“Within Crisis are the Seeds of Opportunity”: Why a Biden/Harris Administration Will Deliver the Structural Change America Desperately Needs

The Context: 3 Overlapping Crises

1) The Public Health Crisis

Any analysis of American politics right now needs to start with where we are — and it’s not pretty. COVID-19 has wreaked absolute havoc on American society. We have 5,285,546 cases of Coronavirus and 167,546 deaths, making our country a complete global outlier. To put those numbers in perspective, we are 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the deaths from COVID-19. In addition, Coronavirus is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. As VOX points out, “while America’s developed peers have suppressed the coronavirus, the U.S. case count has continued to climb to levels only seen in developing countries with weaker government institutions and shakier public health infrastructure.”

It did not have to be this way. The Trump administration has failed at almost every step of the response. Whether it was disbanding the Pandemic Response Team on the National Security Council, ignoring warnings from his own administration of the risks of a potential pandemic, cutting pandemic prevention CDC funding by 80%, dropping the ball at the get-go on testing when it would have made the biggest difference, pushing misinformation to the public (including that the virus would “miraculously” disappear). undercutting experts and pushing out critical voices…the scope of Trump’s negligence, incompetence, and failures of leadership practically defy comprehension. I have basically been screaming about the danger of his election for years precisely because his character flaws and lack of government experience essentially guaranteed he would mishandle a crisis, the foremost responsibility of a Commander-in-Chief. The data today speaks for itself, and we are all paying the price.

2) The Economic Crisis

Trump’s failure to respond to the pandemic has had staggering economic consequences. GDP for Q2 fell by 10%, which is the worst decline in quarterly GDP in recorded U.S. history. For a sense of the scope of this decline, the job losses since the pandemic have now wiped out all the job gains made since 2008.

As a result, almost half the country is out of work. Considering almost 40% of Americans don’t have $400 in the bank for an emergency expense, many families are on the brink of financial ruin.

3) The Democratic Crisis

Unpacking our democratic crisis could easily span this whole article, so I will focus — briefly — on the aspects connected with COVID-19. Trump’s impeachment for extorting Ukraine to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden, stood for a simple question: Can the President abuse the powers of the government for personal political gain? When the Senate failed to convict Trump for a charge that embodied the purpose of including an impeachment clause in the Constitution, an existentially dangerous precedent was set for American democracy. And it was inevitable that Trump would be emboldened to continue weaponizing his office to nefariously affect the election in his favor.

We have now seen the apotheosis of that risk in Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Post Office. Given the risks of in-person contact, states have naturally moved towards vote by mail systems. There are already five states (including the Republican bastion of Utah) that have fully voted by mail for years, which experts agree is a secure election method with almost zero instances of fraud. Nonetheless, Trump’s baseless conspiracies regarding vote by mail have now translated into concrete action. Trump’s postmaster general has forced drastic cuts, decommissioned 10 percent of the Postal Service’s mail sorting machines, banned overtime, and inexplicably rejected emergency funding to address the enormous demand that will be played on the USPS in November. In one of the most haunting and Orwellian images I’ve seen, mailboxes are literally being ripped from the ground and removed altogether.

States are already feeling the slowdown in services. For example, “in Ohio, where mail voting is likely to double, piles of undelivered mail are sitting in a Cleveland distribution center. In rural Michigan, diabetes medicine that used to arrive in three days now takes almost two weeks.” As President Obama mentioned, “these delays prevent seniors from accessing their social security, veterans from their prescription medications, and small businesses from keeping their doors open.” Once there is a vaccine, the USPS will likely play a decisive role in distributing it. But because Trump is afraid of losing the election, he is kneecaping the agency — jeopardizing all of these efforts. There is now a risk that 46 states could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots in the 2020 election.

As is his tendency, Trump has basically admitted what he is doing, stating in an interview he was blocking emergency funding for the Post Office because “that means you can’t have universal mail in voting because they’re not equipped to handle it.” The calculus here seems straightforward: Trump’s voters are likely more willing to vote in person and Democrats prefer voting by mail in the middle of a damn pandemic. By undercutting vote by mail, Trump can declare “victory” on election day and then muddy the waters and sow chaos in the election’s aftermath. Counting mail in ballots could take weeks and Trump will inevitably say they were fraudulent. If successful, his effort could prove the most massive example of voter suppression in American history: Deliberately disenfranchising millions by gutting the USPS in the middle of a pandemic to serve his own re-election. Already members of Congress are openly stating the Postmaster General should be arrested by the body’s Sergeant at Arms, a power I have been arguing for months the Article I branch should be prepared to deploy. State Attorneys General should also be preparing grand juries for this malfeasance at the U.S.P.S., which violates federal law.

