“You Felt the Bern, Now Feel the Finger”: Vote Biden 2020
Is My Bizarro Headline Sarcastic?
With Donald J. Trump dominating U.S. political news, it gets harder each day to tell which end is up. For example, interpreting Trump’s pronouncements now seems to require a special tutorial. Among other (incontestably dubious) achievements, he seems to have totally smashed the conventional connection between sarcasm and tone of voice.
Compounding this difficulty, Trump has made several seemingly crazy or wildly irresponsible statements on Twitter that he later (conveniently) claimed were sarcastic. Lacking a level of “stable genius” comparable to his own, average clueless readers lacked both the tone of voice and verbal context to identify these gems of Trumpean wit as sarcastic.
Pitying readers, in days when sarcasm requires virtually the Holy Spirit’s miraculous descent to distinguish from literal speech, I’ll scrupulously identify the sarcastic and literal portions of my probably bewildering title. To wit, I intend the first eight words (“You Felt the Bern, Now Feel the Finger”) as dripping sarcasm of the most bitter, scathing, venomous type — a sarcasm I hope goes so viral that it forces Biden’s removal as candidate. But (assuming Biden gets shoved down our deeply revulsed throats) I mean the three words after the colon (Vote Biden 2020) in a sense so literal, sincere, and heartfelt that I’d swear them not only on every existing manuscript of the Bible, but on the Zend-Avesta and Bhagavad Gita to boot.
Why, readers might rightly ask, bizarrely yoke two such diametrically opposed sentiments in the same headline? Because I’ve learned, as redoubtable progressive journalist Paul Jay argues fellow progressives all must, to “walk and chew gum” at the same time. Or, in other words, to fulfill the savorless duty of voting for lesser-evil Democrats while not for one second withholding honest, richly deserved criticism. In the case of our current lesser-evil, Joe Biden, I find fulfilling this duty so unsavory that the shopworn trope of holding one’s nose altogether ceases to apply. Instead, I’ll be forced to choke back my vomit — or perhaps more aptly, given current events, to submit to finger-rape. And I find overwhelming political reasons not to keep my simmering disgust to myself.
A Groundbreaking 2020 Strategy: “Weaponizing” Lesser-Evil Voting
Not merely are the two electable presidential candidates loathsome beyond all precedent. The impermissibly populist Bernie Sanders has provoked into plain sight an utter contempt for progressives establishment Democrats once manfully strove to conceal, so I’m certain many fellow progressives share my “simmering disgust” at pulling the ‘D’ lever. Still, with Trump’s reptilian menace surpassing even the lowest expectations, I remain firmly convinced of our obligation to perform this stomach-turning duty. I can’t honestly implore other progressives to follow my example — as I plan to here — without acknowledging the violence to decent sentiments it entails. Democrats — above all in the shape of Biden — have done literally nothing to earn progressives’ support. So we should vehemently refuse to give it, even as we surrender our votes.
Now, simply surrendering our votes in silence would amount to an act of abject despair, a rewarding of bad behavior that does absolute diddly-squat to advance our noble, civilization-saving aims (summarized in the Green New Deal). Worse yet, it would fix Democrats more firmly than ever in smug, self-righteous contempt for our views. If we do submit — as Trump-based extortion dictates we must — to Democrats’ finger-rape, there’s no reason in the world we can’t “walk and chew gum,” surrendering our progressive purity while simultaneously “screaming rape.” Indeed, by organizing in advance, we can collectively do so at ear-shattering decibel levels. That is what I mean by “weaponizing” lesser-evil voting.
But weaponized lesser-evil voting serves a far deeper strategic purpose than mere cathartic release of simmering progressive rage. By making the degradation of voting for Biden easier to swallow, it’s probably justified on that ground alone, provided it motivates us to help defeat the civilization-threatening Trump. Regrettably, it might also appear juvenile on such grounds, creating undeserved bad optics for marginalized progressives merely motivating ourselves to perform a nauseating civic duty. If Democrats want our votes, they should really stop making us hate them; we can only take so much. However, weaponized lesser-evil voting finds its deeper justification as lynchpin of a novel, farsighted progressive strategy — one I plan to sketch here.
But Did Joe Do It? Democrats Are Guilty as Hell, in Any Case
Readers may think I’m being grossly unjust, rushing to believe a sexual assault charge there’s not yet, and probably never will be, sufficient evidence to prove. And yes, in dwelling on finger-rape I am serving as judge, jury, and hangman — though not chiefly of Joe Biden (whom I do, for the record, wholeheartedly detest), but of today’s beyond-hypocritical Democratic Party.
For starters, Democrats were prepared to lynch Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on far slighter evidence than Tara Reade has brought against Biden. First off, three witnesses recall having conversations where Reade expressed related concerns not long after Biden’s purported assault; to one she confided the alleged assault itself. Additionally, there’s the worried, if vaguely detailed, contemporary phone call Reade’s mother made to the Larry King Live show. Finally, I noticed one striking corroborating detail that hasn’t received attention elsewhere: the words Reade attributed to Biden as she was (purportedly) pushing him away. “Come on man, I heard you liked me” sounds so much like Biden’s speaking style that Reade would require the talents of a world-class novelist to invent it. (Of course, her being an admiring staffer who hung on his every word might alternatively account for her spot-on accuracy in replicating his unique “voice print.”)
Knowing Biden’s documented history of inappropriate touching, the details just cited make Reade’s allegations at least credible. And, it would hardly be the first time the fatal male “fire triangle” of power, lust, and opportunity, dating at least to King David, erupted into flaming misdeeds. For Democrats so professedly ready to embrace the Me Too standard of “believing women” — especially in Kavanaugh’s case — the hypocrisy surrounding Biden’s is absolutely breathtaking.
