By Kaveri Pillai ’23
Nov. 8, 2016. I remember sitting in my pajamas in the living room, my focus completely on the television. I decided not to go to school that day because I wanted to witness something great — Hillary Clinton was going to become the first female president of the U.S. — and there was nothing that could stop me from believing that. But as I sat there and toggled between CNN and MSNBC, this feeling of certainty vanished. Donald Trump was now the 45th president of the United States of America. Four years have gone by and now we face a dilemma — to vote for the man who is every liberal’s worst nightmare or to vote for the man who, shockingly enough, matches the same description. Former Vice President Joe Biden was officially nominated as the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on Aug. 18 after winning 2,687 delegates, surpassing the minimum 1,991 delegates required for nomination. With Biden now the face of American hope, many are questioning if they find this to be a desirable choice.
There is a new online trend that is garnering the youth’s attention: “Settle for Biden.” This is not just a hashtag young Americans are using for their election-year Instagram posts. It is a grassroots campaign created to acknowledge Biden’s flaws and simultaneously recognize that the nation will not survive four more years of President Donald Trump. “Settle for Biden” has one goal: to unite progressive voters to settle for a better presidential candidate. While I do morally disagree with the racist, homophobic and sexist ideology that Trump and his administration stand for, I also might not necessarily agree with the moderate stand Biden often takes on political issues.
“Settling” for the latter undermines the concept of free elections.
This political compromise consists of a combination of sardonic millennial and Generation Z humor and substantive policy proposals. “OK, I will vote for Joe Biden” and “I ain’t perfect, but have you seen the other guy?” quotes glamorize Biden as a candidate who is mediocre, to say the least. “Settle for Biden” is attempting to destroy the integrity of a democracy, to eradicate the right to choose.
What makes a democracy so valuable is the fact that we have free and fair elections. Pressuring and gaslighting those who refuse to align with this strong idea of settling for Biden mischaracterizes them as privileged and ignorant to the current political state of the country.
The moment one introduces the idea of choosing the lesser of the two evils, voter turnout will be affected. It is uncanny how the same happened in 2016 between Trump and Clinton, with only 55.4 percent of registered voters voting, lower than the 58.2 percent of the 2008 election. Trump’s core message of “Make America Great Again” was contested in the most feeble way possible, with Clinton taking the stance that America was already great. The lack of an individual message, or one that was solely piggybacking on Obama’s message of hope, was uncharismatic in front of the message pushed by Trump.
Biden, similar to Clinton, has failed to set up a core message. He’s been portrayed as a transitional candidate who can be pressured by the public into overturning any of the regressive laws that were put in place by the Trump administration. He lacks the passion to take the fight to Wall Street and the urgency to defund the police, issues which upped progressive voter participation this year in the first place.
The Biden-Harris administration is already being painted as a duo who won’t bring anything new to the table, making them boring and undesirable. Supreme Court appointments which won’t champion pro-life and anti-LGTBQ+ legislation and stopping the reduction of USPS funding have one thing in common: They are don’t’s, not do’s. The negative connotation of “settling” and “not doing X” further emphasizes the lack of creativity and change. If both candidates are being thought of as incompetent presidents, the small youth voter turnout of 2016 will be lower in 2020 regardless of how severe our political condition is now.
The current fight against racism acts like a catalyst in the debate to settle. Biden’s accusation of the Black community not really being Black if they had trouble in making a decision this general election was a tone deaf attempt at undermining the freedom to vote for people of color. As a woman of color myself, I understand the ramifications of the harsh legislation Trump has passed on immigration and minority status in the country. However, it is infuriating to see white upper-class people force their privileged, superficial and dominant group-minded opinion on who we have to vote for. On a personal level, “settling” acts like a double-edged sword. The issue of reifying certain immoral practices towards marginalized groups is contrasted with my right to choose.
Acknowledging the inception of “Settle for Biden” comes with identifying the lack of individuality in Biden’s campaign. Instead of focusing on simply repealing laws that have been proposed by the current Trump administration, an independent philosophy should be propagated. An initiative like “Settle for Biden” fuels the ideological divide that already exists within Democratic Party voters and fails to meet its ultimate goal: to unite. This will inevitably divide votes, decrease interest in voting and result in a severe decline of faith in politics. As a first-time voter, it would be encouraging to not have to “settle,” but to be proud to vote for someone.