These overlapping crises have placed America in a position of unprecedented danger and vulnerability. Noted military scholars this week wrote an open-letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (our nation’s top military officer) recognizing “the president of the United States is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution.” For a sense of the precariousness of our national situation, the authors warned that if Trump refuses to honor the results of the election or leave office “the United States military must remove him by force, and you [the JCOS] must give that order.”

If I am being honest, I don’t conceptualize voting in this context as some kind of normal, personal preference or choice. Like Tom Nichols, in a context of such crises and with democracy holding on by a thread, I believe voting is a matter of civic duty and obligation. And like Nichols, I believe an absolute landslide that makes the result uncontestable and sends a message that undermining our electoral processes from within will not be tolerated is a matter of existential necessity. It is the most important variable for stopping Trump’s scheme to corrupt the election.

With that said, I also believe it is important to know what you are voting for — and not just what you are voting against. That distinction is at the core of human motivation, and the reality is we can’t just have people showing up out of dispirited hatred of Trump. We need people affirmatively volunteering, registering voters, fundraising, persuading family and friends, and engaging in the all-hands-on-deck effort this election necessitates. Core to that effort is making the case that a Biden / Harris administration will effectively address these crises and the deep, structural issues they have exposed. That their election will make a tangible difference in people’s lives, by making our country more fair, equitable, and just.

I strongly believe that there is such an affirmative and persuasive case to be made, and that we are on the cusp of historic, transformative structural change if we can get through this crisis. My analysis is in five sections:

I. Historical Parallels

II. The Ticket and the Moment

III. The Most Progressive Policy Platform in American History

IV. Counter-arguments

V. Conclusion — Action Steps

I) Historical Parallels

Historical Crises: There are four Presidents who faced similarly immense and structural crises: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Lincoln faced a country ripping itself apart over the expansion of slavery and a Confederacy that would resort to violence and Civil War to preserve it. Teddy Roosevelt faced a country beset by deep socio-economic inequality and corruption in the Gilded Age. FDR faced a nation in the grips of the Great Depression, with fascism spreading like wildfire across the globe. And LBJ faced a country riven by internal strife and historic demand for civil rights and racial justice.

For each President, old paradigms and institutions were facing collapse. New ideas, values, and visions of government were needed to address these crises, along with the political skill to translate them into reality through the law. The general welfare of American citizens and survival of American democracy in each case depended on it.

Personal Attributes: Each of these leaders shared a set of core attributes, which helped them steer the ship of state through crisis. They all faced tremendous personal adversity, developing a deep reservoir of resilience and empathy as a result. Lincoln was born into destitute poverty and lost his parents at a young age. Teddy Roosevelt was born with crippling poor health. FDR was diagnosed with polio just as his career was hitting its stride, losing his ability to walk. And LBJ grew up in rural poverty, with a father who lost it all after failed business ventures. All of them were knocked down by life but showed the resilience to get back up, experiences that helped them get the country on its feet after crisis and empathize with those left behind by our society.

Political Skill and Mass Movements: All four Presidents were not simply show-horses who could give a good speech; they were masters of the art of politics. They did not consider themselves above the “sausage making” major legislation requires, but instead immersed themselves in it: Coalition building, negotiation, bold unilateralism, wrangling votes, inspiration, persuasion, intimidation, and all the other tools of the trade. Furthermore, all four Presidents were able to leverage the energy of a mass movement to deliver on real change. Lincoln had the abolitionist movement; TR the Progressive Movement, FDR a nation mobilized for World War; and LBJ the Civil Rights Movement. By harnessing the energy, passion and intellectual manpower of these mass movements, each President helped deliver deep and lasting structural change. Lincoln passed the Reconstruction Amendments after winning the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and fought corporate greed, corruption, and inequality. FDR created the modern administrative state, dragging America out of depression and to victory in WWII. And Johnson leveraged the Civil Rights Movement to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Each time we got through a crisis because of this fateful combination: (1) A President of particular character and political skill and (2) a deeply politically engaged mass movement demanding change. And as a result, we saw a socio-economic transformation towards a “more perfect union” in response to a crisis.

