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November 4, 2024

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The depths of depravity of Donald J. Trump

As the 2024 election speeds to a close, Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’s closing argument against former President Donald Trump is this: He’s a fascist, a threat to democracy, and too dangerous to elect.

That argument holds a lot of weight, but it has two big problems. One is that Democrats have been making this argument for nine years, with mixed results at best. Two is that Trump served as President for four years and did not become a full authoritarian — though not for lack of trying.

With the election apparently so close, it may feel like political malpractice to trot out the same unpersuasive argument and allow Trump to come so close to the White House again. But in all the furor and focus on his latest politically incorrect outrage, it can be easy to lose sight of the simple truth: This man is extremely dangerous and corrupt, and he must not be allowed back into the White House.

The “fascist” question

Almost everyone, including historians and political scientists, have slightly varying definitions of fascism, and even historical fascist societies differed in certain meaningful ways. In modern American political dialect, it basically means, “Anyone who makes me do something I don’t like,” from filing taxes to stopping at red lights. This makes calling Trump a fascist problematic, even if the shoe fits.

Nonetheless, there are a few distinguishing features that most conceptions of fascism share.

  • Authoritarian rule. Power concentrated in a leader with a devoted cult of personality, in whom people see a living embodiment of the nation
  • Police state. A militarized society, including citizen militias and police suppression of protests, speech, and other forms of dissent
  • Propaganda. Rampant propaganda that is rife with lies, conspiracy, and dehumanizing language
  • Censorship. Dissent or open disagreement with official narratives and state policies may be outlawed and punished violently
  • In-group vs. out-group. Hatred of “others,” such as immigrants, the LGBTQ community, leftists, or academics
  • National and cultural mythology. Desire to preserve or attain “purity” of culture, language, and/or race and ethnicity, often through appeals to a mythical past
  • Hyper-capitalism. The merger of the state with corporations and business leaders
  • War. Jingoism and an aggressive foreign policy

Any honest, informed person can see how much of this applies to Trump. His authoritarian ambitions and cult of personality are no secret. He uses dehumanizing rhetoric on his enemies and on immigrants, calling them “vermin,” “scum,” and “the enemy within” that is “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of news organizations critical of him. On January 6, 2021, he incited a mob to attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power after losing an election. And despite his talk of peace, he pursued a hawkish foreign policy rife with war crimes.

Of course, America itself is fascistic in many ways. We are a right-wing, corporate-run nation with a militarized police force that protects ruling class interests. We wage, fund, and arm more war than any other nation, with nearly unanimous, bipartisan support. Our media and education systems exalt American exceptionalism while stoking reactionary paranoias about declared enemies.

But with his overt hostility toward criticism, utter amorality, and willingness to do anything to stay in power, Trump pushes the fascist envelope further than any conventional American politician. And there is every indication he is ready and emboldened to go even further if he gets back into office. Whether he’s a textbook fascist or not is beside the point. He is a Trumpist, and that is plenty dangerous enough.

Corruption, loud and proud

If one key component of fascism is the merging of corporations and the government, Trump is the personification of it. A walking, talking brand brought to life, he’s blurred the lines between business and state like none before him — often flaunting his open corruption of public institutions. He put corporate donors in charge of the very parts of government they most wanted to destroy, including climate change denier Scott Pruitt at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, for-profit school fanatic Betsy DeVos in the Department of Education, and Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

Some of the signature moments of Trump’s 2016 campaign came when he acknowledged his first-hand dealings with the corruption of Washington— by bragging that he paid off politicians and used loopholes to dodge his taxes. It felt like a populist moment, as if Trump was saying, “I’ve been inside the belly of the beast, so I know how to fight it.” But Trump didn’t see the light and become Robin Hood. Before, during, and after his presidency, he has been one of the most crooked and corrupt people in history.

Not only does Trump not pay his taxes, he doesn’t pay his bills, either. There are hundreds of stories of contractors, workers, and professionals claiming they were stiffed by Trump. His campaign doesn’t even pay the venues and cities where it holds rallies. Just as one example, they currently owe the city of Albuquerque more than $444,000.

