So I actually had the opportunity to have some back and forth with an old friend about this thread and recieved some very valid criticism that I think it would behoove me to address. This is what this person stated to be the biggest advantages to a Biden presidency over Trump https://twitter.com/tecolotesweet/status/1248065418222280707

Keep in mind that I think there’s validity to most of these criticisms and while my arguments against them may come off as “whataboutism” (I hate that term), I think providing a broader perspective is important to mitigate erasure of the harm that Biden has done.

First off, on the count of Merrick Garland’s nomination and why Gorsuch sits instead of him: recall the histrionics of the Democrats in the 90’s that set the precedent for how that played out also known as “the Biden rule”.

But that not withstanding, why are we touting Garland as some paragon of social justice when he was a driving force behind the upholding of Citizens United and continued abuses at Guantanamo Bay?

I’ll be the first to admit he’s made some good calls and meaningful dissents from his peers while he was on the CoA, but Garland’s appointment was by design supposed to be that of a centrist in order to do what Obama and Biden’s administration did best: play nice with Republicans

This is a quality that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see continue in a Biden presidency and furthermore, I would urge anyone against imposing hypotheticals into an argument for the benefits of a Biden presidency because he’s consistently been a centrist that lays down

for Republicans to get legislation passed so there’s no precedent that he’s set that should lead us to believe that he would make decisions that lend to a leftist-or even really a progressive’s-ideological liking

And if our big concern is a democrat being able to attain the next available Supreme Court seat, do we trust Joe “Hyde amendment” Biden to be the one that puts someone who values and legislates on behalf of women’s bodily autonomy in that place or to do what he’s always done?

Second, I won’t argue with the point that Trump’s ending of discretionary refugee asylum is unprecedented and an unlikely move for even most democrat candidates because this is one point in which I *generally* see myself align with the criticism I recieved here.

But my issue that causes me concern with Biden driving immigration policy is one I believe that most criticism of Biden might share with me which is the rightward shift over time that we’ve seen in Biden’s legislative record in terms of immigration since the 80’s

Trump’s right-wing demagoguery will clearly know no bounds when it comes to an attempt to curb the flow of immigrants from the global south into the states and though the span of his political record is only four years long, I think we pretty well know what to expect from here.

With Biden, I’m afraid that we l’ll get a worsening immigration policy that lies somewhere between the rapacious immigrant abuse of the Obama admin and the pure racial hatred of the Trump admin, but at this rate, that’s me being uncharacteristically optimistic.

Biden’s record spans decades and from the 80’s to the mid to late 90’s and some specks during Jr’s first term-his golden era of common sense immigration policy, immigration was very much a bipartisan issue

and if you analyze the trends in the American populace’s opinion on immigration prior to the fearmongering xenophobia we experience as normal today, it didn’t take any sort of independent thought-much less dissent- from a nationally prevailing anti-immigrant sentiment to defend.

Towing the party line wasn’t exactly something that’s ever been difficult for Biden so his legislative record on this front shouldn’t really be applauded because he was just doing what he’s always done: followed along with what everyone else was doing

But we all saw his true colors when the legislation that he had a much heavier hand in producing in that era I.e. the ‘94 crime bill set many of the terrible precedents for the treatment and handling of immigrants that we saw in years to come

Hell, Biden voted to hold a ban on HIV-infected Haitian refugees kept in Guantanamo from the Regan era during Clinton’s first term (the era of Harry Reid’s plot against birthright citizenship that Biden went along with handedly by the way) and that didn’t change until 2010

So with that in mind, maybe the very basis of this point here does need to be questioned further than I originally posited, but I’ll save any further analysis of that for another time

I could name another hundred examples (Dole’s ‘s AEDPA and it’s attack on habeas corpus, appointing Janet Reno, ICFRA), but the whole point of me going through all of this is that the anti-immigrant machine that we have today was co-authored, signed off for, and built by Biden

(and his cohorts) and then through democrat electoral incompetence in 2016, just handed the fucking keys to it right back off to Trump. The things that we justifiably crucify Trump for today are things that wouldn’t even be conceivable without the Reid/Clinton/Obama/Biden machine

that created the conditions for these harsh impositions that it’s suggested Biden could be the savior from. And now? With all of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that dominates the modern political sphere, not a soul knows where senile Biden’s dart lands on the immigration question.