II) The Ticket and the Moment

For the reasons mentioned earlier, I believe we face a crisis of a similar level or gravity and seriousness today, with elements of each of these historical crises. But I also believe we have a ticket and mass movement to make the structural change the country cannot delay.

Personal Attributes: Joe Biden possesses the personal resilience and empathy shared by our greatest presidents. Biden’s father suffered a number of business reversals and he largely grew up in his mother’s parents home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is why he constantly comes back to his dad’s quote that “a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It is about your dignity. It is about respect. It is about being able to tell your kids everything is going to be OK.” The young Biden also had a terrible stutter, for which he was teased terribly and which he worked mightily to overcome. After working as a public defender out of law school, Biden eventually ran for Senate at age 29. Within months, however, his wife and daughter were killed in a tragic crash. Biden has said those months were the hardest of his life, and that he even understood how someone could contemplate suicide in such a dark moment. But he was able to find purpose in his work in the Senate and he raised his two boys as a single father before meeting Jill Biden. He would eventually would be struck by tragedy again when his son Beau died from brain cancer. Yet again, Biden found purpose in staying engaged in public life, which he has said was his rationale for running for President. Finding purpose and strength from loss by helping others is at the core of Biden as a public servant, and it is why so many voters feel a connection with him. That he is honorable and decent, that he understands what they are going through, and that he has their backs — all in direct contrast with our current President. At such an unsettling time Biden’s story of resilience, “getting up after being knocked down” and empathy meets the moment, like the best of his predecessors.

Political Skill and a Mass Movement: Unlike many modern American Presidents, Biden is a natural politician who knows how to actually deliver on the kind of major legislation we will need for the crisis we face. Biden played a decisive role in passing the Violence Against Women’s Act, the Assault Weapons Ban, major De-Nuclearization treaties, the economic stimulus that dug America out of recession, the Affordable Care Act, cancer research, torpedoing the nomination of right wing extremist Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and getting the Obama administration to come out in support of gay marriage. He passed 42 bills during his time in Congress, one of the highest totals of any legislator in living memory. For Obamacare in particular, Biden was a legislative closer who got Arlen Specter to switch his affiliation from Republican to Democrat, providing the needed 60th vote. Once he wrangled together votes for the stimulus, Biden demonstrated high level executive and managerial experience overseeing an 800 billion dollar rescue package. In a particularly relevant point, Biden’s chief of staff also led the Obama administration’s incredibly successful response to the Ebola public health crisis. Simply put, Biden has the soft skills and the hard skills to pass major legislation, and he proved a highly competent manager of two highly relevant efforts today: economic recovery and pandemic response.

Equally important, if Biden wins it will be because of a genuine mass movement. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the country has seen an awakening of protest, civic engagement, and demands for change. Thankfully, Biden’s new running mate, Kamala Harris, has extensive expertise in the criminal justice reform issues that have so electrified the nation. She played a decisive role in the First Step Act, and has been a leader in the Senate on bail and police reform. By electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in a dominating fashion and placing unrelenting pressure on his administration to deliver, we would have the formula that has always been a prerequisite for transformational structural change. But what would those policies be in a Biden / Harris administration?

III) The Most Progressive Policy Platform in American History

The policy platform for the Biden / Harris ticket is — without a doubt — the most progressive and ambitious in American history.

Matt Yglesias, one of the most persuasive advocates for Bernie Sanders candidacy, has outlined how Biden’s policy agenda would be “transformative.” He outlines Biden’s push for a major increase in the minimum wage, his support for Rep. Jayapal and Sen. Sanders College for All, his healthcare agenda to implement a public option to cover all Americans, dramatic transformation of federal housing policy, a huge financial boost to schools with low-income students, a bold and labor-friendly climate agenda, and a fundamentally revamped immigration reform plan. For a sense of the scale of these investments, Yglesias highlights in a subsequent piece the following data points:

• The Economy: Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan would focus on implementing a real, comprehensive strategy for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring robust support for American workers in the meantime rather than cutting a blank check for corporations. These investments in labor, small business support, infrastructure, and manufacturing would be the most bold progressive economic agenda since the New Deal.
• Health Care: Biden plans to invest $750 billion into his health care plan to implement a public option open to everyone (and automatically enroll those with incomes below 138% of the poverty line), including those with employer-sponsored insurance. This plan would increase subsidies by tying them to Obamacare’s more comprehensive “gold” level plans and cap premiums at a maximum of 8.5 percent of income, no matter your income.
• Climate Change: Biden wants to invest between $1.5 and $2 trillion in federal funding over the next decade to push the U.S. toward a 100 percent clean energy economy and hit net-zero emissions by 2050.
• Immigration: Biden plans to reverse Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, increase the number of refugees the US admits to 125,000 annually, reinstate DACA, and provide a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently living in the US.
• Criminal Justice: Biden plans to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes, end the federal death penalty, abolish federal private prisons, get rid of cash bail, and decriminalize marijuana.
• Education: Biden is proposing extensive student loan relief. He is also proposing to triple federal spending on low-income K-12 schools, and wants to double Pell Grants and make community college free.
• Housing: Biden is calling for a $100 billion investment in an affordable housing trust fund. Biden wants to quadruple federal spending on low-income housing assistance.
• Ending our Gun Violence Epidemic: Biden’s plan would hold gun manufacturer’s accountable, get weapons of war off our streets, and implement universal background checks.

Furthermore, the Biden team’s “Build Back Better” policy agenda made the unprecedented move of explicitly partnering with his competitor from the campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders. You can read the task force’s plans in full here, which are rigorous, detailed, and bold. As Ezra Klein put, Biden is approaching his candidacy as a party leader who is aiming to unite its elements and channel its consensus, which, “if passed, would mean the most ambitious, progressive presidency in modern times.”

In line with the emphasis on criminal justice reform in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Biden has also released a remarkably comprehensive and bold criminal justice reform plan and explicit reforms for helping Black America. The former plan would end mandatory minimums, end private prisons, implement bail reform and drug courts, decriminalize marijuana, bolster funding for public defenders, increase prosecutor and police accountability, invest in juvenile justice reform, and implement the goal of 100% housing rate for the formerly incarcerated. The “Lift Every Voice and Sing” plan similarly outlines concrete actions for addressing systemic racism and bolstering the opportunities for Black Americans who are the backbone of the Democratic party but have too often been taken for granted. For what it’s worth, I personally think the work of coming to terms with our country’s racial past will be deeper than simple policy changes. If we aren’t deliberate about healing the festering wound of the compounding historical legacy of slavery, jim crow, and systemic racism, it will continue re-opening and tearing us apart. Bryan Stevenson has talked about a deliberate reconciliation effort akin to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Germany’s efforts after WWII. I share his feeling that an intentional effort to come to terms with our history and truly “make good by doing good” will be necessary for our national healing — and for making our country’s founding ideals a lived reality.

In many ways, the Progressive wing of the party — as despondent as it may be that Sanders was not the nominee — has played a defining role in shifting consensus on these issues and deserves real credit. Yglesias highlights how party activists and a mass movement has shifted the policy “window” in a newly ambitious and bold space:

“[Biden’s plans] are “the most progressive platform of any Democratic nominee in the modern history of the party,” Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats. [Activists like Shahid see Biden’s] approach as a triumph of sorts in changing the scope of what is acceptable to discuss in national politics. The “Overton window” is the idea that at any given time, only a certain set of ideas is deemed worthy of mainstream discussion, and where the contours of that set, or window, are located has meaningful impact on political outcomes. Ideas like Medicare-for-all, a Green New Deal, defunding the police, and wealth taxation did not win in the primary, but they did establish significant beachheads in public consciousness and contribute to an environment in which Biden’s very ambitious agenda can be seen as moderate. Biden, says Faiz Shakir [Bernie Sanders Campaign Manager] “is not leading the Overton window movement, but he’s also not disregarding or moving against it.” Shahid observes that “the most transformative presidents in our nation’s history — Lincoln, FDR, LBJ — were not ideologues fully aligned with the most radical movements of their time.” Instead, they at times worked with activists to move the ball forward and at other times trimmed their sails to meet the constraints of public opinion.”

These shifts in the “Overton window” or center of gravity for the Democratic Party are also clear in the space of democracy reform. President Obama, for example, recently endorsed a revitalized John Lewis Voting Rights Act, automatically register all Americans (including former inmates), making Election Day a national holiday, granting D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood, ending partisan gerrymandering, and eliminating the filibuster. These kind of major structural reforms from a former president would have been unheard of only years ago; today, they are a template for reform a Biden / Harris administration would pursue on day one.