Perhaps most prominently, he was convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records earlier in 2024. In 2016, shortly before assuming office, he was ordered to pay $21 million in restitution to Americans defrauded by his Trump University scam. Trump’s charity was shuttered and a court ordered him to pay $2 million for misusing its funds to, among other things, purchase a portrait of himself. Since leaving office Trump has sold his name to NFT and cryptocurrency scams, collectors’ coins, and even a line of Chinese-made Trump bibles.

Even more seriously, Trump took money from foreign governments throughout his presidency, including Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, Turkey, and others. According to a congressional letter investigating these payments, “Each of these countries sought — and in many cases obtained — favors and specific policy outcomes from [Trump and his] Administration while they made these payments.” Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, accepted a whopping $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia. More recently, Trump all but openly sold the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, a position in his administration after Musk pledged to donate $45 million a month to Trump’s campaign.

As one final matter in Trump’s long saga of dishonesty and criminality, there is his close association with convicted pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. Some details are sordid and unsubstantiated, but Trump’s history of sexual abuse allegations, photos showing him at parties with Epstein, and public comments he’s made about Epstein being a “terrific guy” who likes girls “on the younger side” are certainly disturbing. It’s a testament to Trump’s political prowess and control over his supporters that MAGA, which is usually obsessed with Epstein stories and celebrity pedophilia, completely looks the other way.

This is a man who has lied and ripped off Americans his entire life. His primary reason for seeking office appears to be shielding himself from the civil and criminal investigations his fraudulent behavior has kicked up — as well as enacting the far-right agenda of his fascistic, corporate enablers.

Second time around

Trump was already president for four years, and although he did enormous damage, the nation survived. Plenty of pundits therefore argue that hysteria over a second Trump term is unwarranted. That may be so. Nobody can predict the future. But there is also plenty of reason to expect him to be much worse this time around: unleashed, emboldened, and screaming for vengeance.

There’s little doubt Trump would’ve liked to follow his fascist instincts further in his first term. Dozens of former Trump Administration officials attest to this, including prominent ones like General John Kelly and former Vice President Mike Pence. Pence, for instance, refused to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. And when Trump phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state, Kemp likewise refused.

But those guardrails, whether they be “normal” bureaucrats, courts, or other institutions, only barely held. Trump surrounded himself with people willing to kowtow to him and carry out most of his worst orders — but many of them had at least a minimal consideration for the appearances of a civil democracy. Trump himself has no regard for those appearances, nor, seemingly, does JD Vance or the cadre of far-right extremists on board the campaign this go-round. MAGA also has a much better sense of what they can get away with now. Guardrails are only really maintained by people. Those people won’t be there this time.

Reelecting Trump will give him a mandate, and he will see it as validation for his worst impulses, which have been on full display during the campaign — such as his amplification of a neo-Nazi hoax that Haitian immigrants eat neighborhood cats and dogs in Ohio. A potential blueprint for a Trump Administration can be found in Project 2025, a far-right fever dream of authoritarianism, corporatism, and retrograde theocracy. He’s also expressed a desire for more extreme forms of fascism, including rounding up and deporting millions of human beings and interning them in detention camps.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Trump is the devotion he inspires in supporters. After nine years, they still believe his every lie. They want him to go further. They are willing to storm the Capital and perhaps far more on his behalf. He’s impervious to facts; any criticism, including this entire article, can be easily shrugged off by a built-in defense mechanism that reassures supporters that any negative story is a liberal media lie.

Reading about Trump’s runaway criminality and abuses is exhausting. This article only scratches the surface, and it’s tempting to simply tune out. For nine years Democrats have failed to present a positive alternative. The media, too, have largely failed by focusing more on petty drama and personal flaws. But the odiousness of Trump is, in fact, the best argument against him. He is an amoral, fascistic, crooked, serially unfaithful, and pathologically dishonest man. Apart from his reprehensible character, his corporatist, militarist policies and authoritarian ambitions will be immensely destructive to the working class, the environment, and the world.

Felony convictions can’t take him down. His supporters cannot be swayed. The ballot is America’s best hope of ridding Trump from the conversation — at least for the next four years.

