Jill Biden: 'Maybe you have to swallow a little' and vote for Joe - A Commentary On Our Political Times

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Former Vice President Joe Biden listens to his wife, Jill, during an address last year. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Former Vice President Joe Biden listens to his wife, Jill, during an address last year. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Jill Biden was at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Monday, supporting her husband Joe Biden’s bid for the Democratic nomination. And well, she was honest as hell about the makeup of this race toward the Democratic nomination and the decision we’re all facing in this 2020 Presidential election. Courtesy of Yahoo! News:

Former second lady Jill Biden made an unusually honest pitch to voters on Monday for her husband to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.

“I know that not all of you are committed to my husband, and I respect that,” she said at a campaign event in Nashua, N.H. “But I want you to think about your candidate, his or her electability, and who’s going to win this race.”

“Your candidate might be better on, I don’t know, health care, than Joe is,” she continued. “But you’ve got to look at who’s going to win this election. And maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, ‘OK, I personally like so and so better,’ but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump.”

She added: “So I think if your goal — I know my goal — is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him.”

Just gonna lay it all out on the table, huh Jill?

I mean, I guess I can appreciate the honesty of her appeal. I suppose I can appreciate the candor of it all because this is legitimately how I feel about this whole election cycle and campaign push by the Democrats right now. There are a few candidates that I think are seeking this nomination because they want to impact change. The thing is I don’t necessarily think Joe Biden is one of those candidates. I think he believes he should be President because he “earned it”. This is the predestined next logical and final step in his political career.

Oh - and “Obama”, seeing how he likes to make sure we know he and Barry are pals.

With that brash confidence comes egotism that resonates with a large swath of voters. Joe Biden is way ahead of the other Democratic candidates in state and national polling. If the primaries hash out in the same direction as the polling has then we are looking at having to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And I'm gonna choose Joe. Not because I want to choose Joe, mind you, but because I'm going to need to make a decision between two problematic older white cis men and he's the...least problematic.

Damn. "Least problematic".

Look at me, y'all, quantifying how "bad" one problematic older white cis man is over another because one is less likely to do major harm to myself or others through their words, their platform, their policies and the overall weight of their white supremacy.

And here’s the kicker: this was the same tactic the DNC tried to wield in the 2016 election when Hilary Clinton received the Democratic nomination and Bernie Sanders supporters were…less than pleased. The RNC did this in 2016 when Republicans did not want to vote for the person who is the current President of the United States. And the current President is imploring a similar tactic right now to try and retain his base, whose support is beginning to waver as he continues to institute polices and tax breaks that cripple their business and livelihood. Again, courtesy of Yahoo! News:

Urging voters to compromise on certain issues while considering a candidate’s electability is common. In 2016, progressive voters who backed Sanders were urged to vote for Hillary Clinton.

And Republicans with reservations about Trump’s behavior were urged to swallow a “bitter pill” and vote for him.

Trump himself offered a similarly blunt message at a rally last week in New Hampshire, telling voters that their 401(k)s would go “down the tubes” if Biden were elected.

“So whether you love me or hate me, you gotta vote for me,” Trump said.

We live in interestingly messy times. And if Joe Biden receives the Democratic nomination? They’re just gonna get more interesting and messy. And interesting ain’t exactly a good thing at this point in time.

I have never wanted a boring President with a base platform of ideas that are steeped in humanity and humility who is conscious of how their words can impact others and doesn’t believe they “deserve” to be President as much as I want one in 2020. A Black man can dream.