The Trump Presidency and COVID-19 have exposed enormous structural vulnerabilities and inequalities in our democracy and society. The pandemic has taken an enormous toll on communities of color in particular. In Wisconsin, for example, African Americans are 27% of all deaths but only 5% of the population; in Virginia, Latinos are 49% of cases but only 10% of the population. A Biden / Harris administration poses a historic opportunity to address these issues of justice, fairness, and equality head on by translating a new American majority into bold, comprehensive structural policy change. A genuine 21st Century New Deal.

IV) Addressing Counter-arguments

1. Capacity — The Dementia Canard

One of the biggest lines from the Trump campaign is that Biden has dementia or is in cognitive decline. Our intelligence services report that Russia is seeking to “denigrate” Biden on social media platforms, likely with this same method of attack. This campaign generally comes in the form of video-clips that portray Biden as confused or disoriented. For example, the Trump campaign and others circulated a clip that received millions of views of Biden saying he was “running for United States Senate [rather than President].” The problem, of course, was that the clip was taken out of context, and was part of longer remarks where Biden was reminiscing about the pitch he made since he started campaigning at age 29 and how he always used that line [“I’m Joe Biden and I’m running for United States Senate”]. There are plenty of other examples of this deceptive dynamic in play; short clips, selectively edited or taken out of context, to feed a false narrative for political gain.

This problematic dynamic also comments on the modern challenge of disinformation and asymmetric warfare. Deceptive media can be shared millions of times without fact-checking or clarification; the old adage “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” has become a practical reality in the social media age. These problems are getting even worse with the advent of deepfakes and altered videos. Biden admittedly wasn’t always great in the short sound-bite format of 12 person debates, and the reality is he obviously still struggles with his stutter (which is why he cuts himself off occasionally mid-sentence), even if he won’t admit so publicly. And no one is denying Biden gaffes — whether it was calling Obamacare a “big fucking deal” on a hot mike or asking a woman in a wheelchair to stand up so the audience could clap for her before realizing his mistake. None of this, however, goes to the question of acuity, and the best representative formats for gauging his abilities — his one-on-one debate with Bernie and extended Q and A’s in press conferences — Biden has been sharp, highly informed, and quick on his feet. The same cannot be said for the current White House Occupant who suggests injecting disinfectant, argues windmills cause cancer, and who brags about acing a cognitive test that involves identifying an elephant.

2. “But the crime bill” / “Kamala is a cop”

Biden’s record on criminal justice deserves scrutiny, and it isn’t all sunshine and roses. I have basically worked on criminal justice reform full time the past two years, and plenty of that work has been analyzing the enomrous problems in modern criminal justice policy. With that said, there is some important context for analyzing the criminal justice laws Biden was involved in. First, between 1965 and 1974 the U.S. homicide rate doubled — which prompted calls for change across the political spectrum. Congress eventually passed the Sentencing Reform Act and later the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994 (the “Crime bill”). The crime bill passed overwhelmingly 95–4 in the Senate, with the Congressional Black Caucus taking a leading role and even Bernie Sanders voting in its favor. As James Forman Jr. has documented in “Locking Up Our Own,” there were very few dissenting voices against the “tough on crime” laws of this era, and communities of color often demanded these policies. That doesn’t excuse many of these laws’ terrible consequences, but it provides political context for the space the country was operating in at that point. Thankfully, the Biden campaign’s criminal justice plan recognizes the major problems these laws produced and have proposed a host of reforms to address mass incarceration and systemic racism. Such reforms would build on the progress made under the Obama administration, in which the federal prison population first started declining, pattern and practice investigations were carried out against abusive police departments, clemency initiatives began, and other reforms.

Similar arguments are made against Kamala Harris in the “Kamala the cop” meme. Harris started as a sex crimes prosecutor at the beginning of her career and eventually became district attorney of San Francisco. I’ve analyzed aspects of her office’s record in a pretty comprehensive law review and — like almost any prosecutors office in the 90s — there are areas where her office was overly punitive, such as on bail and her office’s truancy policy. Within the dark days of “tough on crime” American criminal justice, however, Harris was on the cutting edge of progressive reforms. She started a program, “Back on Track,” for people charged with nonviolent first-time felony offenses, in which they could have their convictions vacated if they completed a treatment, education, and work program. Back on Track became a model for prosecutor offices across the country, based on its ability to reduce recidivism and avoid the criminogenic consequences of system involvement. In addition, months after she became D.A., a police officer was killed by a gang member with an assault weapon. Despite immense political pressure, Harris refused to call for the death penalty — even when doing so threatened to derail her career. She later started a special hate crimes unit, focusing on crimes against LGBTQ children, and eventually led efforts to overturn the discriminatory “gay panic defense” often invoked in the killing of trans-gender people. As California’s attorney general, Harris also established an open-data portal for law-enforcement statistics, which allowed anti-police-violence groups to track deaths in custody. Her office had a strong record on consumer protection, LGBT advocacy, and environmental protection among other issues. This body of work is why a public defender who worked with her in California recently defended Harris as “the most progressive DA in California.”