We know where he says it will land, but I think we both know better than to trust campaign trail rhetoric from a career politician-much less one with his record. And when Biden would surely fail to secure the senate, I reckon he’d do even less than he might say that he would.

Thirdly, I have to argue that we’re getting way too far into semantics with this one. Was the open assasination of a foreign leader a horrible, unthinkable foreign policy move for any sitting US president? Obviously. I won’t underplay that one.

But at the same time, we can’t pretend that the open assassination of foreign leaders is anything more than a much more blatant approach to the brand of government intervention that’s been pursued and perpetuated by Biden and his cohorts for decades now

I think the last time Biden was an anti-interventionist was when he voted against sending the contras into Guatemala (something, something broken clock). But Biden has come out in favor of assassinating “foreign terrorists” which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

So I’m not going to leave that one off the table with him-call me a skeptic. And how is it so different than the staging of coups to overthrow foreign governments so we can install puppets and banana republics that Biden is nice and familiar with?

Just because it wasn’t directly our forces with their fingers on the triggers? Are we projecting the willful ignorance of our general populace on US foreign policy unto international governance and intelligence? It’s not like the fucking world doesn’t know what the US is up to.

I.e. that we train and fund foreign opposition as a means by which to install satellite power in other regions. Does it look a little bit more sleek and palatable to use the middlemen to do our dirty work for us? Sure.

That’s why Obama and Biden got big respectability politics points for their foreign policy. Trump’s is damn near identical, just a little less Maxim and a little more Girls Gone Wild or so to say that it Trump, as he is in all respects, just does the same things less tactfully.

Fourth, in regards to the band on trans military service, Biden supported don’t ask don’t tell and DoMA so, again, call me a skeptic, but I’d believe that one if I got to see it happen with my own eyes, but until then, it’s going to take more than hypotheticals to convince me.

And obviously fuck our military exploits and US imperialism as a whole so to be completely honest, I think fighting about who can serve our imperialist forces is like arguing about needing more demographical representation in the billionaire class in terms of helpfulness

Yes I want our trans community to be able to do anything anyone else can, but a battle to get more troops with American flag patches on their sleeve oversees to kill brown kids is not a battle that I’m going to fight for.

Fifth, about churches getting stimulus cash, I have no argument for that one. The violation of church and state that’s occurring with the mishandling of COVID aid is awful. But, and I’ll touch on this later, I don’t necessarily think that Biden wouldn’t have done the exact same.

Because as you’ve come to see me insist at this point, I believe Biden to be fully capable of making similarly bad decisions-especially since we’re talking about Joe “my Catholicism guides every aspect of my life” Biden.

And let’s keep it real, appealing to the Bible thumpers is sexy for a democrat because it gives you crossover appeal to republicans which we all know our man Joe Biden is all about.

Sixth, COVID is completely unprecedented and while we’re unquestionably experiencing some hardships due to the error and mishandling of the Trump admin, there’s nothing to say that we wouldn’t be seeing similar bungling in the hands of a democrat.

I think in general society is giving too much credit to some perceived inherent difference between the characterization of republicans and democrats when in reality, as I’m sure you’ve gathered from me by now, my view on this is that they’re really not that different.

The difference is simply that a democrat shakes your hand with one hand and flicks you off behind his back while a republican just flicks you off with both hands to your face. A crude analogy, I’m aware, but I would argue that it’s no an inaccurate one.

The democrats are already mishandling this crisis by doing dumb shit like insisting on means testing for stimulus so I think it’s safe to say that we’re not safe in any of their hands.

The whole point of this is not to paint Trump and Biden as the same, but to point out that neither has the every man’s interests at heart and both are fully capable of making terrible, harmful decisions that we’ll feel the ripples of for years to come.

The difference? Trump has four years of a record to show how destructive he can be and has the potential to be going forward; Biden has almost half a century of a record to prove how destructive he has been and would near-certainly continue to be if given the opportunity to do so

As an aside, I don’t necessarily think that Bernie would’ve been immune to every criticism I’ve laid out in this thread and in the original thread, but as we get closer to the unavoidable time in every election cycle in which progressives and leftists

are going to start being shamed and prodded into voting for Biden, I think it’s important to have a succinct explanation as to why many of us are hesitant or unwilling to do so. Feel free to use any of this if it helps with those conversations.