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October 23, 2024

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Weeks Before Election, Harris Rebrands as a Dick Cheney Democrat

Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the 2024 presidential race is as tight and tense as any in recent memory. America’s almost suspiciously divided voters are within the margin of error for a dead tie in many polls, including in the important swing states — although the tide is turning.

Six weeks ago, the picture was quite different. After Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, her campaign took off like a rocket. The momentum was fueled by excitement over President Joe Biden dropping out of the race and a palpable feeling that something new was on the ballot for the first time since Barack Obama in 2008. Harris selected progressive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for Vice President, trounced Trump in their only debate, and filled arenas with an energetic campaign focused on looking forward and calling out the weirdness of the MAGA movement.

Now, all the momentum heading into November 5 is in former President Donald Trump’s favor. In most polling aggregates and betting markets, Trump is at least a slight favorite to win reelection. It begs the question: How are Democrats this close to fumbling yet another winnable election against Trump’s MAGA circus?

Harris’s hard-right pivot

Despite her campaign’s surprising early momentum, there were signs of trouble. Harris failed to win a single delegate in the one primary she ran in, in 2020, then clinched the nomination without contest at the Democratic National Convention. In other words, national voters have never chosen her. She then refused to break with the Biden Administration’s policy of unconditional and unlimited funding for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, alienating a large section of the party’s base.

At this point, Harris faced two choices: Make some concessions to the antiwar left or pivot right to win over so-called centrists and moderate Republicans. She chose the latter.

Since making that turn, Harris made several baffling decisions that dismiss, alienate, or anger her base, including:

  • Bringing in 2016 election loser Hillary Clinton for advice, along with other out-of-touch D.C. insiders.
  • Cozying up to ultra-right-wing neoconservatives Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney.
  • Pledging to put a Republican, widely rumored to be Liz Cheney, in her cabinet if elected.
  • Abandoning some of her most effective messaging about not looking back and MAGA being weird.
  • Insisting on continuing to arm, fund, and sanction the genocide in Gaza without restriction or condition.

These moves allegedly appeal to Republicans who don’t like Trump, but it’s a curious play because it isn’t at all clear how many such people exist. Trump’s approval among Republicans remains very high and the MAGA faithful’s cult-like devotion to him won’t be shaken by longtime D.C. villains like the Cheneys.

Meanwhile, support for Harris among core Democratic constituencies is plummeting. In Michigan, for instance — the state with the largest Muslim population — some polls show Green Party candidate Jill Stein receiving 40% of Muslim support while only 12% back Harris. That’s a huge drop from 2020, when Biden carried as much as 85% of the Muslim vote. Even in Michigan, Muslims are a small portion of the voting bloc, but with margins so razor-thin it’s political malpractice for Harris to alienate them — and outright appalling to do it in the service of genocidal war crimes.

Birth of the Dick Cheney Democrat

All this adds to the long and disturbing trend of Democrats trying harder to win Republican support while taking the left for granted. Going back decades with the so-called Blue Dog and Reagan Democrats, Democrats often try to appear as xenophobic, hawkish, and conservative as Republicans. Now, Harris is breathing life into a terrifying new political frankenstein: the Dick Cheney Democrat.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is one of the worst people who ever lived. It would take multiple encyclopedias to account for all the damage, death, and destruction his crimes wrought in this world. His endorsement is nothing to be proud of, yet Harris’s closing argument to voters in the last weeks of her campaign appears to be, “The Cheneys like me.”

Both Dick and Liz Cheney have argued their support for Harris is about norms and preserving democracy. Recall, though, that alongside George W. Bush, Cheney himself successfully stole the 2000 election; he has no qualms about subverting democratic norms.

Nonetheless, their endorsement does demonstrate something significant: that the social, cultural, and religious fights Republicans and Democrats often wage most bitterly — such as on abortion and LGBTQ issues — are of minimal real interest to the ruling class. Liz Cheney even specifically encouraged anti-abortion conservatives to support the pro-choice Harris.