All of this is to say reductionistic takes of Harris’s record as a mindless “lock em’ up” prosecutor often miss (1) the context in which a local D.A. was operating within the 90s and early 2000s and (2) the impressive reforms she made within S.F. and statewide office. The recent paradigm shifts in criminal justice policy have made incredible reforms possible (such as those engaged in by the new S.F. District Attorney Chesa Boudin) that would have been unthinkable two decades ago. While Harris’s record isn’t perfect, she deserves credit for achieving as much as she did in a time-period that was so hostile to even marginal reform. And as a Senator, she has continued to be a leading voice on these issues — amassing one of the most progressive records in the institution.

3. “Refusing to vote for Biden will eventually give us leverage”: Performative Allyship vs. Results Oriented Allyship

Variations of this argument have been made by several media commentators, and Kyle Kulinski — the host of Secular Talk — distilled them in this tweet thread.

Interestingly, the person who has broken down these arguments best is the intellectual godfather of the political left: Noam Chomsky. In the context of 2016, Chomsky wrote that the “the left should recognize that, should Trump win based on its failure to support Clinton, it will repeatedly face the accusation (based in fact), that it lacks concern for those sure to be most victimized by a Trump administration.” Chomsky’s argument is even more valid now that the harm isn’t theoretical but concrete: The consequences of this administration for the most vulnerable has been staggering. A generation of immigrant children facing permanent emotional disfigurement based on the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Reversing transgender health protections. Failing in response to a pandemic that is killing people of color at roughly double the rate of whites. The list goes on and on.

So the first problem with the #NeverBiden arguments is they evince a privileged “shoot the hostage, see if I care” orientation that abdicates moral responsibility for the position’s consequences. This is the same dynamic we have seen with anti-vaxxers and increasingly with COVID-19, which is the distinction between intentions and consequences. You can believe you have the best of intentions in refusing to be vaccinated — it’s your personal choice, you worry about risks, etc. The only real frame of reference for analyzing the ethicality of the decision, however, is not the intentions but the consequences — especially the effects of your actions on others. And the consequences of not vaccinating your children are that you place other’s children at risk and increase the likelihood mass infections and death from preventable diseases. Similarly, the consequences of facilitating a second Trump term in the misplaced and empty hopes of future leverage from a protest vote would be staggering, and in direct contradiction with ostensible stated values of someone like Kulinski. A protest vote would directly and irrevocably harm the people the left believes it’s supports. As I’ve written elsewhere, such a second term likely means:

“Not only is Trump choosing RBG’s successor, he may also be picking Stephen Breyer’s. That means a 7–2 Supreme Court that can’t be undone in an election, let alone a generation. That is the end of woman’s right to choose, full stop. LGBT protections, Dreamer children facing the risk of deportation, money in politics, environmental protections, the modern administrative state…all placed firmly on the chopping block, and then permanently carved into Supreme Court precedent. A President who faces only one remaining institutional check on his power — the election — is free from any remaining constraints. Congressional oversight is over, impeachment dead letter law, the judiciary a subservient rubber-stamp of conservative judges pushed through the pipeline. A king in all but name, with an agenda unchecked and unrestrained.”

Professing liberal principles while willingly contributing to such an eventuality is hypocritical, dangerous, and — as Senator Sanders put it — irresponsible. Worse, such a stance is often made by from a position of privilege by a media and academic elite that is insulated from the policy consequences. Director Ava Duvarney expounded on this point better than I ever could: “Vote them [Biden/Harris] in and then let’s hold them accountable. Anything other than that is insanity. It’s ego. It’s against our own interests. It’s selfish. It’s disrespectful to our elders. It’s nonsense. It’s talking to hear yourself talk. This is a matter of life or death. We need all our energy focused. This is a fight for more than can be expressed here. There is no debate anymore. Not for me anyway.”

