Democracy Means Having the Conversation

Yes, we do have to talk about it.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the debate. Going into it, I understood the purpose, but at the end of the day, Trump is impossible. He is an incoherent liar with no social grace, no manners, and no passion for policy, people, or country. What does a win even look like against a man like that? 

Well, probably not like whatever happened on Thursday night. 

I watched the tweets come in, saw the chat blow up in the Vote Save America slack, fielded texts from family and friends, and it wasn’t good. From what I could tell, President Biden also sounded old, incoherent, and dispassionate about people and country, especially within the first twenty minutes. And while it is very clear from Biden’s performance in so many other arenas that he cares very deeply about us and our future, there remain questions about his age and coherence. 

I shut my computer, got in a fight with my sister over something stupid, and cried. Made up with my sister, got a hug, and took a deep breath. Texted a friend, got a phone call, cried again. In the moment, it felt like election night 2016 all over again - the stakes are that high, the results that devastating. 

Of course, it was not election night, and the results were not certain. In the immediate aftermath and over the weekend I heard from people who are one thousand percent sure that the only recourse is for Biden to step down as candidate, and people who are one thousand percent sure that standing behind Biden without question is the only option. I envy all of them their certainty. Volunteers in the VSA slack who made phone calls or knocked doors this weekend said the responses were good - people are concerned, but still supportive. And yet friends who have been working on convincing swing voters in their own lives to vote for Biden have said those swing voters balked on Thursday, and balked hard. 

This election has felt impossibly static since the Republican primarily faded not with a bang, but with a whimper. For the third presidential election in a row, Republicans nominated a chaotic criminal, someone whose only purpose in running for president is personal grievance and getting richer. And President Biden’s polling has been stuck in the low 40s/high 30s for most of his presidency, trailing Trump in the battleground states while the two of them are neck and neck in national polling averages. Nothing seems to have had much of an impact - no policy, speech, or campaign ad. Even Trump’s criminal conviction only shifted things a little. And there’s a decent chance Biden’s poor debate performance also has little negative impact on the polling. There’s a chance that most people out there already knew he was old, and they’ve already weighed it along with everything else. 

But for a major moment in a campaign that needs a major narrative shift, with millions of people tuned in and millions more who will see clips and content from this debate over the next four months, that there is almost no chance of a positive polling shift out of this debate is a problem. 

I’ll be honest, I don’t know if President Biden should drop out of the race. It would certainly get people’s attention if he did. Maybe it would be galvanizing to see a generational shift in our party - a dramatic step for what feels like an incredibly pivotal moment in our country and our politics. Maybe it would further fracture a party that already feels quite fractured over immigration and foreign policy. Maybe it would make people feel heard, and part of a process that often feels exclusionary to many reluctant and infrequent voters. Maybe it would make people feel like Democrats are too chaotic to lead. I simply do not know. And more importantly, I don’t think anyone else does either. 

I do know we have to talk about it, though. 

One of the things I’ve found most frustrating in our politics in the past decade or so is a tendency to try and dismiss the possibility that people might disagree with us. Pundits do it, organizers do it, candidates do it, presidents do it, random people on the internet do it. People aren’t actually unhappy with the economy, the media has just run too many negative economic stories. Voters didn’t choose the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary, the DNC did. Polling is wrong and Biden is really ahead. Everyone supports the same policy positions as me because I only talk to people who support those policy positions. No one could possibly want Biden to drop out and if they do it’s because they were brainwashed by Republicans and pundits. No one could possibly want Biden to stay in the race, and if they do it's because they’ve been brainwashed by the Biden campaign and the DNC. 

Just last week, New York Congressman Jamal Bowman lost his primary to the much less progressive George Latimer. This is in part because our campaign finance laws are broken and toothless and AIPAC was able to spend $20 million in the race. It’s also in part because the demographics of Bowman’s district changed because of redistricting. But it is also because there is, unfortunately, an appetite amongst Democratic voters for what George Latimer put forward and voters were not convinced by Bowman’s campaign or his record. 

We gain nothing by dismissing people’s experiences, and we can’t change minds or votes by telling people their thoughts and opinions are just byproducts of an elaborate conspiracy. I didn’t think Biden was the only person who could beat Trump in 2020 and I don’t think that now, and while I am wary of the chaos that might ensue if Biden were to drop out, I am not convinced the shake up wouldn’t be worth it. And no amount of accusing me of succumbing to Republican messaging or yelling at me about my disloyalty will change my mind. There is probably a convincing argument out there, but I’ll never hear it if no one makes it. 

The stakes in this election are enormous. The Republican policy platform is a horror show made up of bigotry, control, and fear. Republicans want to gut the federal government, take away rights, and destroy the environment. They’ll let Trump get away with untold corruption to do it. There’s a chance a Republican president would have the opportunity to confirm two or three more Supreme Court Justices, and would gleefully undo any progress we’ve made on addressing climate change and income inequality. We could end up with a national abortion ban, a proliferation of political violence, and even more global instability. The first Trump administration was a disaster that ended with a global pandemic that was infinitely worse worldwide because he was president. And the second term will be even worse. The guardrails will be the first thing to go. 

People are rightfully scared, and these conversations feel incredibly heavy, important, and honestly terrifying. We are all coming to this moment out of a desire to win and fear for what happens if we don’t. But the whole point of democracy is that we get to have them, that we make our case and persuade people. Sometimes we do that through volunteering, sometimes through protest, sometimes on TV and sometimes at the dinner table. For eight years, Republicans have been falling in line behind Trump, excommunicating from their party anyone who thinks they should pick a different leader. And it has made them more narrow-minded, more insular, more reactionary. And perhaps most importantly, more authoritarian. Democrats may be messier, but we’re also more democratic, and ultimately I think it makes us stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient. 

At the end of the day, whether Biden stays in the race or not, we all have the responsibility and the privilege to fight for our futures in this election. The stakes don’t change, and neither does the work. The question is merely what gives us our best chance in the fight ahead. But either way, I will be showing up to phone bank and to canvas for the candidates in each race most likely to fight for me, for my friends and family, my community, and my country. If Biden stays in the race, that includes him too. If he drops out, it includes whoever replaces him. And in each one of those conversations, I’ll make my case. And I hope to see you out there on the volunteer shifts doing the same. 

---

How to Save Democracy This Week
Get out the vote, or GOTV is a critical time in any election. In the last week or two before election day, volunteers across the country mobilize voters to get to the polls by making phone calls and knocking on doors. An easy way to bank some GOTV hours now though, is to write letters to voters through Vote Forward. 

Vote Forward is an organization that trains and supports volunteers who hand write heartfelt letters to voters and send them out in the weeks leading up to the election. Studies show that this has a real impact on turnout and can make a big difference in close elections. You can start now and if you write just one letter a day, you’ll reach over 120 voters before the end of October. 10 a week gets you to 160 voters. 

Sign up here and get started now! 

---

Use Your Voice to Fight for People in Gaza

Please keep calling your Representative and Senators in Congress, contacting the White House, and talking to your friends about pushing for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. You can also donate to help in Gaza here. Our government is enabling a humanitarian catastrophe and we need to use our power and our voice to stop it.