For a great summary of all of this, read the new story in The Nation. Given The Nation’s longstanding stature as an iconic liberal publication, its keeping alive and crediting Reade’s allegations may very well serve as a wake-up call to liberals that Biden needs to be toast. But even if that happens, the validity of the finger-rape metaphor (for reasons we shall soon explore) remain as strong as ever.
But another aspect of Democrats’ hypocrisy is far more damning. For reasons that partially track my own (but are considerably shallower), the Dem establishment has long tried to persuade us that Trump is Hitler incarnate, and then some. If the future of civilization itself hangs in the balance, why then circle the party wagons around a deeply damaged candidate like Biden, one exhibiting credible signs of progressive dementia even before the finger-rape charges emerged?
Why indeed? The answer, I suspect, lies in a talk Biden gave to wealthy donors at a ritzy Manhattan fundraiser. Like Hillary Clinton before him, Biden is the quintessential establishment candidate. Also like Hillary, Biden speaks with a forked tongue, having one position for Wall Street intimates and another for the poor rubes of the general public. If you want the Gospel truth, simply follow the fork that speaks to Wall Street. In Biden’s case, that fork proclaimed “no one’s standard of living would change, nothing fundamental would change” if he was elected president. You can literally take those words to the bank, and Biden’s expression of unfeigned love to Democrats’ deepest-pocketed donors seems a sufficient and satisfying reason why Democrats would risk handing humanity over to Hitler’s demon spawn for such a flawed candidate.
That’s simply wrong in too many ways to name, a level of moral malpractice analogous at least to finger-rape, if not to the rape “full monty.” But I reserve “full-monty rape” (and then some) for Trump and Republicans, which brings us to the heart of our discussion.
Finger-Rape: Our Most Astute Political Metaphor
When it comes to organizing around the slogan “You Felt the Bern, Now Feel the Finger,” the truth of the finger-rape allegations against Biden is almost irrelevant. Leaving the rape aspect aside, Democrats have been “giving the finger” — to progressives, the working class, the poor, and the common good — from what now seems time immemorial. Involuntarily, Tara Reade did progressive agitators who “felt the Bern” a profound favor in drawing attention to fingers, for nothing feels more to us like “getting the finger” than the sudden, brutal, all-encompassing way the Democratic establishment circled its wagons around such a flimsy vessel as Biden.
Now, considering the serious allegations — ignored for weeks by Democrats — even further damaging Biden’s deeply flawed candidacy, this suddenly feels less like getting the finger than finger-rape. Stopping Bernie at all costs (evidently for the benefit of Biden-loving Wall Street donors) was such a priority that risking handing a second term to a president Democrats routinely stigmatized as Hitler-on-steroids simply carried no weight. Often stigmatized by leftists as a “sheepdog” for Democrats, Bernie unwittingly served as a bird-dog, flushing establishment Dems’ contempt and hatred for progressives into brightly lit clearings for everyone to see.
While the finger-rape metaphor well captures progressives’ and Berners’ current feelings, its political significance goes far deeper. On the one hand, it pinpoints Democrats’ moral irresponsibility — a level of recklessness much worse than “giving the finger” — toward humanity’s common good by placing all bets on Biden, thereby risking the monstrous Trump’s reelection for sake of pleasing Wall Street. On the other hand, it beautifully captures the relative evil of our two major parties. Democrats now commit the political equivalent of sexual assault — a pretty grievous crime — and are like finger-rapists. Republicans, by contrast, are in Noam Chomsky’s words, “the most dangerous organization in world history,” performing at minimum brutal outright rape, though rape-murder may be a better analogy.
Vote Biden 2020: Make America Safe for Revolt
When the only two parties capable of winning U.S. elections are best compared to finger-rapists and brutal rapist-murderers, we’re forcefully led to another conclusion that Chomsky (among others) has drawn: that we’re living in a failed state. While Chomsky does emphasize the urgency of ridding our nation of Trump, most leftists who agree with him regard the upcoming election as virtually meaningless, emphasizing instead the necessity of civil disobedience and peaceful street revolt.
Here, I beg to differ with fellow leftists, and even with Chomsky, who doesn’t see in the upcoming election any urgent opportunity other than the one for getting rid of Trump. The metaphorical — and rhetorical — usefulness of viewing Democrats as finger-rapists and Republicans as brutal rapist-murderers has led me to see strategic opportunities in the upcoming election that far exceed choking back our vomit (or submitting to finger-rape) and voting for Biden to rid ourselves of Trump. By organizing to express our disgust at submitting to finger-rape, we can make the 2020 election an occasion to raise consciousness in order to recruit for revolt. Revolt precisely at living in a failed state: a state that offers only the disgusting choice of “finger-rapist” Biden and “brutal rapist-murderer” Trump.
Of course, not merely expressing our disgust in terms of our metaphor, but letting its terms dictate how we vote, deeply matters. Since we’re recruiting for a needed revolt, we must judge that it’s much safer to revolt under a finger-rapist than a brutal rapist-murderer. Speaking in more literal terms, revolting on behalf of a peaceful Green New Deal is vastly safer under a science-believing climate do-nothing like Biden than under a science-hating climate-destroying driller-at-all-costs like Trump. Here my old article on fossil fuels necessarily becoming “fascist fuels” seems quite relevant. So “Vote Biden 2020: Make America Safe for Revolt” should become both our motivation and rallying cry.
Bottom line: We should “Vote with Disgust, to Recruit for Revolt.” In my next piece I’ll discuss the nuts and bolts of weaponizing lesser-evil voting and recruiting for revolt through a “Failed State Voters” campaign.