Vote for Gloop the Goldfish 2020!

You think I’m joking, but I am not. I would vote for Gloop the Goldfish for president. Yes, even if Gloop’s running mate turns out to be an old apple core, or a singleton sock, or a chipped coffee cup. In fact, I’d campaign for Gloop the Goldfish and An Old Apple Core 2020. So let me start now: if they are nominated, I plead with you to vote for them, because anything will be better than four more years of the destructiveness of Team Trump.

I know many of my fellow progressives don’t feel that way right now. I see a lot of anger and depression on the left, wrought by the Democratic primaries. A large field has suddenly narrowed, and many have seen their favored candidates drop out of the race. This has made fans of those candidates feel burned by other Democratic voters, and frustrated with the two old straight white men left standing. This week, for example, Warren backers have been mourning, as their fiercely smart and well-prepared candidate fell amidst a media narrative that a woman could not win in 2020. After all, Warren devotees note, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, despite not only third-party candidates drawing votes away, but with turnout suppressed by a media consensus that Clinton’s winning was inevitable. Warren fans are smouldering, and backers of other fallen candidates are distressed as well.

You might expect that Bernie Sanders’ backers would be in a great mood, seeing the progressive side of the field cleared, leaving Bernie, champion in the fight against income inequality, enduring. But the strong surge of votes for Joe Biden has left many in Sander’s camp wary and bitter. They point out that Biden, presented as a “safe centrist,” is actually to the right of Richard Nixon, and rather than undoing the outrages of the Trump years and being a warrior for the left, they fear that from a craven desire to placate bigots and business tycoons, he will leave most of the damage in place and call a few surface tweaks leftism. I have heard a lot of people I like saying that if Biden wins the nomination, they will just stay home on election day, rather than collaborate with a collaborator.

As for Biden supporters, their man is now in the lead, but they still feel beset on all sides. On the right, of course, is the Fox News camp blaring the narrative they established with Trump that the impeachment trial was an attempt to cover up the real crimes, those of Biden and his son using politics to enrich themselves. (That’s a pretty rich joke, and an obvious projection of Trump’s wrongdoings onto a political rival, but that is eternally the Trump way: to accuse others of that which he does himself.) But Biden fans also feel attacked on the left, by all the Democrats who disdain Biden and his backers as at best dupes who cannot see their own self-interest, or at worst joyful collaborators with fascism. Especially bitter are African American Biden supporters. They remember the days after Trump’s election when white liberals blamed the outcome on presumed low turnout from apathetic voters of color, when later analysis would show that women of color were the voter bloc most likely to have voted for Hillary Clinton, whereas white women joined white men in being more likely to vote for Trump. And now African Americans see white liberals on social media framing black Biden supporters as too stupid to discern their own self-interest.

So we have a fractured left in America, though most are united by one thing: reviling what has happened under Trump. The hate crimes and young white men sieg-heiling. The racist framing of Latine refugees and immigrants as rapists and murders being used to justify separating children from their parents and putting them in cages. The appointing of unqualified cronies to head government agencies and destroy them from the inside--blotting out environmental protections, giving public parks to corporations to despoil for profit, ensuring it is almost impossible to sue for employment discrimination, etc. etc. The appointing with virtually no review of a horde of judges defined not by experience and impartiality, but instead by radical partisanship. The constant fanning of outrage via tweets being Trump’s modus operandi. The tossing out the window of traditions and expectations of respect and cooperation across the political aisle, and Trump instead modeling enmity for any not loyal to him as unAmerican traitors. 

So we are united in what we are against, on the left, but less so in what we are for. Let me quickly point out that this disunity is just as true on the right. It’s just mostly concealed right now under Trump. We see it burst out at moments, as when the robber-baron corporate right protested the protectionist populist right when Trump was enacting tariffs that interfere with unfettered trade. We saw it when many on the right voiced dismay when Trump spoke of grabbing women “by the pussy,” or said there were “many good people” rallying for fascism in Charlottsville, or referred to impoverished countries in the developing world as “shitholes" (not that it stopped them from backing Trump). The white evangelical right makes a very odd bedfellow for the capitalist zealots who believe soulless corporations constitute people. Conformist suburbanite McMansion owners don’t know what to do when their own sons turn up on social media spouting incel rhetoric. And Republicans report almost as much worry about increasing partisanship and distrust in America as Democrats do. 

