AcTVism based in Munich Germany interviews Paul Jay about the Sanders endorsement of Joe Biden
Is Voting for Biden the Lesser Evil?
(Actvism based in Munich Germany produced this video) In this interview with journalist, award-winning filmmaker and the founder of theAnalysis.news Paul Jay, we debate and discuss whether voting for Joe Biden is the lesser evil when compared with Donald Trump. In addition, we examine a possible vision for the future of the left and inquire whether it is still possible to unite around it.Related
The notion that racism and sexism were the primary factors driving the Trump vote is not born out by the data, economics was very important too. The rural working-class found their lives a little better under Trump and don't believe the Democrats care about them. Will Biden address the inequality or bend to the demands of Wall Street? Thomas Ferguson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Banking and finance are essential to a modern economy, but they don't have to be privately owned to do it. The Federal Reserve must be transformed to create a system of publicly-owned banks. Gerald Epstein joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Three presidents in one week as massive youth-led protests shake Peru's political system. Patricia Oliart, head of Latin American Studies at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast. Produced in collaboration with Other News.
Trump installed civilian leadership at Defense that will do his bidding; Biden's national security and foreign policy transition team has the patina of warlike Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Journalist Kevin Gosztola runs down Biden's transition team and possible Cabinet picks and it doesn't look good for progressives, on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.
To reduce inequality, monopolies in finance and other economic sectors should be broken up or made public, says Polly Cleveland on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.
Alan Hirsch, author of A Short History of Presidential Elections Crises: (And How to Prevent the Next One), says while there is no election crisis now - Biden's win is definitive - the electoral college is undemocratic and increases the possibilities of fraud, uncertain results, and more post-election crises. Hirsch joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Renowned Italian political scientist and economist Riccardo Petrella, says the WTO decision not to waive intellectual property rights during the pandemic will make crucial medicines and technology unaffordable. It could condemn millions to death. On theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay in collaboration with Other News.
If he wants to, and that's a big if, Biden has several tools available to circumvent McConnell’s Senate and still appoint the Cabinet secretaries he needs; plus 277 actions that are in the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force documents that can be accomplished with an executive order. Max Moran joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Innovation in renewable energy, in the public interest, is urgently needed. The financial sector is deeply compromised and cannot be relied upon to invest in effective technologies that are manufactured, rolled out, and make a difference to our energy emissions. Peter Drahos joins Lyn Fries of GPEnewsdocs.
The problem of inequality won't be solved simply by more education and training; inequality is hardwired into the rules of this hyper globalized world. The director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at UNCTAD joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Abrams, a true Darth Vader of U.S. foreign policy, is in the Middle East drumming up support for even harsher sanctions on Iran - in the midst of the pandemic that has killed tens of thousands. Trita Parsi joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Rana Foroohar (Financial Times) and Marc Blyth (Angrynomics) join Paul Jay to discuss the crazy and dangerous decline of the American Empire, on theAnalysis.news podcast.
In dealing with the Covid economic crisis, governments must not repeat the strategy of the last crisis, where the withdrawal of fiscal stimulus adversely impacted growth, the continuation of quantitative easing, and low-interest rates propelled asset prices ever higher. It led to a combination of high inequality, financial fragility, huge amounts of debt, and growing anxiety everywhere.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says get ready for a second Trump term. Who should run the State and Defense Departments for President-Elect Biden? Phyllis Bennis on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Matt Taibbi and Paul Jay discuss why the Democratic Party is losing large sections of the working class, and how politics has become a religion.
Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas", joins Paul Jay to answer the question: "why was this election even close"?
The election shows that anti-elitism has been captured by the right. It's time for progressives to end the "ceasefire", and fight the enormous pressure that will be exerted to make the Biden administration "get along" with a Republican controlled Senate. Progressives must fight anti-Trump neocons pushing Democrats further right, says Gerald Horne on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.
While it's likely Biden will take office, the Republicans will try to make governing impossible. Biden must be pushed to force effective climate change policy through executive order and not cave to the GOP Senate, says Larry Wilkerson on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.
Governments must recapture some of the resources that are wasted in this highly financialized, highly unequal, highly concentrated world to fund a genuine Green New Deal. Kozul-Wright joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.
