Yes, all of this sucks. Yes, it’s borderline insulting to simply be told to go vote. Yes, we still have to do it anyway.
To put it bluntly, I’ve never been more afraid for the future of American democracy than I am right now.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but after we made it through the dark days between the 2020 election and the Electoral College vote count, I thought we were saved.
I spent those two months deeply worried about the lengths to which former President Trump would go to hold on to power — especially after meeting some of his more deranged supporters in Phoenix, one of whom went on to become the face of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
But the system held, or so I thought. Biden took office. Trump was gone. I didn’t necessarily think there was zero risk he’d be back, but I thought it was at least unlikely.
Now, here we are three-and-a-half years later, seemingly walking toward a cliff.
With Biden behind in the polls, just days after a stunningly embarrassing debate performance, the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States has elevated the powers of the presidency to an unprecedented status. And yet, Biden seemed to essentially reject the newfound power in his brief Monday night speech from the White House, simply telling Americans to go vote in November.
“Now, the American people have to do what the courts should have been willing to do and will not,” Biden said. “The American people have to render a judgment about Donald Trump’s behavior. The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy on Jan. 6 makes him unfit for public office — the highest office in the land. The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the president once again — the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.”
He closed out his speech not by promising to do everything in his power to keep democratic rule alive, but by calling on a higher power to do so.
“May God bless you all, and may God help preserve our democracy,” he said.
I don’t know what to say. Frankly, there absolutely is more that Democrats should have done and should be doing now to push back against a Supreme Court drunk on its own power.
Their failure to expand the Supreme Court while Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress will likely go down as one of the biggest political mistakes in history. And if the roles were reversed and a liberal-dominated court was somehow deluded enough to hand godlike power to the presidency during the Trump administration ahead of an expected Democratic victory, it’s difficult to imagine Trump not simply using some extralegal means to neutralize the court.
I don’t think it’s an overreaction to say that Biden should immediately take the court’s decision to its natural limits. Would Trump hesitate to simply arrest the liberal justices if the shoe were on the other foot? This is not a time for hand-wringing about rules and norms. This is a five-alarm fire. Five months out from what seems like a probable Trump victory and with the presidency having been remade overnight into an office that can act with absolute impunity, we are on the precipice of a dictatorship. And it seems that Biden simply won’t rise to meet the moment.
At the same time, this is simply the situation we are in. We have a deeply imperfect Democratic candidate up against a fascist. Sitting on our couches and being despondent about the choice will not fix anything.
I know that being told simply to go vote is an incredibly annoying — and borderline insulting — thing to hear after years and years and years of being told the same, just to still end up in this position. But, assuming we continue to have a democracy, we were always going to have to go vote over and over and over again anyway.
Voting is a tactical decision. Yes, it sucks to be told to pick the lesser of two evils every four years — particularly when the lesser evil should be fighting much harder against the greater one. But it is what it is.
Biden might not be reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision with the urgency that I think the moment requires. (And obviously that’s far from the only concern with Biden — I won’t litigate Israel and Gaza here, but criticism of the administration’s policies there are more than valid). However, voting for an imperfect candidate is obviously far better than staying home and handing victory to someone who will absolutely use the court’s decision to remake American democracy for the worse.
If Biden is all we got, then we have to get off our asses and vote for Biden, flawed as he may be. If you enjoy living in something resembling a democratic republic, there just isn’t another option.