation Against His Adversaries
Things surely will not be better for Palestine if Trump wins. Palestinians’ lives will be in more jeopardy if he does. Not only Palestinian lives, but also vulnerable lives right here in our country: immigrant lives, undocumented lives, LGBTQIA lives and, most especially, Trans lives.
If Biden loses and Trump wins—and again, let’s be real, those are our only options—women’s reproductive rights will disappear in the blink of an eye, our free and fair elections will vanish, money to aid Ukraine will be given to Russia, the free press will be obsolete, DEI, SEL and CRT will be put to death, gay marriage will be overturned and interracial marriage will be vulnerable, current environmental protections will be undone… and all of this will only be the beginning.
Y’all, we had our chance to elect someone other than Biden in 2019. In fact, we were spoiled for choice with nearly 30 candidates to choose from... but we didn’t choose them. We chose Joe Biden. And while I don’t want to be the one to say, “We’ve made our bed and now we have to lie in it,” y’all, we’ve made our bed, and now we have to lie in it.
For anyone who knows anything about systemic injustice, yet is choosing not to vote when so much is on the line, baffles me. I understand every concern for Palestine, but we can’t afford to withhold our vote or cast our vote for a non-contender when this is not a single-issue election. There are many many many many issues on the line, too many susceptible communities, such as the classroom and libraries, that need protecting from baseless laws and bans.
There is no “lesser of two evils”. It’s always just been evil. Period. All around us. And yet, people voted even still. It’s not like Black folks loved JFK or LBJ or even Clinton. We didn’t. But we knew they were our best shot, our most reasonable choice.
Business Insider | Trump Is Proving Himself To Be the Most Antidemocratic President in Modern US History, November 2020
Lastly, MAGA, far-right Christian nationalists, Russian and Chinese operatives, election deniers and Donald Trump, are doing everything they can to make sure that only votes for their cause are counted. The last thing they want you to do is exercise your right to vote. They want you to be disillusioned and they want you to think Biden is just as bad and corrupt as Donald Trump – a twice-impeached, rapist, racist fraudster. This is the propaganda machine they’re running.
In a recent episode of We Can Do Hard Things called What These Palestinian & Israeli Activists Need Us to Know, Amanda Doyle asked this question to Sally Abed, a progressive Palestinian voice in Israel and an elected national leader at the Jewish Arab grassroots movement Standing Together:
A lot of Americans who see themselves as wanting to be in solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people are very, very disappointed in the actions of this administration that we have right now. You referenced the upcoming election, and a lot of people I think are considering either sitting out this election or a sort of protest kind of a vote. From your perspective of where you sit, what are the stakes for your lives depending on what Americans decide to do in November?
Sally Abed answered:
Back in recent elections in Israel, there were billboards in Palestinian towns and Palestinian cities in Israel calling to boycott the elections in Israel for the Knesset, for the Israeli parliament. And then it was actually found out that it was heavily funded by extreme right-wing, American companies, funded for Palestinians to boycott the Israeli Knesset elections. And the only reason I’m saying this is because I feel like exactly the same thing is happening here. And if you are promoting boycotting these elections, not voting for Biden, you are literally promoting Benjamin Netanyahu right now who is working very, very, very hard right now here in the US to make sure he’s not elected again.
And no, we don’t think Biden is perfect. In fact, he is extremely problematic and we are extremely critical against him. With that being said, we need to understand what’s on the line here, and we have four years that are going to be critical for Israel. And I don’t even need to convince you why Trump is going to be disastrous for the American public and the American people. But it’s going to be extremely disastrous for the Palestinian people and for Israel and these extremists that we’re fighting back home, they’re going to only get stronger with Trump. And I really hope that people will be able to overcome. And I know it’s difficult. I know it’s difficult to vote for Biden right now, but it needs to happen.
And on that, I will rest my vote.
Thank you for this particular post. I keep thinking that “Biden needs to do the right thing, no matter the fallout”. You have made a very strong case for me “to do the right thing” or the fallout could be more than disastrous than most of us can imagine. Your efforts to make us see the big picture in politics, racism, equality, Christianity and so much more is never lost on me 💛
"Make it make sense". Amen. We have never ever voted for perfection and we never will. As you wrote, we must make the reasonable choice. It is so frustrating to me that people will not be reasonable about this.