Mr. Jay –
I used to read, and comment on, TRNN on a regular basis, until, that is, you treated Jill Stein of the GP with such dismissive disrespect – with the same “rationale” you do here. The fact is she was the best candidate, certainly in ’16 and, I would argue, in ’12, for anyone of a progressive bent with regard to both domestic and foreign policy. Hers was the only platform, actually ON THE BALLOT, that was, in fact, a more robust version of all the things Sanders purportedly stood for, things that, along with his supporters, he turned his back on and betrayed when he backed first Clinton and then Biden in order to do “the most important thing – beat Trump!” And that turned out sooo well, didn’t it.
The arguments are DP memes I have heard since ’00 when Nader got his 3% and the DP knew it had to nip that in the bud lickety-split, hence “spoiler” – as if the DP (and the RP) hadn’t been in the process of “spoiling” so much of our lives for so long, “Nader gave us Bush” – nonsense, the SC gave us Bush (and has been primed to give us Trump), and, le piece de resistance, “3rd parties can’t win” – more nonsense, anyone on a ballot can win if enough folks vote for ’em – all designed to shame those of us who voted for what we wanted and needed, things you yourself seem to favor, into voting LOTE for another lousy Dem, over and over, and to convince us that “we had nowhere else to go” – when in fact we did, and have had, for at least a quarter of a century.
And, to our shame, we bought it, and still do – we have earned the sobriquet “snowflake” because we melt every time and chicken out when someone waves “that awful Rep!” in our faces – if, instead, we had “screwed our courage to the sticking place” and voted in ever greater numbers for that 3rd party Prog each time – the DP, no doubt kicking and screaming, with many epithets, would have gotten the message by now – “we better do what the people want or we are toast” – in the end what a politician needs at election time, more than money, is VOTES. Votes are our ONLY leverage, and we refuse to use them. We have lost decades doing this – time we could not afford to lose.
For years I have heard, as now, “we need a third party!” – well we have had one for years, and we don’t vote for ’em – each time it’s, “well we gotta vote LOTE this time, but then we’ll ‘organize’, and next time ….” – but “next time” never seems to come” …. the DP is pleased as punch …
When I listened to you here now, I heard an echo from years ago, more respectful and less dismissive, perhaps, than then – but, I am sorry, sir, IMO, it is just as destructive now, as when I heard it then …..
It feels too much to me like staying with an abusive spouse to vote Blue. I won’t swallow. Maybe Trump will make things so bad, the nation will go the way of the Soviet Union and we might have a chance to create a real democracy from one of the pieces. I don’t see any change if Golden Leghairs wins- he is already seeking advice from Larry Summers about how to handle the Covid-19 crisis. We are truly on our own. The U.S. is too corrupt, violent, and powerful to be reformed. It needs to die. Trump will get us to the breaking point far faster than the senile sexual abuser from MBNM.
May be this is all correct. However the moment I heard that Bernie was back on the stage I saw the policy of the democrats concentrating around two points:
A. As happened the last time, Bernie needs to be “taken out”. Including all the Progressives circling around him. Most of them will simply abstain from voting.
B. Biden needs to loose the election for the Democrats which he will most likely manage. Why? The USA will shortly fall into the abyss – it is falling already. That ist to happen unter Trump and he is needed for that.
AFTERWARDS the Democrats will come in as knights in shining armour and save the day.
…… well, that is what it looks like to me from afar and I don’t pretend to really know all that much about the US.
I hope you are right;
I fear you are not.
Very good discussion. It galls this Sanders supporter to even consider voting for the DNC’s puppet, but Jay’s point about emboldened right-wingers seems on point.
Paul Jay obviously has given a considerable amount of thought for his argument of voting for Joe Biden in the light of a reelection of Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, when one scrapes away the rhetoric of voting for Biden it is a tacit vote of confidence for a member of the criminal and illegitimate US government and its lickspittles in the Democratic Party.
Voting for either of the two corporate parties is voicing support for opposition of real change in the US government.
Nobody points out that we got Trump because of Democratic administrations like Obama’s. I can’t see much difference between blue or red neoliberals. Both parties are warmongers and feed the military-industrial-congressional-(high tech?) complex. Neither party cares if we die. Besides, the huge discrepancies between exit polls and voter results in Super Tuesday primary states showed that vote tampering is a real thing, and next to no one speaks about that. Desire for change without hope looks like another Trump administration.