In the wide world of general do-goodery there is, at present, an opportunity to right an absolute shit-ton of wrongs and restore a small bit of order and decency to a smaller bit of the universe: Voting Donald Trump the fuck out of office.
Donald Trump is a climate denier. Joe Biden isn’t. Donald Trump called climate change a hoax, withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, put a climate denier in charge of the EPA, reckons wind turbines cause cancer, rolled back tons of climate regulations, opened up protected areas to fossil fuel extraction, went to war on energy-efficient light bulbs, can’t tell the difference between the weather outside his window and the planet’s climate, and has been called “the worst President for our environment in history” by leading conservation groups. Joe Biden is not the radical we need on climate breakdown but he accepts the science that tells us it’s coming, agrees with much of AOC’s Green New Deal, will aim for net zero emissions no later than 2050, get the US back in the Paris agreement, ramp up renewable energy, and focus infrastructure projects on climate resilience. Overnight, in a single act, ditching Donald Trump will help protect us against the biggest existential threat we’ve ever faced. Even Greta Thunberg says so. Vote him the fuck out of office.
Donald Trump is a fascist. Joe Biden isn’t. Donald Trump isn’t a conservative, he’s not right wing, he’s not authoritarian. He’s a fascist, retracing the steps of fascists before him. He’s weaponised nationalism, reclaiming the Klan’s America First slogan. He’s Othered and scapegoated immigrants, blaming them for any problems his followers run into. He’s shown disdain for intellectuals, experts and the arts. He’s endangered the freedom of the press, calling the media “enemies of the people.” He’s turned his rallies to a cult of personality. He’s obsessed with law and orderwhile attacking law enforcement. He’s a misogynist prick. He’s praised tyrants, gob-jobbing Putin and Kim Jong-Un and making enemies of democratic leaders everywhere. He’s gone after truth itself, spreading nutjob conspiracy theories and refusing to disavow QAnon dipshittery. And he’s gone after democracy itself, screwing with postal votes, making false accusations of electoral fraud, and refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose. These are the hallmarks of the fascist.
Since 2016, those of us screaming about Trump being a fascist have been met with replies about genocide, as if fascism is only Hitler and Hitler is only the holocaust. But then came Trump’s on-tape admission that he’d lied about the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, dooming tens of thousands of his own people to death because admitting its seriousness would have been a bad look for him. He let Americans die because saving them was inconvenient. Joe Biden is further to the right than we need, and I’ll forever mourn the missed opportunity of President Warren, but he is not a fascist. Donald Trump is. Vote him the fuck out of office.
Donald Trump’s climate denial and fascism are just the tips of the shitberg. He’s also a mask-shaming Plandemic twat, a racist, a misogynist, a corrupt grifter, an incompetent boob, a lazy slob, a bankrupt failure, a tax evader, a serial liar, a career criminal surrounded by career criminals, and very probably an actual psychopath. Joe Biden is none of those things, and will bring with him the first female Vice President, the first black and Indian Vice President, positioning the mighty Kamala Harris for a run in 2024.
Voting third party won’t get any of this done. A third party candidate polling at less than 2% won’t displace Trump. A third party candidate with no senators and no members of congress won’t get anything passed. Voting third party or staying at home, thinking you’re making a point about something somehow, opting out of the most critical battle we face, mistaking the sidelines for the high ground, won’t do shit except leave Donald Trump where he is.
You can do this. You personally. You can vote the marmalade slob out of office, if you’re eligible to vote. This is winnable, if we get round foreign interference, the postal system taking a beating, and a Supreme Court packed full of Trump loyalists. He’s only in power because of a glitch in a shitty electoral system. He’s starting from a deficit of 3 million votes. We already gave him a kicking in the midterms. We took back congress. We can flip the senate, tell Mitch McConnell to suck it, expand the supreme court to counter Republicans’ shit-heelery and push a science-led administration to act more quickly on climate breakdown and Covid.
In the wide world of general do-goodery there is, at present, an opportunity to remove a fascist, racist, misogynist, corrupt, craven, climate-denying psychopath from power. There is a chance to save American democracy while it still functions well enough to be saved. Take it!
Vote!
Photo credit: The Zero
