[This blog-post was originally written as a sequence of Tweets, so please forgive me if comes off as awkwardly chunked.]
Last week, Stephen Colbert asked Bernie Sanders what could be done for Joe Biden to win over “Bernie Bros”. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but the thought of a Biden candidacy scares the hell out of me. I hope you’ll listen to why & consider that it’s “Not Me Us”.
I believe that the 2020 Election is going to be all-out “Information Cyber-Warfare”. Trump is a Compulsive Liar whose only hope of winning reelection rests in convincing the public that Biden is even less trustworthy than he is. Don’t underestimate his ability to do so.
Biden’s whole campaign rests on the premise that “Trump is worse”, but the greatest threat to the Biden campaign is going to be old video footage of Biden himself arguing against the positions he now claims to support. Biden has a “primary source” problem.
Consider this example. On Sunday, The New York Times runs a story about Tara Reade. There’s a bit that’s a little… contradictory. Well, maybe it’s best to just read it yourself.
Given that this sounds a little extreme, I try do the responsible thing and go looking for additional sources. I find over a dozen different videos of Biden touching little girls in ways that I could only characterize as sexual assault.
How am I supposed to argue that Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comment is inappropriate while Biden stands accused of doing precisely that? Maybe Joe should start listening to himself. I believe Tara.
So when this Compulsive Liar starts accusing “Fake News” New York Time of covering up allegations of Biden sexually assaulting women, how am I supposed to argue otherwise against all this video evidence? The only weapon that works against liars is the truth.
If the Biden campaign really wants to beat Trump in November, the first result on a Google search for “Biden touching little girls” had damn well better be a formal apology, a personal commitment to engage in sexual misconduct awareness training, and a plan for accountability.
Instead of anything remotely resembling corrective action, the strategy appears to be an attempt to frame Tara Reade as Russian asset. I guess blaming Russia is the default response when Democrats have nothing else to go on.
I can’t talk about the DNC framing people as Russian assets without disclosing that I actively helped the Virginia Green Party get Dr. Jill Stein on the ballot in 2016. I ultimately voted for HRC (by a die roll) but can’t help notice the similarities in discourse.
I have no doubt that there are Russian bots that are attempting to interfere in our election. The question is if the intention is “dividing us up” or enabling a candidate that Trump thinks is “easier to beat”. Perhaps they succeeded at both.
The NLP and AI tech to do this is readily available, it’s just a matter of finding enough appropriate training data. What’s more likely? A huge data set of rational political discourse? Or a huge data set of aggressive Internet trolling? My guess would be the latter. Ya nyet Bot.
This real life Turing Test gets even more difficult when the Biden campaign is putting out troll bait campaign ads like this one. How do they expect to win over Sanders supports, many of whom identify as “socialists”, by lumping them in the same category as “plutocrats”?
Furthermore, this demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of what the word “socialist” even means. Without “socialist” institutions like the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, we can’t even have a “democratic” election during this pandemic. “Vote By Mail” is necessary to beat Trump.
Personally, I think the anti-Russia & anti-Socialist rhetoric is actually a disguise for anti-Atheism. It’s a relic of Cold War propaganda, just like how the phase “under God” was added to the Pledge. It explains why older and more religious voters leaned toward Biden.
Make no mistake, this idea that the DNC rigged the primary against younger voters is going to be a cornerstone of the Trump campaign. It would be unwise for the Biden campaign to blame the victims of this oppression rather than the policies that disenfranchise them.
This rigging arguement can potentially be dismantled by Biden campaign thru policy. By coming out in favor of approval voting, making election day a national holiday, and abolishing the electoral college, Biden could demonstrate solidarity with 3rd-party and independent voters.
Biden also demonstrates ageism with his proposal to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60 and his continued support for ACA-like policies. Obamacare is essentially a tax on the youth that enables the healthcare system to continue profiting off the deaths of the old.
In response to COVID-19, Biden said he would “listen to the scientists” & “listen to the doctors”. Well Joe, I think the science is in and it says “Medicare for All” is NECESSARY to curb the devastation caused by pandemics like the one we’re presently facing.
If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee, we could point to his long history of supporting policies that would have minimized harm caused by the pandemic. The DNC sacrificed that argument by making Joe Biden the presumptive nominee on the basis of votes cast during the crisis.
There is ample evidence suggesting that our health care system is systematically disadvantaging Blacks, Indigenous and People of Color, who are literally dying of COVID-19 at disproportional rates due to man-made causes. Allowing this system to perpetuate itself is enabling systematic racism.
Biden’s campaign has an opportunity here to use “new evidence” from the outbreak as a justification for adding Medicare for All to his platform. In fact, he NEEDS TO if he wants to earn the trust of progressives. It’s a matter of life or death for some voters. Medicare for All Or Bust.
Likewise, I think it’s contradictory for Biden to say he’ll “listen to scientists” & not support an aggressive Green New Deal. The scientists are all saying that we need aggressive action NOW to preserve the continued habitability of our planet. There is No Planet B.
If I’m correct about the role disinformation will play in the 2020 election, this Compulsive Liar is going to double-down on every lie he’s ever told while simultaneously pointing out every inconsistency that Biden has ever engaged in. Complete with video evidence.
I’m not going to be able to argue that Biden didn’t do the things that he did. Instead, the only course of action left open to Biden is to openly acknowledge his own mistakes & run a campaign that depicts his ability to adapt to new information as a boon rather than a bane.
Come November, I plan to vote in such a way that I believe minimizes harm. However, it would be dangerous to presume that this necessarily dictates a vote for Joe Biden. I won’t say “Never Biden”, but there ARE reasons why I’m not a Democrat & it would be foolish to ignore them.
Don’t dare try to equate my involvement with the Green Party with support for Trump. You can’t use the “excluded middle” argument against a Compulsive Liar while Biden also has a tenuous relationship with the truth. His inconsistency makes me distrust him.
I’m not saying all this to help Trump & I don’t think anyone who read the whole thread could come to that conclusion. On the contrary, I’m saying all this precisely so that Joe Biden can understand what he’s up against & how to win the support of “socialists” like myself.
As one last point, I’d suggest that Joe Biden convincing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be his VP would assuage many of my fears about a potential Biden administration as a former Bernie Sanders supporter. AOC4VP!