Coop Scoop: If You "Can't" Vote for Biden Then Vote for the Court

This is an election between two different teams not just two men

June 19-20, 2024

by Marc Cooper

There’s only 139 days left before American voters decide the future course of the nation and I remain among those who are rather dumbfounded by the lack of gravity invested in this existential moment.  

It’s quite disorienting. It’s like being on a crowded vacation beach with what looks like a tidal wave forming offshore while everybody just puts on more sunscreen and turns up the radio. 

It’s an easy target but a legitimate one in singling out the media that, rather obsessively, continue to treat the 2024 as just one more normal election. 

It is far from that.

It is an organized, well-financed and powerful attempt to hobble American democracy and create a new government structure where power is ever more concentrated  in the executive. It is not a symmetrical horse race between two old men.  It is an ongoing revolutionary and subversive attempt by the Republican Party to gain absolute power even in the form of minority rule.  It is a life and death challenge to our democratic institutions. And while they may be flawed, Trump’s alternatives are hair-raising.

A second Trump administration would forever change our way of life and not in any positive way.  And yet…. With the party conventions barely a month away I continue to read a ton of dizzying gibberish every single day about the contours of the race.  I did not have a pen in the car to take notes but I was literally shocked to hear a pinhead from Politico on CNN describing, (cliché alert) The Veepstakes.  And as she ticked off the names of the grifters and dumb bells and extremists that Trump is considering, she listed what she called each of their “attributes” with no hint whatsoever that there might be something shady about this crew.  “Rubio, you know, he’s a serious guy with real support.” It was mind -numbing!

That leads me to what is the number one irritant for me these days.  Declaration after another by lefties, progressives and some liberals bemoaning how they just cannot possibly bring themselves to vote for a wretch like Joe Biden.  I see in this morning’s poll, that the combination of Jill Stein, Cornel West and Chase Oliver (Libertarian) suck up 7% of Biden’s possible vote.   That’s an electoral death sentence.  And that’s without factoring another bite that RFK might take.

I and many others have said it before so I will keep it to one sentence.  Any third party is a vote for Donald Trump you make.  Voting third party in 2024 might relieve you of the moral stain of re-electing “Genocide Joe” but at the cost of providing at least indirect support for a Fascist opponent.

So how can we overcome your moral balk to vote for Biden?  How about this: understand an election is not about just one guy against another it’s about one team against another,  Each team has different policies.  Generally speaking the Democrats have been more humane than the Republicans but nothing to write home about.  But please note there are no more Republicans.  They have been replaced by extremist MAGA adherents, many of whom think Trump is too liberal!

I understand if you see Biden as weak and decrepit and physically unstable.  That’s what you are told 24/7 and it is clearly based on a modicum of truth, though not entirely.  So is Trump, by the way. He cannot articulate a single coherent paragraph.  But whoever wins will be able to make 5000 political appointments to all of our key agencies.  So, those of you who oppose Biden’s policies in Gaza (as I do), which one of these guys do you want putting together a Middle East team?  Trump has already urged the Israelis to “hurry up” and get the job done.  And some of his advisors have openly mused about pushing the Palestinians permanently into Egypt. If I recall correctly, Trumps’ point man in the Middle East was Jared Kushner who accomplished absolutely nothing except pocketing a $2b gift investment from the good people over in Saudi Arabia.

Am I saying the Biden is the lesser of two evils when it comes to Israel?  Yes, I am!  If you think that is not important than maybe you should think less about your political purity and more about the welfare of the Gazans whose blood will spill in greater quantities under Trump. It is NOT a moral crime to choose the lesser of two evils if the lesser will do less damage.

