Let me say up front that neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris were my candidates, Bernie Sanders was. I served as one of Bernie’s volunteer staging location directors, and volunteered door-to-door for him in six states, organizing others to do the same.
I continue to disagree strongly with centrists in the Democratic Party on many points, from their allegiance to the health care insurers to their complicity in imperialist foreign policy. Democratic debate between the progressive vision and the centrist agenda will no doubt continue in force on Nov. 4 — the day after the election — assuming we have a democracy left to debate them in.
Which brings me to Biden. Literally. A “Biden for President” sign now stands on my lawn where Bernie’s once stood. Like many other progressives, I’m now a Biden donor, and volunteering for multiple phone banks each week for him and key Democratic Senate challengers. It’s time for all progressives to join in.
I’m convinced that if we don’t decisively defeat Trump and the Republican Senate majority on Nov. 3, there’s a pronounced risk of fascism in our country. Trump’s talk of postponing the election, his suggestion he might not accept the election results, and the survey finding a majority of Trump’s supporters won’t accept a Biden victory by mailed ballots, are taking us right up to the edge. Even the right-leaning Federalist Society’s cofounder, Steven Calabresi, labeled Trump’s election postponement talk “fascistic.”
Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, warned “there will never be a peaceful transition of power” if Trump fails in his 2020 reelection bid. Perhaps Portland was just a trial run — the mayors of a dozen cities wrote Trump complaining his tactics in Portland were those “we expect from authoritarian regimes — not our democracy.”
Trump regularly applauds political violence or the threat of it, from his professed “love [of] the old days” when hecklers would be “carried out on a stretcher,” to praising Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte, R-Montana, after he assaulted a reporter. Trump tacitly encouraged armed demonstrations at the Michigan state capitol, tweeting “Liberate Michigan!” after an armed protest against the Democratic governor occurred there. Ominously, Trump asserted in 2019, “I have the support of the police, . . . the military, . . . the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
Trump dangerously claimed: “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total.” Trump has attempted to discredit or replace independent voices that could restrain his authoritarian overreach. He repeatedly invokes “national emergencies” to bypass Congress. He condemns the press as the “enemy of the people.” He got rid of an attorney general who didn’t “protect” him. He’s fired a record number of inspectors general — federal officials charged with preventing government fraud and abuse.
Working feverishly with the Republican Senate, Trump has appointed roughly 25% of our federal judges, including 53 federal appeals court judges, and, so far, two Supreme Court justices. We can only pray these judges keep their constitutional oath better than many Senate Republicans. Now, as the U.S. mail has become the one indispensable federal component of most states’ timely and accurate voting, he has installed a Trump loyalist as postmaster general.
Despite claiming to be the “president of law and order,” Trump’s contempt for the spirit, if not the letter, of the law is obvious. He reportedly told officials he’d pardon them if they had to violate laws to get his wall built. He threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, in violation of international law, which his own defense secretary balked at. On top of his Ukraine schemes, he privately asked the Chinese president for help winning the U.S. election, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and publicly suggested China should start an investigation into the Bidens. (U.S. law generally bans soliciting or receiving anything of value for an election from foreign nationals.)
A Trump victory would foreclose a progressive future, perhaps indefinitely. It would mean more progressive activists arrested, or worse, in the streets, if not in their offices.
Progressives and centrists have a common stake in preserving our democracy and stopping the threat of fascism posed by Trump and his Republican enablers. Together, we can make sure Biden and Harris and all the Democratic Senate challengers prevail on Nov. 3. We should have one purpose as one united front.
Rudy Perkins lives in Amherst.