Fire Donald Trump: "We have no illusions about Biden, but we need him to win."

There are times when it's necessary to stop the bleeding first, then determine what's to occur next. This triage scenario is peak 2020. 

I may, or may not, return to this depressing topic in this week's ON THE AVENUES. It's an article in the works for almost two months, with the lightning speed of daily news cycles rendering moot every effort at topicality.  

But I'm not sure it's necessary to know any more than we do already. Electing Biden won't resolve the fundamental problem of why 60+ million Americans have alchemized a narcissistic con man into a deity, and come together to fluff his personality cult. 

(Short answer: racism/casteism and a misplaced sense of powerlessness.)

It will, however, remove at least one blithering idiot from the daily news cycle, so maybe...just maybe...we can convince 10% of the 60 million that the issues go far beyond the charlatan-in-chief, who is little more than a figurehead.   

Fire Donald Trump: We have no illusions about Biden, but we need him to win, at The Nation

 ... Voting Trump out of office will not in itself heal the terrible wounds inflicted on our body politic over the past four years. But it is the absolutely necessary first step. That means voting for Joe Biden—through early voting wherever possible or by absentee or in-person voting when necessary.

We have no illusions about Biden, who—as we reported here last November—removed bankruptcy protections from student loans, helped write the bill that barred states from capping interest rates on interstate banking, and spent a career in the Senate carrying water for Delaware’s credit card industry. The idea that Biden is some kind of sleeper agent for socialism is a cruel joke, as is the claim that he is a closet radical.

The Democratic primaries did include some candidates and ideas that truly are radical. Bernie Sanders—The Nation’s preferred candidate—articulated a vision of Medicare for All and an America where health and education and economic security are human rights. Elizabeth Warren opposed Biden’s favors for the banks and ran on a platform of taking on the monopolist millionaires and robber baron billionaires who have rigged our economy. Yet both of them are voting for Biden.

So are Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and Jesse Jackson ...