There's something about the prospect of the remaining couple of weeks of a two-man contest between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders that I am not looking forward to. I have a lot of respect for both men and I could vote for either of them and justify my vote entirely. But the prospect of the next few weeks (I genuinely think it will only be a few weeks) of randos and not-so-randos trying to talk shit about Bernie's heart and Joe's brain is basically going to bring us all down to the fucking floor of the discourse.
It just didn't have to be like this, and a part of me feels deeply it shouldn't have been. When I say "heart" and "brain", I'm talking about the literal organs of two gentlemen in their seventies, amply gifted with both, metaphorically. They are both older than my dad, and I'm as old now as Obama was when he ran--twelve years ago. They are both older than Trump, who, despite the fluffing by his flacks, flunkeys and fawners, is, under the bronze paintjob and teased hair helmet, looking especially decrepit and deluded these days.
I can't get away from the idea that the metaphorical "heart" and "head" of the Democratic party arguments could have been waged more usefully by a different field. If this had come down to Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, maybe we'd be seeing this a different way. What would a Yang/Castro debate have looked like?
I think it would have looked a lot like the future of our party.
Just a little while ago, I cosigned on Twitter with the idea that maybe, this primary could have been better if both of these good gentlemen, Sanders and Biden, never even ran. They represent a lot of the history of the political left in this country, but owning that, they have baggage. And a lot of it is old news and not relevant to now. I don't give a fuck about what Biden thought about abortion in 1974, or what Sanders had to say about South/Central American socialism in the early 1980's. I would really like 2020 to be about 2020, and the landscape of encroaching fascism, nationalism, income inequality, wealth centralization, climate change, social media disinformation, and the massive disruptions that will be the fallout of the KSA/Iran influenced conflicts, the ongoing non-governmental group terrorism, and climate-change and possibly disease-fueled population relocations.
Deep down, I think they would do better things by any stretch than Trump is doing so far. Trump is a liar, a con-artist, and a disaster. But I wanted better than okay. This is by no means a case of me being demotivated in the struggle.
I want Trump taken down. That is enough. I want his nose rubbed in it. If this needs to be a demolition derby of septuagenarians, so be it. I just want Trump gone. I'll take a win over whatever machine made that son of a bitch.
Part of me just wished the vehicle of our wished-for victory was more, I don't know. I guess "not really old and kinda divisive". That said, I have my leanings, both heart and head. And I think a Democratic Senate is more important than the White House, in some ways. Also, I still don't know what Gabbard is running for, but it isn't the 2020 nomination, so she should give that up.
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