Underlying this critique of Kulinski’s #NeverBiden argument is what I consider the difference between performative activism and results-oriented activism. Performative activism is concerned with brand-curation, and what the positions of your digital avatar say about you in the same way one would approach a fashion choice. Outcomes don’t actually matter in this approach; the means — i.e. virtue signaling and brand promotion — justify the ends…and the ends are largely irrelevant. This approach can feign moral superiority and purity, but it fails to serve the people it says it cares for in reality — leaving them out to dry and in harm’s way. This is “allyship” in its emptiest, most hypocritical, and destructive form. Results-oriented activism, on the other hand, is concerned about outcomes — and ensuring those outcomes reflect our values. Results-oriented activism is about operating politically so we are translating liberal principles into practical, lived realities on the ground. It is about working with the community shoulder to shoulder, not making indulgent, privileged, “above it all” criticisms from the sidelines. In this moment of crisis, we need drastically less of the former and drastically more of the latter . And if we take the latter approach and win, the work of governing is to make real change in people’s lives and earn their trust. As much as “performative activism” is a problem in elite circles, the vast majority of non-voters are not participating because of disenfranchisement and lack of faith the system can help them. The route to re-engaging those voters is building relationships with them and earning their confidence — not vote shaming.

Lastly, on the specific question of the “leverage” argument from #NeverBiden advocates, Chomsky again points out that this argument has been tried in the past: “Brings up some memories. In the early 1930s in Germany the communist party, following the Stalinist line at the time, took the position that everyone but us is a social fascist. So there’s no difference between the [German] Social Democrats [the main center-left party in Germany at the time] and the Nazis, and therefore we are not going to join with the social democrats to stop the Nazis. We know where that led.”

V) Conclusion

America is in crisis, but it is also on the cusp of a historic opportunity. COVID-19 has exposed the deep structural problems in our institutions, economy, and society, and we have the opportunity to fundamentally reimagine our social compact. Attitudes are shifting rapidly and there is a new majority rising that is ready to fight for a more fair, just, and resilient America. If we all give our civic best for the next 78 days, we will take a giant step towards that future.

So what can you do in that time?

1) Make sure you are registered to vote, and that all your friends and family are as well.

• This is an easy one. Go to https://www.vote.org (which has a wealth of resources) and check your records online. If you aren’t registered, simply fill out the online form the site links you to.
• Also make sure you have completed your 2020 census, which is critical for getting an accurate count.

2) Request an absentee ballot / Vote by mail early

• You want to vote as early as possible, so there is less of a crunch on election day. And if you are voting in person have a plan ready for when and where. You can plan out both fronts by visiting https://www.vote.org. Absentee ballots don’t have to be sent through the mail, and you can drop them off in person or at a drop-box location. To avoid putting strain on the USPS as Trump seeks to destroy it, you can drop off your mail-in ballot by googling your supervisor of elections.

3) Donate / Fundraise

• There are tons of organizations to choose from. You can donate to the Biden campaign directly, donate to efforts fighting voter suppression, or any other organization fighting to protect and get out the vote.
• You can also start your own fundraising efforts by clicking here to register for the Biden Victory Fund. Doing so will give you a personalized link you can send to friends and family, which will allow you to track progress. Resources in a Presidential campaign make all the difference, and Trump is sitting on an enormous war-chest.

4) Make calls / Use Your Voice

• You can make nationally distributed calls to voters in swing states through this link. The human touch can make a huge difference.
• You can also call your senator to demand they protect the U.S. Postal Service by calling 202–224–3121. This is an immediate crisis where every method of accountability must be applied. Demand Congress subpoena Postmaster Dejoy and hold him accountable. Members of Congress have mentioned using the body’s inherent contempt powers to arrest him if he refuses to comply, which is a weapon that should absolutely be on the table.
• You can call your local election officials to demand they ensure there are secure drop boxes widely available on election day by locating their information here.
• Talk with your friends and family about getting civically involved. Your personal approach will go much further than any other contact. And don’t be afraid to correct misinformation when you see it.

5) Volunteer on Election Day

• Many poll-workers are older and may be at more risk. You can sign up to be a poll worker by visiting powerthepolls.org.

With history watching, we have 78 days to leave it all on the field. If we all do our civic best, we can get through this crisis and emerge stronger by building a country that reflects our highest aspirations. Get after it.