Lukewarm about Biden? How do you feel about Trump?

There is a view I’ve seen commonly expressed by Progressive columnists and bloggers that goes something like this: “I don’t understand how so many people can continue to support Trump in the face of his obvious _________ (fill in the blank).”

I have a different view: How are so many people who have no love or even regard for Trump withholding their support for Biden?

Current polls are showing Trump and Biden neck-and-neck with the election 6 months away. A great many people, when polled are talking about how luke-warm they are toward Biden, or how they don’t like him, think he’s too old, too weak on Israel, too weak on the Palestinians, you name it.

Here’s my question: if you knew that by withholding your support for Biden, by supporting the Kennedy headcase or Jill Stein, or Marianne Williamson, or “none of the above,” you were guaranteeing a Trump victory AND emboldening Trump in his authoritarian agenda, would you feel the same? Because that’s exactly what you are doing.

Look, I’m not wild about Biden – I loved Obama, I loved JFK at the time, I like Biden. More importantly, though, when I look at what he’s accomplished in his term thus far, there is no question in my mind that he is capable and effective – the economy, the unemployment rate, infrastructure, the CHIPS Act – across the board, he’s been effective in restoring prosperity. Are there areas I’m not happy with – sure. I think our support for Ukraine has been about 70% of what I’d like, and I believe Biden has cossetted Netanyahu way beyond the point where he should have said “enough.” And those things bother me, but net-net I think he’s done a very good job.

When I think about Trump, I always think of Maya Angelou’s advice that “when someone tells you who they are, believe them.” Trump has told us, shown us, and rubbed our noses in who he is – a petty, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing man with ambitions of being an autocrat surrounded by sycophants eager to do his bidding. In this, he is in a line that began with Nero, through Genghis Khan, George III, King Baudoin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Trump’s buddies Putin, Xi, and Maduro, to name a few.

To those withholding their support, I ask you: If Trump is elected, do you think he won’t do what he’s promised to do and end the ACA, have those who disagree with him incarcerated or assassinated, kill Social Security, tax the majority will coddling the wealthy? If you vote for Kennedy Jr., himself arguably a nut case, do you think your protest vote will register anywhere – Trump already thinks you’re a sucker, and there will be no one left to listen on the left.

My intention here is not to be alarmist – I’m simply laying out the facts, on the record. Is there anything here I’ve said that is not true? In Trump’s first term, he alienated most if not all our allies and went a long way toward making common cause with Putin and Netanyahu, as well as trying to destroy NATO. With whom are the odds favoring World War III better – with Trump or with Biden? And in that putative world war, which side will we be on? It’s likely to be the US and Russia and China in a bid for world domination. And you think the Hitler-Stalin pact was bad?

In the next six months, whether you’re pro-Biden or anti-Trump, or just pro-democracy in America, I’m asking you to get your head out of whatever dark place it is in and stand with and for Biden. He’s not perfect, but right now, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, he’s our only hope.