But right now, conflict on the right has been concealed by Trump’s renouncing any compromise with the left, ripping through as many of our federal regulations, agencies and traditions as possible, and handing out big shiny presents to every disparate rightwing group. Evangelicals get their anti-abortion judges, the investor class get their tax breaks, racists get the targeting of brown immigrants, and corporations get the destruction of regulations that forbid them from maximizing profits by doing things that kill people. While this gorging frenzy continues, the schisms on the right can go overlooked. Mind you, it can’t last forever. Eventually the various parties have to look up from their plates and start arguing amongst themselves. But the party was only guaranteed to last four years, so for the duration  the right has been focusing on glutting themselves with as many goodies as possible while compromise was suspended, and while it was agreed that the outcry from the left constituted delicious enemy tears for the drinking.

This has put Democrats in a strange position. Not only does the left now stand for a set of policy beliefs—in advancing equity for all, in providing a social safety net, in fighting climate change—but Democrats are left standing for traditions that were once nonpartisan, or even claimed as property by the right. Traditionally, conservatives seek to conserve tradition. It was considered central to Republicanism for many decades to call for respect for our national institutions—to have faith in federal agencies, in Congresspeople, in the impartiality of the judiciary, in the rule of law and not of “man,” etc.. But Trumpist Republicanism calls federal agencies an enemy “deep state,” calls any Congressperson who opposes a Trump policy a traitor, calls all judges partisan and nakedly seeks to appoint its partisan own, and condenses all national loyalty onto the personhood of Trump himself. So what is a Democrat to do, when Republicans abandon values that were shared but long claimed by the right as belonging more to them?

And then the harder question: what do you do when Republicans abandon the belief that to survive as a nation, we must respect and cooperate with people whose goals and beliefs differ from our own? Trump didn’t invent this noncooperation, but he has accelerated and consolidated it. If any who oppose him are traitors, then there can be no compromising with them.

It’s a difficult position for the left to be in. On the one hand, compromise is necessary in any functioning social group, from a family to a village to a nation. Without compromise, the options are either to submit to domination, or to separate, via divorce or civil war. And given the fanning of distrust and dislike by both the Fox News/Trumpist right and by Russian operatives, a lot of Americans wish there were some simple divorce option for the country nowadays. "Let’s just split up into Red America and Blue America and be done with it!" But that’s pragmatically impossible, since you can’t just divide the nation into north and south or something to achieve this when most American cities are blue and most American rural areas are red. So that leaves two options: compromise, or seeking to control the other through domination. And the right is currently going with the domination approach. Generally it’s political: keep your opponent from winning elections via gerrymandering, closing polling places, purging people from voting rosters, arresting people and never allowing them to vote again, keeping people too overwhelmed and despairing to vote, and relying on an archaic electoral college system that gives rural voters in sparsely populated states way more of a voice than urban ones in populous states. This tactic aims to continue to win national elections despite losing the popular vote, then refusing to compromise with the majority.

But there’s a more disturbing element on the domination-supporting right, and that’s the side pushing for war. These are the antigovernment preppers, white supremacists, and 2^nd Amendment fanatics you may encounter on American roadways or during social media forays or in your neighbor’s basement. Occasionally they emit a lone wolf mass murderer. But their main chatter is about some impending war, when they claim they will come together as well-armed militias and mow down the urban vermin who cheat Trump of eternal rule and "come for their guns." Then they'll establish a white ethno-state, or something.

Obviously, we can’t allow that. But really, while these sociopaths terrorize people, they remain the lesser threat. What is doing more real damage, at least now, is the political form of domination that is considered more tolerable, depriving people of a voice without murdering them outright.

There are two major approaches to dealing with Republicans operating through political domination. One of these is to try to convince Republicans to recommit to a healthy domestic relationship with Democrats. This approach says we should call on them to remember the values of mutual respect and compromise so that our relationship—the American family—can survive and flourish. 

In order to get this commitment, we must also show Republicans respect and agree to compromise with them. But there is a vital point that must be made about the conditions under which that compromise is reached. If this were a literal relationship in which one partner had treated the other like dirt, traumatized the children and destroyed the furniture, it would not be healthy for the maltreated partner to say, “That’s ok, I still respect you, let’s compromise on how many of the appliances you will destroy as well.” That’s called “being an abuse victim.” To repair an actual relationship, you’d need the partner who had committed the harm to show real remorse, to repair the damage to the furniture, to help heal the children of their trauma, and to work with the mistreated partner to move forward in mutual respect only after the damage was undone.