Those of you who are planning to vote Green because Biden failed to pass Medicare for All also better rethink your errant and emotional position. Just a as an FYI, that bill was killed not by Biden but by Manchin-Sinema.  Anyway, yes, I am a fervent supporter of Medicare for All and I will vote for Joe Biden even though he did not get it through.  Maybe you are younger than me, I am 73, and you think social security won’t be around when u want to retire. Under the Republicans you can bet the house on that.  Under the Democrats, with all of their manifold flaws, I am going to say social security in some form will be safe.  Under Jill Stein nothing is going to happen to anything because she will never be elected, though she might get another dinner invite from Vlad if she helps take down Biden.

But we don’t have to wait years to see if this is true. Senate Republicans have already announced that if they control congress next year they will raise the retirement age again.  Do you like that?  Do you think shredding of social security is a proper price to pay for rejecting an 81 yr old guy who is slow and walks funny? Are you that superficial in your thinking?  So if you are on the younger side, you are going to still cast a vote against your future welfare or that of your parents?

The most important appointment presidents make is to the Supreme Court.  I guess I am burying the lede in shouting out: “If you cannot bring yourself to vote for Joe Biden then goddamnit vote for a Biden Supreme Court!”  Republican voters have understood this for decades and we see the results.  Democrats, not so much and we see the results.  Presently, SCOTUS is the most powerful extremist branch of government, completely rogue, completely unaccountable, frenzily legislating from the bench while its more noxious members are now openly talking about banning gay marriage and….drumroll….birth control!  This is the handiwork of the creatures appointed by Trump and previous Republicans.

Are you enjoying this?  Great! Because voting for a third party might open the door to extending the extremist majority domination for another 30-40 years.  I explain.  The two most corrupt MAGAist justices, Thomas and Alito are in their 70’s.   They have also demonstrated a proclivity for accepting expensive gifts.  So in comes a second Trump administration and very likely with a small Senate majority that allows confirmations, what do you think the Trumpanzees are going to do about the Court?  I know what I would do.

I would put together two nice retirement packages worth millions (corporate board seats, academic titles, and all sorts of crooked relationships with white shoe law firms. You know, make them offers they cannot refuse. And when they take their buy out, you replace them with 40 something screaming meemies like Josh Hawley or Aileen Cannon (the Queen of Palm Beach Justice) who will be able to persist for another 30 years or more.  Further, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor is no spring chicken.  I wish her well but if she were to leave the bench under Trump Two we would wind up with an 8-2 right wing majority. Unthinkable.

What do you think America  will look like after another decade or two of a runaway reactionary Supreme Court? 

Just one final thought on SCOTUS.  Given the political math at the moment it is far from impossible that Biden could win the White House while the GOP takes both houses of congress.  As of now, the democratic hold on the Senate is tenuous to say the least. Just as the GOP hold is on the House.  But, if the Republicans wind up controlling congress under a Biden White House what will be the first bill to pass that congress?  A national abortion ban.  That is something that Biden would bury with an immediate veto.  Trump would call a national celebration.

I am voting for Joe Biden because I want him and not Donald Trump to fill any SCOTUS openings.  Cornel West won’t fill any. Nor will Jill Stein. Nor RFK Jr.  None will ever reach elected office of any sort and  If they are at all remembered by history it will be as a Trump Fifth Column.  And I say this with great regret and sadness as in the past I have worked closely with Cornel West (the 2000 Shadow Conventions) and have respected him.  But he has terribly lost his way and unfortunately it is quite obviously for him a personal matter as he felt jilted by Obama.  Not a good enough excuse, pal.

In sum, walking into the voting booth, or contemplating boycotting it, is an individual act but it has collective consequences.  If you are balancing your decision on what will make you feel better, then you really do not contribute much of anything to the greater community. Nobody gives a damn how you feel, especially about yourself. That is the pinnacle of narcissism. 

If you are a serious person, if you are a responsible person, if you are not a self-centered snowflake basking in your divine purity and spending all your time attacking your potential allies as centrists, Zionists, neocons, liberals or whatever, then you must think about voting strictly in terms of how its consequences will affect all of us. Including yourself, your family, your heirs.  Don’t be stupid as the price for an error this time around will be devastating. ++

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