What matters most to the Cheneys is a militaristic, interventionist foreign policy that creates new markets. For all his own hyper-capitalism and litany of war crimes, Donald Trump is unpredictable. That the Cheneys feel more comfortable Harris will pursue their foreign policy agenda, even as the world teeters on the brink of World War III, is a deeply worrying sign of what lies ahead regardless of who wins the election.

So the Dick Cheney Democrat, as exemplified by Kamala Harris, is a person with little to say on issues like healthcare or the minimum wage, who is committed to war and imperialism, but who will defend some of our important personal freedoms and social progress. That is what passes for a progressive in this bleak election: a neoconservative who’s libertarian on individual life choices.

For Gaza, no hope either way

A Dick Cheney Democrat may still be a better deal than Trump, depending on one’s perspective and priorities. But the genocide in Gaza is of paramount concern to a huge number of Americans, many of whom might otherwise be predisposed to viewing Democrats as the lesser evil.

Yet Harris has been campaigning, and indeed the Democratic Party has been behaving, as if horrific scenes of the Gaza holocaust are not flooding social media every single day. Despite Democrats’ best efforts to rationalize, minimize, or ignore the genocide, those who care enough to watch closely have seen Israel deliberately starve Palestinians in Gaza; target civilians, hospitals, infrastructure, and aid workers; and herd people into prison camp “safe zones” only to bomb and burn them alive anyway.

In one of the signature moments of her campaign, Harris silenced a pro-Palestine protester by saying, “I’m speaking,” and the insistent words quickly became a slogan. But if “Don’t commit genocide” is too demanding an ask from voters, then there’s hardly even a pretense of democracy in America left to defend. And if Harris pulls off this election with her Cheney-first strategy, the Democratic Party will know they never need to listen to the antiwar or economic left again.

When confronted on her stance toward Palestine, Harris typically takes a more sympathetic tone than Biden while reiterating her unconditional support for Israel. Trump has pledged to be an even better friend to Israel than Biden and Harris, and some Democrats point to this to argue he’d be even worse for Palestinians. But since Biden and Harris have already covered up, armed, and funded the genocide, and pledge to continue to do so, it’s an unimpressive argument at best.

It’s not clear what percent of Americans view the genocide of Palestinians or the merging of the Democratic Party with Bush-era neoconservatives as dealbreakers, but it’s plausible that it’s enough to tilt the election to Trump. It’s also plausible that Harris still manages to win, propelled by backlash against the GOP’s Dark Age brutality toward women’s reproductive health and Trump’s overt odiousness.

Either way, America is left with two newly realigned factions: the super-hawk Dick Cheney Democrats on the “left” and the Christian fascist MAGA cult on the right. Two grimmer, more depressing choices are difficult to imagine, but if recent history teaches us anything, it’s that it can still get worse. In another 20 years it might be JD Vance who emerges as a bipartisan voice of reason. By then, the Republican might be a vigilante Klansman wearing a necklace of his victims’ skulls and the Democrat might be Ivanka Trump.

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August 23, 2024

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Madame Vice President, Do the Right Thing on Gaza

The coronation and ascent up the polls of Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris has been remarkable to witness. From out of nowhere, a person widely considered a relative dud of a Vice President, who received zero delegates during her primary bid in 2020 and zero votes in the 2024 primary (during which, of course, she was not a candidate), is now the woman chosen to beat Donald Trump. And if vibes and momentum are any indication, she may be well on her way to doing it. She has galvanized Democratic enthusiasm and is being celebrated by multiple factions of her party.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Harris and the liberal coalition. While the Republican opposition is flailing, unable to build a meaningful counter-narrative and falling back on their usual canard of hysterically painting every minimal reform as communism, on her left is a potentially more disruptive force: Americans who want their country to stop arming and funding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Here and there, there have been clues and gestures from Harris toward a policy change on Gaza. Even before she became the nominee, Washington rumors suggested she disagreed with Biden’s 100% tolerance of Israeli violence, though to what degree has never been clear. As a candidate, she said, “Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal.” 

But so far there’s been little evidence of any real changes coming and increasingly, it’s looking like Harris’s policy toward Israel and Palestine will not be different from Biden’s. She uses more sympathetic language, but is always careful to reiterate her unwavering support for Israel and to couch her sympathies for Palestine in false equivalencies (the violence in Israel and Palestine overwhelmingly comes from one side to the other).

