The window is closing. There is no time for second bests or conservative approaches to change. There is a significant reason that young voters across the country have unanimously rejected Joe Biden for president: What younger voters see is a shortening period in which our ecosystem and society can be saved from a very real death spiral.
No Time for Moderation
As we march down the grim path to a Joe Biden nomination we are now facing a seemingly inevitable competition between conservative strong men in the Biden V. Trump election. Progressives and young people around the country are invariably going through a period of intense sadness here, what looked so promising in terms of truly beginning institutional change in our country will instead be either fascist or neoliberal regression and elite protectionism. Just because the MAGA hat is blue doesn’t mean we should support it. The primary concerns of young voters are the rapidly degrading global climate and the collapse of the economy following years of greed and the construction of an economic system that places global wealth in the hands of a group of panicky wall street investors. The spread of Coronavirus over the past weeks illuminates how critical it is to plug the leaks in the global ship today rather than on the next planet. First with climate change, what we are recognizing as a society is that the problems presented by climate change are not additive but exponential. Whether you are looking at the constantly re-evaluated climate predictions or the apocalyptic imagery of Australia on fire this winter, the truth is abundantly clear: climate change is impacting us on a scale we can’t even measure properly. Climate change is even recognizable as a catalyst for Coronavirus with air quality significantly increasing the virus's lethality.
On the economic front, the virus paints a very real picture of why we need to embrace Medicare for all, rather than supporting the inept drug companies who are asking for upwards of 1000$ for tests necessary to measure and control the spread of the disease. As the market crashes we see that the aid coming from the government will not go to people affected by the shutdown surrounding the pandemic but instead, the quivering pockets of wall street executives, with a 1.7 trillion dollar Wall Street bailout announced just this afternoon.
Simply put, it is time to get angry. You should be furious and you should be uncompromising in this. There will be a deluge of arguments coming from the same media outlets and career politicians that have undeniably crowned Biden, these arguments will insist that the progressive left needs to unanimously fall in line behind Biden to “Stop Trump.” Already, the entire movement of young people behind Bernie Sanders is being dismissed as Russian sleeper agents, their criticisms of Biden as Kremlin strawmen. The subtext to this argument will be: You kids can try again in 4-8 years. Unfortunately, we don’t have 4-8 years. Let’s look at today’s Covid-19 responses from the current administration, Biden, and Bernie Sanders as an example.
Coronavirus is a "Mask Off" Moment for US Government
The Trump Administration’s lackluster and paranoid response to the Coronavirus has spooked the lending markets whose whim dictates the health of our global economy. The Trump administration has failed to administer testing efficiently, has rejected foreign medicine to support the financial interests of big pharma, and already resulted in hundreds of possibly preventable deaths. Meanwhile, the resistance in the halls of Congress has called for “affordable” Coronavirus testing and vaccines and released a dead on arrival bill to collect dust on Mitch McConnell's desk. Compare this affordable testing with the free testing offered in South Korea: The death rate of Coronavirus in the United States sits at 3% while the South Korean effort has been dramatically more successful resulting in only a .6% lethality rate. Medicare for All is not an abstract concept - it is a global imperative. The differences between a continuation of our current healthcare system and a single-payer system can already be shown to have a 2.4% difference in the lethality of a global pandemic.
Meanwhile, this afternoon both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders spoke to how they would respond to the pandemic this afternoon. Joe Biden’s speech to me is deeply troubling. Rather than outlining legitimate policy he would introduce to stem the spread of this disease, he takes his time to criticize the Trump administration and layout the already incredibly evident truth that the Coronavirus will affect everyone regardless of party affiliation. He directs us to his website covered in donation ads to see how he would respond to the pandemic. Largely, he advocates for free testing and nothing else on this website. There is no mention of helping those already infected and little policy directed towards preventing this kind of outbreak in the future. His continued resistance to supporting medicare for all reveals the weakness of his potential presidency in the event of an outbreak. Largely his proposal isn’t all that different from Trump’s. His proposed vaccine is free, but that freeness is still dependent on the private pharmaceutical companies and there is no reason to believe that the pharmaceutical lobbyists that donate to his campaign will allow such a measure to remain free. Just last week a leak from Biden’s campaign revealed a list of wall street executives he is planning to place in his cabinet, with even Michael Bloomberg’s name appearing. There is no reason to believe that Biden’s response to an economic collapse like the one we are experiencing will be any different than Trump’s 1.5 Trillion to Wall Street announced today. The legislators and leaders surrounding a potential President Biden will be almost identical to the lackeys surrounding Trump.
Bernie Sander’s address similarly defines the seriousness of the outbreak. However, his focus lands on a concept of solidarity, rather than the message of personal responsibility that prevails throughout Biden’s speech. He also focuses explicitly on helping to maintain the financial viability of the families and businesses affected by the outbreak through emergency funding towards paid sick leave, a theory that is absent in any real form from Biden’s approach. Most importantly, however, Bernie stresses the importance of providing insurance to the millions of uninsured today. What is critical here is that in situations like these we are only as strong as the least healthy member of our society. People without insurance cannot be forced to hesitate seeking medical help during a pandemic due to a lack of insurance. Where Biden stresses personal responsibility and a return to civilization, Bernie proposes dramatic restructuring to create a system of mutual aid. It is not enough to simply reject Barbarism - we must eviscerate its core.
What do we do next?
The simple truth is this, we need medicare for all, we need the green new deal, we need an administration that is accountable to the people, and we need these things yesterday. The stakes are only going to become more extreme and the half measures offered by neoliberal politicians are always going to be gutted by their financial acquiescence to wall street, pharmaceutical executives, and oil executives. The American left needs to create a unified strategy to take control of the American government. We need to focus on primarying not just Republican governors and senators but Democratic ones as well. If we cannot control the executive branch, we need to have the power within the house and senate to shut down Democratic bills and federal funding agreements unless they contain life-saving progressive legislation. This was the strategy of the Tea Party in the last decade, a strategy which with great efficacy veered the Republican party towards a far-right consensus. We need to give up on civility. No matter how polite we are to the DNC and their candidates, they will always cast us as barbarians. Look at the Bernie Bro and Russia arguments, bad faith attacks which are not only divorced from reality but paint a respectful and humanitarian movement as a threat to American democracy. Simply put, there is no time to be polite, there is no time to swallow the bitter pills of half measures. The DNC is not your ally, is not your friend. The window is closing. The young people of America believe that we can have a better future while the older generations of voters who buoy the same corrupt politicians believe we have no future, only the memory of a polite and dignified past. The current political parties are loading their sarcophaguses with gold for the next life. It is the vision of the young people of America that we can survive the coming decades.
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