The Horse Pill We Have to Swallow (if we want to defeat Trump)

Months before the sexual assault allegations and the videos of his creepy neck-breathing habits, Joe Biden made me cringe. To be honest, he is quite possibly the most cringe-worthy candidate the Democratic party has had since Bill Clinton.

And even as his primary campaign was dead in the water and on life support, Joe Biden somehow secured the would-be Democratic nomination for the 2020 Presidential Election by coalescing an all-too-eager group of establishment candidates behind him in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to disrupt the surge of Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement. Sadly, this effort was successful, and progressives, myself included, were yet again asked to wait, sabotaged out of our moment for true, systematic change. While we will not soon forget or forgive this coupe from the establishment leaders of the party, the DNC will assuredly be held accountable for all of this when the time is right. In fact, the Democratic party is on notice moving forward. They have failed us deeply and profoundly too many times in recent memory, and they have now helped make November an uphill battle.

And as the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden continue to fluster his already dismal and wavering campaign, it feels like a bad SNL parody of 2016 all over again, but with an even weaker establishment candidate. Biden was already dealing with the stinky smell of Burisma (fair or not), the realities of a racist and sexist past in government, questions about his mental health and stability, and so many other blunders from his not-so-distant past. The record he stands on is about as flimsy as you will find, aside from the record-breaking ineptitude of our current president.

So... how did we get here? Have we learned NOTHING? Is this truly the best we can do against Donald Trump? Is this really the best the Democratic Party has to move us towards a better future?

Sadly, the bar has never been lower.

We now face another election where the BEST we can do is vote for a “lesser of two evils”. And believe me, both choices are rank with their shortcomings. You certainly cannot justify one by condemning the other while being completely fair, impartial, and honest. Trump has assaulted and mistreated many women. Biden has (allegedly) done the same to at least one person. At a baseline, neither are qualified on any moral basis to lead our nation forward given those allegations. Additionally, neither of them can keep a position on anything for more than a day, much less remember what position they took on any given day.

Yet STILL, we have never had a more corrupt president in modern American history than the one who currently occupies the Oval Office (the few days when he’s not golfing in Mar-a-Lago on the taxpayers’ tab). It is not even comparable. Even Joe Biden looks like Abraham Lincoln while standing next to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is truly in a class all his own. He is an unparalleled danger to democracy. He is a proud and outspoken racist. He is an admitted sexist and proven sex offender. He is a crafty but clear xenophobe. He is a blatant pathological liar. He has made our country less safe, less prosperous, more divided, and more vulnerable in every single way. He has completely failed us as a leader. He was impeached (I'll say it again... HE WAS IMPEACHED) for trying to get foreign governments to interfere in our elections. He has frayed away whatever frail fabrics existed in our democracy before it. He has emboldened extremists and enriched his wealthy compatriots. He has separated families and thrown children in cages. He has taken away the rights of many Americans. He has threatened free and fair elections for the foreseeable future. He has done all of this on the backs of working people. He has willfully ignored science, and he has sacrificed thousands of lives in the pursuit of his political ambitions and reelection hopes to stand on a strong, albeit rigged, economy.

And right now, Donald Trump is actively ignoring the responsibility of protecting the American people from a deadly coronavirus by denying its existence, then downplaying its severity, and now continuing to do next-to-nothing to lead a nation-wide effort to combat the virus and form a sound and medically-supported path forward. COVID-19 has only further exacerbated the incompetency and daily danger of a President Donald Trump.

Because of the threat that is Donald Trump, there is NOTHING more important than removing him permanently from the White House and the job he disgraces every day that he occupies it.

America MUST have this singular vision and goal.

And make NO mistake- Joe Biden is NOT the Savior. In any other election, he would be a bad candidate (and may prove to be so still) at best. But removing Trump eclipses Biden's many shortcomings. Whether we like it or not, a Biden victory in November gets us back to AT LEAST square one, which is honestly a success all in its own.

The reality is- WE THE PEOPLE are and must be the long-term solution, and voting Donald Trump out of office is the first and most crucial step of many towards strengthening this resolution. Our collective resolve as a nation to end the horrors that the past four years have brought this nation truly “trump” (pun intended) any other objective we have before us, noble as they may be (I, too, dream of the day we can end the 2-party monopoly on our elections and our democracy).

Every day that Donald Trump has been in office, he has tried to undermine the truth that it is not one man or woman that makes change happen. It is ALL OF US, together, fighting for the change we want to see that both major political parties have spent so much energy stifling for longer than we wish to admit.

So am I hypocritically suggesting we should vote for Joe Biden and turn a blind eye to his corruption and wrongdoings? No, not really. I am saying that right now, in this moment, it is SO MUCH MORE THAN THIS.

Here is the horse pill, and swallow it we must: We simply CANNOT vote for anyone else than the Democratic nominee in this election and ALSO vote to REMOVE Donald Trump.

There is no “having our cake and eating it too”, as much as I personally would love to write in Bernie Sanders’ name on my ballot. Our corrupt political system will give us no other option or way out than to vote for Donald Trump’s political opponent in order to defeat Donald Trump. Let us grieve this and fight against it for the rest of our lives. But let us also fight in the arena we currently find ourselves. We have to be united in November, as defeated as that will yet again feel. The DNC opted for "practical", and so that is the hand we must play, win or lose.

REMOVING TRUMP MUST BE OUR HIGHEST OBJECTIVE. America will not survive four more years of Donald J. Trump. We just won’t.

So in November, when you look down at your ballot, these are your options for President:

Option #1: Removing the most dangerous, inept, and corrupt U.S. President in American history

Option #2: Allowing the danger, corruption, ineptitude, racism, and hatred that Donald Trump has sown to be permitted to exist in this nation for four more years in the highest office of our nation, and to further bring about the many residual decades beyond where we will have to rebuild everything he has broken.

Unfortunately, for all of us, there is no third option.