More important things: Or, how liberals learned to stop worrying and love bombing Gaza

Liberals have a number of ways of rationalizing the Gaza genocide. They say Donald Trump will be even worse, and they may be right (Trump has encouraged Netanyahu to “finish the job” in Gaza, which sounds eerily like a final solution). Liberals might argue they can push Harris on the issue once she’s in office (hasn’t worked so far). They might also claim that Harris’s hands are tied for any number of political reasons, though if that’s what’s holding her back it only demonstrates a lack of leadership.

For plenty of liberals, the issue is simply secondary to the more pressing concern of defeating Trump and saving democracy. But that framing sounds peculiar given the party’s treatment of its anti-genocide wing. The 2024 Democratic primary was somewhere between a formality and a sham, but as a result of it, voters sent a contingent of Uncommitted delegates to the DNC this year. Those delegates, elected representatives within the Democratic Party all, have been neglected, barred from entry, and relegated to protests in the hallways. Their simple demand to allow one pro-Palestinian perspective on stage during the DNC’s weeklong, celebrity-filled party was denied. None of that sounds terribly democratic. 

Other liberals simply don’t want to acknowledge that a genocide is happening. Outside the DNC in Chicago, some Democrats plugged their ears as they walked past protesters reading the names of children killed in Gaza. Both The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe argue that “It’s time to retire the word genocide.” It’s simply too controversial a term; sometimes nations would like to kill tens of thousands of children without all the nasty name-calling. If we stop using the word genocide, then there is no such thing and we can stop worrying about it. 

It needs to be made clear: Israel’s actions in Gaza meet every sensible definition of genocide, as the rest of the world well understands. There are mountains of photo and video evidence, as well as Israeli soldiers’ and officials’ own declarations. It’s all but impossible to count the dead, dying, and wounded in Gaza. Almost every single one of the strip’s 2.3 million people has been maimed, relocated, starved, or killed. Most sources put the number of dead somewhere around 40,000, while the medical journal The Lancet estimates it could be as high as 186,000.

Why Harris should oppose genocide

Harris’s coronation has been a rousing political moment, but it’s severely tainted by the context in which it exists. An ongoing genocide enabled by a bipartisan consensus of the US government and unchallenged by either candidate is too glaring and grim for many voters to overlook.

If this were a genocide we had nothing to do with, the moral calculus would be different. But every one of us bears some responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza. Our dollars fund it and our bombs blow entire families to smithereens. To demand a change is the only moral, sane, human reaction. The fact that there is no representative for that position on the ballot, or even allowed into the conversation, is a truly damning indictment of our politics. 

Certainly there are plenty of good reasons to want Harris to defeat Trump. She is, domestically, a lesser evil on every count. But it’s just as understandable why people of conscience would not be able to support this party. It’s as if we’re choosing between A) genocide with reproductive health, voting rights, and some semblance of a safety net, or B) genocide without those things. For many voters, that’s an obvious choice, but it says something incredibly grim that it’s the only choice.

Harris has a real opportunity to do something important, and it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t help her politically. Americans are currently divided on Gaza, with 48% disapproving of Israel’s actions and 42% approving. If Harris took a stand, that divide would almost certainly split down party lines, likely costing her little if anything in terms of public support. It would surely energize the party’s left wing and help her win the swing state of Michigan. But she apparently doesn’t want to do that – either because of political pressures, electoral paranoia, or personal views. None of these, reasoned though they may be, justify her inaction thus far. 

Harris’s nomination for commander-in-chief is historic, but history will not look kindly on those who allowed and enabled Gaza to be erased from the earth. Activists must continue to pressure Harris, and there’s no need to wait until after the election to do so. She doesn’t have to do much – just pledge to stop sending the guns, bombs and money or, better yet, pressure President Biden to stop now. If we want to have any shred of faith in our system and our countrymen, we ought to be able to believe that doing the right thing is good politics. And unequivocally opposing this genocide is certainly the right thing.

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May 1, 2024

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Can A Genocide Supporter Be the Lesser Evil?

