So, I know that some of you are less than thrilled with Biden’s VP choice. I hear you. I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I hear you. Senator Harris is not exactly a bastion of Liberal/Progressive excess (despite the Right’s whining). Neither is Mr. Biden, for that matter. Hey, I wanted Senator Warren to be atop the ticket from the giddy-up! But it is what it is. Frankly, I’m not as disappointed as some of you seem to be with this ticket. It’s not as exciting as 1960, 1992, or 2008, mind you, but we could’ve done a whole lot worse. (We already are, remember!)
So, the Short Game is easy. There is only one mission for November—win the Triple Crown! Take back the White House and the Senate, and retain the House. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS! (Well, yes, clearly the Census matters, too.) If Bugs Bunny and Daffy-Damned-Duck have “Ds” next to their names in your state on the Senate and House lines, you’d better be a Warner-Brothers/Looney-Tunes-votin’-for-so-and-so…period!
Why? Because of the Long Game. For everyone who is saying that Biden-Harris is not Progressive enough…well, you’re correct. But tell me, are they more or less Progressive than the alternative? Obviously I’m not the first or only one to make this point, but I’m going to make it nonetheless. The Progressive wing will be the foundation of the Dems victories in November, make no mistake. And those who ride that wave won’t forget it…we won’t LET them forget it this time! But there are still votes/voters in the middle who we cannot afford to lose to the other side. If picking a Progressive VP costs us the race, what was the point? Now, I’m not saying that it necessarily would have cost us the race, just that it’s a risk I can see the logic in avoiding. Because we have simply got to win the Triple Crown, and the best chance of that happening is with us taking the center of the board. (There’s a reason why “Pawn to King 4” is the first move of most well-played chess matches, and why 3-on-2 fast breaks in hoops, soccer and hockey prefer to put the ball/puck in the hands of the person in the middle.)
What we have to remember is that the other side plays to win! They’ll do whatever it takes. Because they’ve had their eyes on the Long Game since even before Roe-v-Wade, but damn sure ever since it. While we always try to “play fair.” Well, I’m sick of losing fairly! I want to win, by any means necessary. Because I think this year is that important, and I know you do, too.
So, yes, we’ll have somewhat of a Centrist ticket at the top, because that’s the surest road to victory. But once we win the Triple Crown, it’s time to take off the Nice Guy hat and get down to business. And we on the Progressive flank will have to raise our voices just as loudly as if we had lost, until we get the attention of those we just helped put in office. On ALL of the issues: climate change, gun control legislation, immigration, health care reform, reproductive rights, minimum wage increases, tax code revisions, campaign finance reform, de-funding the police state, equal pay for women, or even LONGER-Game plays, like, increasing the size of the Supreme Court, or removing the Electoral College, yadda-yadda-yadda, we need to make sure that the people WE put in office, are accountable to US.
Whether it’s AOC, or Senator Warren, or Senator Booker, or Stacey Abrams, or Julian Castro, etc, etc, I want to see Progressives in the Cabinet, and at the forefront of every decision-making conversation. And I want to see the perps who will be leaving office, prosecuted! No more of this nonsense about a peaceful transfer of power; these people were the most corrupt Administration in US history! There has to be a price to pay for that, as a means of discouraging anyone in the future from trying that BS again! Due process, sure, but I’m talking about: taxes disclosed, subpoenas enforced, NDAs absolved, pardons rescinded…the whole nine yards. We deserve the truth, and if there’s been no crimes, well, then there was no need to hide behind the shroud of secrecy, was there? If we don’t do these things, what will deter anyone from pulling this same type of scam in 2024 or beyond? 45, Barr, Flynn, Stone, etc, need to be under investigation before onset of Spring 2021. And we need to make it clear that we won’t settle for anything less.
From where I sit, that’s sounds like just about the bare minimum we should ask for in exchange for us getting behind a less-than-Progressive ticket. We just don’t have to ask for it out loud…yet.