Thread by @dynamicsymmetry

The fact that the “alternative” to Bernie Sanders that people have coalesced around is Joe fucking Biden rather than easily the most competent person in the entire race is making me absolutely furious right now

Like I don’t even dislike Biden but come the fuck on

Warren is right there, being consistently amazing, and these motherfuckers

And you know, this is where I think a lot of the anger at the “establishment” is coming from. Some of it is bros being angry just for the high, but some of us are fucking sick to death of being told that we need to stop asking for things because people might get mad.

Because after a while that’s really what it starts feeling like. Shut up, sit down, stop expecting more, stop expecting anything to get significantly better, how dare you. Content yourself with a slow mediocre slide into oblivion.

Because if we got Bernie or Warren, I wouldn’t expect HUGE dramatic changes, but I think some measure of real change might happen, simply because of the starting position.

If we get Biden? I mean. I guess things might not be absolutely terrible. Best case scenario.

I think some things might get slightly better. I think some things probably get worse. I think when it comes to climate we’re pretty much fucked but I already thought that, I just think we’d probably be more fucked.

I do not expect my personal life to improve.

I do not expect the lives of most of the people I know to significantly improve in a material way under a Biden presidency. I think the downward spiral might stop. That’s it. Which is something, but why shouldn’t we expect more?

I’m 36 tomorrow and it makes me inexpressibly, volcanically angry that I’ve spent my late twenties and half my thirties looking at the rest of my life and feeling cautiously hopeful *at fucking BEST*.

What is Joe Biden offering me that’s better than that?

Joe fucking Biden, who I like as a person but dread as a president, is offering me essentially the world that was freaking me out before but maybe slightly better. He’s offering me the same shit sundae but he’s putting a cherry on it.

And I’m being told over and over and over by the James Carville of the world that I need to stop being unrealistic, stop expecting better than I’ve been given, sit down and be quiet and for the love of god stop being so angry WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY

You motherfuckers

Here’s the thing.

If it was just Bernie’s electability that scared them, if it was just that they think the socialism thing was too much of a liability in the general, Warren would have had more support from them.

I understand that there are a number of reasons why a party coalesces around a candidate and usually the dynamics are complex.

But I also can’t come to any conclusion other than that they think we should not have what Warren and Bernie are saying a just society requires.

Because let’s be real for a minute: the differences between Bernie and Warren in terms of what they’re running on are mostly cosmetic. The America they want to create is basically the same exact country. That’s why I consider myself firmly in both their camps.

I love them both because they’re telling me that I *can* ask for more, that we *can* do better, that we for the love of God CAN JOIN THE REST OF THE DEVELOPED WORLD FOR FUCKING FINALLY—and Joe Biden is telling me to sit down and shut up. Very kindly, but he is.

And I know we all want to beat Donald Trump. I know we have to. I know that.

But I also know we can do better and I’m sick of being told, in the most patronizing way possible, that we can’t.

I heard @moshekasher say something recently that made me pause the podcast and write it down because it smacked me in the face so damn hard.

“At some point we need to stop backing away from Trump and start walking toward the America we want to create.”

Tattoo that on my body.

Joe Biden is the America I already had. That America was not working for me. That America was not working for most of the people I know. That America was not working for *most people living in it*. I don’t want that America anymore.

And I am ready to fucking smack the next person who condescends to me for thinking I can fairly expect an America that works better.

And you know? I think Joe is a really good guy. I do. I think he’s a profoundly decent man in most respects.

(This is not an invitation to come tell me why he’s not, by the way. I’m not interested so don’t waste either of our time and I’m in a blocking mood.)

A decent man does not necessarily make a good president. Nor does it mean he actually wants to do what’s best for me and mine.

So if Joe Biden wins the nomination, I’ll donate to him, I’ll volunteer for him, I’ll work hard to get him elected.

But I will be doing so with a ball of cold lead in my gut.

Because yet again, they made me sit down and shut up and stop asking for anything better.

And that’s why we’re angry at you, Dem Establishment. That’s why we view you as a soft enemy. You’ve made yourself that, very effectively, over and over. We think you’re out to screw us because you persist in screwing us.

Elizabeth Warren hasn’t been painting you that way, but you’re out to screw her every bit as much as you’re out to screw Bernie. You’re out to screw anyone who offers more than what you think is the absolute limit for some mythical swing voter in the Midwest.

At best I get to exist on this planet for another sixty years. Maybe. Probably less. What you’re trying to sell me doesn’t make me excited or optimistic about those years. The man you’re using to sell it will not be alive for the vast majority of them.

I’m just so sick of this.

And yes, I am legitimately worried about a lot of people in my age cohort getting discouraged and disillusioned and that hurting us badly in the fall. I *do* sorry about Biden’s electability, precisely because I think he makes a lot of people feel the way I feel.

Bernie also has major electability challenges. So does Warren. But goddammit, they are exciting and powerful and they are offering us something BETTER.

But now. We need to sit down and shut up. And stop being so angry.

For the love of God, if you’re voting today, do not vote for Joe Biden just because you’re scared. Do not let fear be what drives you. If you want to vote for Warren, if your heart is pushing you that way, vote for her.

Stop backing away from Donald Trump and have the courage to walk toward the America you want to create. And if that America you want is better than what we’ve had, vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

But don’t jump back to what seems safe just because you’re afraid.

Don’t let them tell us to shut up and sit down again. Not again.

This isn’t even remotely over. Warren can still make herself the force she should be, if you help her. Bernie can still run away with this thing, if you help him.

They—yes, They, they aren’t even being coy about it—want that sense of inevitability. They want Biden to seem like so much of an unstoppable juggernaut that we get scared and give up, shut up and sit down. Because *they’re* scared. They’re scared of Trump, but also us.

I wish they wouldn’t be, I wish they would just recognize that progressivism is powerful and stop opposing it so fiercely if they can’t get behind it, but they’ve pretty clearly decided on how they’re oriented and I can’t change that.

Vote for who you want to be president. That’s really all. Just fucking vote for who you want to be president. Not who you think can win, not who you think is safe, not who you think won’t scare Mythical Midwest Swing Voter.

Vote for who you want to be president.

I want an 11/3/20 that shows me a world without Donald Trump. But I also want one that makes me feel like I can have better for my remaining sixty or so years than “cautiously hopeful at best”.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Love how I get this literally after I spent like fifty thousand tweets talking about how sick I am of being condescended to.

As I said, I’m in a blocking mood.