If you’re on the left, despite any disappointments and misgivings you may have with the Democratic Party, you may conclude that they are the lesser evil and vote for them in most elections. This is not normally a difficult case for Democrats to make. Indeed, “not as evil as Republicans” has almost become the party’s tagline. It’s their primary selling point.

In 2024, however, President Joe Biden is struggling to make that case. He’s done a lot wrong during his years in office and a few things right. But his present support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is so monstrous and criminal that no moral nation could allow him to remain president.

First things first: Despite much arguing over the term, Israel’s war against civilians in Gaza is almost certainly genocidal. The evidence is plain:

  • At least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting escalated after October 7, the large majority of whom are women and children. The number of dead is surely much higher, but the region is so totally devastated that they can no longer keep count.
  • The Israeli blockade has triggered widespread famine, with Oxfam reporting that “the entire population of Gaza is currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity.” That’s 2.3 million starving people.
  • More than 50% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including universities, hospitals, and critical infrastructure.
  • Israeli leaders routinely pledge total destruction of Gaza and dehumanize Palestinians, setting up a narrative where the victims deserve whatever Israel decides to dole out to them.

By punishing the entire civilian population of Gaza, the Israeli military has exceeded in scale and criminality the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7. And they have done so with unconditional funding, arms, and diplomatic support from the United States and President Biden. Biden is not just culpable in this genocide; he may bear more responsibility for it than anyone else on Earth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply couldn’t carry it out without Biden’s blessing.

Reelecting a man who’s perpetuating a genocide is unthinkable. There are no good alternatives. Donald Trump will likely be just as bad, if not worse, on the question of Gaza. And simply put, if Biden loses, Trump wins. That’s a horrifying prospect for Palestinians and the planet. But if our system is so corrupt and amoral that it can’t present even one candidate who refuses to aid and abet genocide, then it deserves to crumble and begin anew.

American presidents do terrible things routinely. Warmongering comes with the territory of managing a global capitalist empire. But there are some crimes for which there can be no forgiveness or grace. Deeds which, once done, put you in league with the worst monsters of history. Genocide is chief among these. We can’t keep allowing politicians to get away with this sort of thing by rewarding them with more power.

Now, protests and occupations demanding an end to U.S. support for the genocide have emerged on university campuses across the country. Police have cracked the skulls of college students and professors, staging mass arrests and conducting heavily militarized raids in places like Columbia. Biden responded to the unrest not by condemning police brutality or offering any sympathy to the protesters’ legitimate concerns. Instead, he painted protesters broadly as lawless and antisemitic, claims for which there is scant evidence if any.

It’s a curious strategy that Biden and the Democrats are running: Carry out a genocide, then use state stormtroopers to beat and silence the young people who oppose it and whose vote they desperately need to win. Somehow, unleashing state violence on a core constituency and telling them to “get over yourself” seems like an irresponsible way for the defenders of democracy to campaign during a must-win election against the most dangerous fascist in American history.

On climate change, the social safety net, labor, ballot access, and rights important to women, immigrants and minorities, Democrats are generally at least marginally better than Republicans. That holds true in the Biden vs. Trump rematch. These are hugely important issues and many progressives will make that calculation and vote for Biden on that basis.

Yes, Donald Trump is a serially corrupt, pathologically lying, habitually felonious, fundamentally indecent, and totally amoral crook. He will do damage that will last generations. He must be kept out of the White House. More than that, if he showed up at your house you’d be ill-advised to let him in.

But Biden is sanctioning, funding, and arming the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. Whatever damage Trump will do in four years might be worth suffering if it shifts the country’s political calculus such that an alternative to the Democratic and Republican super-hawks has a chance to emerge. We might teach the Democratic Party that its lust for war, violence, and profit will not be tolerated and pave the way for a new party.

Our lesser of two evils system was always destined to be a race to the bottom, and now we’re there, voting between two genocidal geriatrics. If these are the kinds of decisions we’re having to make, then we’ve gone way too far over the edge. We might be better off abstaining from the election altogether and finding new ways to oppose the two nihilistic death cults we call political parties.