The sector of the left that actively opposes Joe Biden expects him to act like the abuse victim in that scenario.

The progressive left wants a candidate who will demand the undoing of the damage of the Trump years. And they want more: to move forward from the policies of the Obama years toward greater equity: decreased income equality, affordable college and health care for all, meaningful protection of our personal data, increased gender equity, greater racial and ethnic equality, full respect for same-gender couples, protections for trans Americans, etc.

Meanwhile, the radical sector of the left thinks the progressive sector of the left is turning into the liberal sector of the left. That is: they are sinking into capitalist stoogery. They’ve bought into a pointless faith that our current institutions will save us. They think the master’s tools will dismantle the master’s house. The radical left says we have to fight disruption with disruption. Don’t tolerate Nazis, punch them. Don’t look to courts and lawyers to save you, save yourself. Get out into the streets! Be loud and demanding, and be the change you want to see in the world. Voting will not save you.

The problem with a presidential primary season is that it focuses on internal divisions within a party. It has been forcing Democrats to debate which is most important: standing up for the belief that mutual trust and compromise between politically disparate Americans is necessary and good? Fighting in a partisan fashion for the values of the left? And what are those values? Is “socialism” a bad word, or a good one? Should we focus on income inequality, as the main issue uniting cis straight white men with everyone else? Or is that a betrayal of women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, etc.—framing the one thing Democrats agree on with Republicans as being that cis straight white men must be centered in everything?

And that dissensus is why I am here campaigning for Gloop the Goldfish.

It is vital that we focus on what we have in common, rather than what divides us on the left. And the reason it’s ok for us to do that is that all of our approaches are good ones. They are all important. We will never enjoy social progress without brave people being willing to take to the streets to fight for our rights. But if all of our life is not to be one long streetfight, we need to enshrine the rights we win in rules, and shore up the institutions and agencies that ensure those rights are protected. We need the EPA to protect our air and water, the FDA to keep our food supply safe, the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ to protect us from employment discrimination, etc. And if we want all Americans to treat us with respect, then we need to rebuild mutual trust. All of these activities all part of one shared movement. Maybe that’s not clear to people who have never participated in act of civil disobedience or never tried to work with a large organization—but I’ve certainly done both, and I think that’s true for a whole lot of folks. There is no one “right way” to replace precarity and injustice with security and equity. Multiple approaches must be employed simultaneously.

So: I remind you all that one thing we know we have in common is rejection of Trumpism. And that is why, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination in this flawed primary system we have in the U.S., I will vote for them, and I ask you to as well. I will vote for Bernie Sanders, or Joe Biden, or Gloop the Goldfish. Centrists, if Sanders wins and you worry he is “unelectable,” please do not make that a self-fulfilling prophecy by not voting! Progressives, if Biden wins and you worry he will only embody your values weakly and ineffectually, please remember that that is infinitely better than four more years of the Trump administration gutting the rules protecting our health and safety, flirting with nuclear war, and appointing radical partisan right wing kooks as federal judges. If only to honor the efforts Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has made to stay alive and cogent to hold onto her place on the Supreme Court until after the 2020 election, I would vote for Gloop the Goldfish rather than stay home.  And radicals, I agree with you that institutionalized actions like voting will never be enough to create the change we need to see in the world. But that just makes voting insufficient, not evil. Using every tool available to achieve our goals is the wise move—please vote, while continuing to fight the good fight through direct action.

I know this primary process has been frustrating and disheartening for a lot of people. But remember that if we focus on our divisions, and become alienated from the process unless our particular party sector wins top billing, we lose. 

If we win the election for whatever ticket emerges, even if it’s Gloop the Goldfish and An Old Apple Core, however imperfect, it’s still a win. With the politically ineffectual Gloop at the helm, it is clear we will have a lot of work to do. But presidents are just one person (or fish) in a large federal crew that will come into Washington. Advisors will draw up the lists of potential appointees for Attorney General, for Secretaries of Labor and Education and State and the rest of the Cabinet, for all of the federal agency appointees, for appointees for federal judges, etc. Those people can work to restore the gutted regulations and reinvigorate the dispirited public servants who should be protecting us all. And meanwhile we can continue to advocate and agitate and fight for the changes we need, to lead from the streets, knowing a goldfish will not save us.

It will not be enough. But it will be vastly better than four more years of destruction.

Also, Gloop doesn’t even have a Twitter account. Phew.

Gloop the Goldfish and An Old Apple Core 2020!