now we reach the point where the left splits: do we vote for biden or refuse

i am approaching this from my personal moral belief system so if you're unconvinced by utilitarianism i'm not going to convince you

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one should vote for biden if the alternative (not voting for biden) tangibly causes less benefit than doing so

the easiest way to frame this without diving into personal issues is asking "what happens if the left as a whole generally votes for biden"

this splits into two possible outcomes: biden wins with us or trump beats him despite us

similarly, if the left does not vote for biden, it splits into either biden winning without us or trump winning

we can frame this in three broad ways

1) Trump wins regardless of us

2) Biden wins regardless of us

3) Our votes are what decide the election

In the case of 1 and 2, it's a pretty simple question. Is a demonstration that leftists will not rally behind a moderate beneficial or harmful?

The potential benefit is that it could force Democrats as a whole to FIRMLY contend with the fact that they either need to make meaningful concessions to us or win without us. A potential harm is that we get a repeat of 2016...

... with Sanders supporters being blamed for Hillary's loss and promptly dismissed. I think 2016 provided slight indication that abstaining from the vote is not going to force Democrats to suddenly start pandering to us.

It is obviously possible that a long, consistent trend of Democrats losing over and over without the support of the left could eventually force them to work with us, but I don't recall off-hand any precedent for that happening, and...

... that would necessarily require a LOT of Republican presidents, which I think it's hard to argue would be really fucking bad for a lot of vulnerable people. I am not inclined to throw them under the bus to embrace some sort of weird accelerationism.

I think it's pretty clear that, unless some miracle happens and a super-progressive third party bursts from the seas, our best chance for using electoral politics to provide tangible help to marginalized groups is through the Democrats.

On the other hand, even if we DO vote for Biden, as Sanders supporters did for Hillary in 2016, if the Democrats lose, we're getting blamed again anyways. It's not like the Democrats want to play nice with progressives. They've made that VERY clear.

Democrats are not going to let us get a progressive candidate through unless we seriously fuck with their shit, but talking about how to do that is a little bit beyond the scope of what the question here is.

In summary, I'm pretty sure that if our vote doesn't affect the outcome of the election at all, it's best to vote based on however you think the Democrats are going to react to that decision.

The more hotly debated (and more likely) scenario is that in which our vote tangibly has an impact on election results, and the question there is more simple: is the benefit provided by Biden over Trump worth conceding to moderate Democrats?

I lean towards "yes."

Pros:
- There are a couple policy points that are tangible improvements over Trump, even if they're not nearly as much of ones as Sanders policies
- He's more susceptible to pressure from us
- He won't as directly enfranchise bigotry

Cons:
- The next election in which we can realistically have another chance for a candidate is four years later than it would be if we reelected Trump

As well as the pros/cons mentioned earlier of falling in line with Democrats and how that affect's the left's relation to them

I'm personally unconvinced so far that the benefits we gain by trying to own Democrats outweigh the benefits, however marginal, of a Biden presidency.

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