In Vermont, Even Republicans Vote For Bernie
Geoff Duncan, a former baseball player with the Florida Marlins, was elected to the Georgia House in 2012 and, six years later, lieutenant governor of Georgia. He refused to go along with Trump’s false claims that there was something wrong with the voting in 2020 and that Trump was the real winner. He made it to the top of Trump’s enemies list. Yesterday, Duncan addressed other mainstream Republicans with an OpEd in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining why it won’t be enough to just stay home in November; he says Republicans like himself should vote for Biden.
He wrote that he was disappointed that some of Señor T’s “fiercest detractors” within the GOP— he name-checked Mitch McConnell. Chris Sununu and Bill Barr— have fallen in line behind Trump. “This mentality, he asserted,” is dead wrong.”
I could care less if they ever rebuild— and I doubt they will, although I have no doubt there will be a conservative party and a fascist party competing for votes— but I’m not Duncan's audience. Non-MAGA Republicans and right-leaning swing voters are. He pointed out the obvious, namely that the alternative to a less than ideal Biden “is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star. Most important, Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one.”
Those holding their nose and falling behind Trump tend to rely on similar arguments. Sometimes it involves, as Barr stated in his CNN interview, the, “duty to pick the person who I think would do the least damage to the country.”
Ironically, having served as his attorney general until December 2020, Barr saw firsthand Trump’s ability to cause damage. Barr’s declaration that the U.S. Justice Department uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election infuriated his boss and set off a chain of events that ended with Jan. 6.
Trump and his allies hatched cockamamie schemes that included fake slates of electors and have led to indictments (so far) in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia. They spread wild-eyed conspiracy theories that resulted in defamation lawsuits, including a $148 million verdict against former Trump lawyer and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Other reluctant Trump supporters will cite their policy differences with Biden. Or Trump’s accomplishments as president, ranging from the Tax Curs and Jobs Act of 2017 to three appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. Or they will point to the sense of chaos sweeping the nation right now, most notably the widespread anti-Israel protests at college campuses.
I get it. No one likes paying higher taxes, and these protests are unsettling. But the last year of the Trump presidency was hardly a time of tranquillity. His handling of the pandemic was erratic, including at one point musing about consuming disinfectants. His reliance on incendiary phrases such as “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” fueled racial unrest. His infamous march to St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street from the White House, flanked by top aides (including Barr) and brandishing a Bible, further set the nation ablaze.
Trump has shown us who he is. We should believe him. To think he is going to change at the age of 77 is beyond improbable.
Yet each new day increases the possibility of a second Trump presidency. Voters’ memories are short. A new CNN survey showed a majority (55%) of all Americans viewing Trump’s presidency as a success, while 44% see it as a failure. Compare that with Biden, whom only 39% call a success compared with 61% who think his term has been a failure. The same poll shows Trump with a 6-point national polling lead over Biden, whose approval rating (38%) is well below the 50% threshold of reelected incumbent presidents.
The situation is equally bleak in the battleground states that will determine the next occupant of the White House. A recent poll from the Wall Street Journal showed Trump leading in six out of seven of those states. If these results hold, he will have more than enough electoral votes for a second term.
The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country). A forthcoming Time magazine cover story lays out in stark terms “the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.”
Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.
I wonder what Republicans like Duncan would do if instead of a pretty moderate Democrat like Biden was president, it was Bernie Sanders. It probably wouldn’tt matter that much because I’d guess President Sanders’ approval rating would be through the roof— just like his approval rating as a senator is, usually the top or one of the top in of the 100 senators year after year. In any case, Bernie announced yesterday that he’s going to do another 6 years in the Senate. He seems vigorous and fit, far more so than either Biden or Trump, and he’s 82.
So why bother? He told his supporters that “we are looking at the very real possibility that Donald Trump— the most dangerous president in American history— could become President of the United States once again. And within that reality there is the very real question of whether or not the United States will even continue to function as a democracy.”
Of course that isn’t the only reason he’s running again. He wrote that “Our country continues to have unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequality with the billionaire class exercising enormous power over our economic and policy systems. While the very rich become much richer, 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, many struggle to put food on the table and we have the highest rate of child poverty of almost any major country on earth. As we fight to protect a woman’s right to control her own body, one out of four Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescriptions their doctors write, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and our life expectancy is declining. And there is the not-so-small matter of a climate emergency that threatens the very habitability of our planet for future generations.”
“And the truth is,” he concluded, “because of the way people like you have helped to amplify my voice with extraordinary grassroots support and because of my position as Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee I am in a strong position— and am as motivated as ever— to make a difference on these issues and many others.”
Hopefully, he’ll continue inspiring future generations of progressive leaders like congressional candidates AOC, Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, David Siegel, Susheela Jayapal, Delia Ramirez, Cori Bush, Andy Levin, Greg Casar, Becca Balint, Jasmine Crockett, Nina Turner and others who will keep working for a progressive agenda in a context of corporate conservatism and outright fascism dominating U.S. politics.
Blue America has only endorsed 2 Senate incumbents this cycle and 3 challengers. Obviously Bernie is first and foremost. But all of them are great candidates. Please take a look… and please contribute what you can.