I don’t regret casting my primary ballot for Elizabeth Warren. And no, I did not register a protest vote, though I think that’s legit during primary season (the general election is a different animal). Be it cussedness or hope, I cast my ballot a few days after it arrived, before Super Tuesday put a period at the end of the campaign of the best, most qualified, most potentially transformational candidate of my life time.
Sigh.
But, you know, I’m kind of glad. Like, today I broke my social media fast for an hour or so and went on Facebook, and I read a very smart friend of mine’s long post comparing, contrasting, and weighing the pair of shouty near-octogenarians left vying to vie with the shouty near-octogenarian currently failing our country even more obviously than he has been these last three years and change. As I likely would have, he came down on Bernie’s side, with all the caveats you’d expect, and which I won’t reprise here.
But it got me thinking.
I know the CW is that most Warren supporters have more in common with Sanders than Biden (the actual behavior of said voters seems to be more like a 50-50 split), and on the policy merits that’s true. But that CW doesn’t take into account that Warren supporters are Democrats, and while that may, to some Sanders supporters, make them snakes, or at least complicit with the corporate machine trying to make cogs of us all, those same Sanders supporters seem to forget that running more against the party you’re trying to represent than the party you’re trying to beat in the general election puts a pretty hard cap on the support you can draw. Put another way, the best way to defeat your enemies doesn’t start with beating your allies into submission first.
Still, it’s not like Joe Biden is a particularly inspirational or transformational figure, and if the kind of big, structural change necessary to make our government into something that can address not only our legacy problems of racial, gender, and social justice and rampant, unsustainable income and wealth inequality but the upcoming climate eschaton also happen under his Administration, it will be a fucking miracle.
So yeah, tough choice. One I don’t envy anyone. And if you’ve got strong feelings on the shouty near-octogenarian question, you should absolutely cast your primary vote accordingly.
But if your choice is a) neither or b) who the hell cares?, I have a third option you might consider.
Vote for Elizabeth Warren anyway.
She won’t get the nomination. I know that. I haven’t made peace with it quite yet. But I know it. Another thing I know is she’d make a fine VP choice for either of them. And while I’d prefer her on top of the ticket, I’ll settle for having her on it. Especially given that both these guys are pushing 80, and Bernie already had a heart attack. Way I see it, if she’s getting votes without even running, that makes her a stronger contender, and frankly either of them would be well-served to choose her, since she has at least the capacity to build a bridge to the losing side. That was the campaign she ran, after all, being the bridge between the two wings of the party. Even if she doesn’t get tapped, it still ups her leverage when Convention time comes, and the party’s platform’s drawn up.
Anyhow, it’s just a thought I had, a rationale, if you want one, to vote for the candidate you believe in, even though she’s dropped out. Like I said, if you’ve got strong opinions on the Sanders/Biden question, or just want to have your say in who gets to beat Trump in November, do that. But there’s good reason to follow your heart if you don’t.
Come the general, it’s blue no matter who, all the way down the ticket (and fuck you if you choose otherwise). Between now and then, there’s room left for conscience. Don’t be afraid to stay true to yours.
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