In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.

What I don’t like to hear, in the primary, is the ‘you have to vote for the candidate who can win’ line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that “x can’t possibly win” the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.

In the general, between dem and gop control, it’s not a close contest for me; it’s between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.

Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it’s hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate “risky” isn’t just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.

I’m glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I’m also sooo tired of being told ‘we can’t nominate a progressive, they’ll be called a communist’ when no matter who we nominate they’ll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal