My deepest fear is that 45 — the most dangerous president in our country’s history — won’t be defeated in November. My second deepest fear is that Biden will win, but that his presidency will result in Americans being lulled back to sleep thinking that everything is okay now. THIS WILL NOT BE TRUE!
This is why I’m compelled to continue to illuminate the truth of larger pictures. I’m committed to walking that fine line of both exposing the shadow side that will be an inevitable part of a Biden-Harris administration while also affirming again and again that our top priority must be to defeat 45. We absolutely must NOT have another 4 years of sheer horrifying madness!
AND we must unite in exposing and dismantling all the systems of injustice that brought us 45. There is an imperative to recognize him and his administration and enablers as symptoms of a much, much larger picture. And this larger picture includes the neoliberal predatory capitalist system that has overtaken all of the Republican Party and most of the Democratic Party.
Without sustained massive action fighting for radical systemic changes, all that has long been destroying our nation, other nations, and the planet will continue. The status quo endorsed by most in positions of power, regardless of political party, has remained steeped in patriarchal ideologies of domination, racism, inequality, injustice, violence, and oppression. These ideologies have persisted for over 400 years in our country and worldwide and have brought us to the precipice of civilization collapse and extinction.
Consequently, I believe that there are two priorities. One — 45 must be defeated. Two — the systems of entrenched injustice, greed, and violence must be seen for what they are and dismantled.
This will only become possible as huge numbers of us recognize that both republicans AND democrats have perpetuated these systems — the military industrial complex, the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, the prison industrial complex, the animal agricultural industries, and the predatory capitalist system that feeds all of the above and more — AND they’ve fought like hell to resist the exact systemic changes that are vital to saving ourselves and to a just and caring society.
Biden and Harris are both part of these systems of injustice rooted in the status quo of neoliberal capitalism. This truth does not in any way diminish that our top priority must be to defeat 45, who without doubt is the most dangerous president in our nation’s history. What consciousness of the shadow side of the Democratic Party makes clear is that our work will be far from over once 45 is (I pray!) defeated in November. On the contrary, that will be only a first step in continuing to unite to fight for the radical systemic changes essential to our well-being and that of the planet.
I wish that I could feel grateful rather than grieving about a Biden-Harris ticket. And I know that I will have to cast my vote against 45. I have to. That said, I’m under no illusion that the struggle for justice won’t be urgently needing to continue full bore.
May awareness of this truth spread and come to inhabit the consciousness of us all. We’re all in this together. The eyes of the children are watching. — Molly
Senator Kamala Harris has formally accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination, becoming the first woman of color to run on a major party presidential ticket. But many Black progressive women remain ambivalent about Harris's candidacy, even while acknowledging its historic nature. "We've seen her break so many barriers," says journalist, lawyer and abolitionist Derecka Purnell, adding that many "are also frustrated" by a narrative that centers Trump as the main source of evil in U.S. politics and downplays the role so-called moderates have played in perpetuating systems of injustice. “It’s just unfortunate that you have to protect someone because of their identity … while at the same time, if you care about the masses of Black people, the masses of poor people, the masses of immigrants in this country, you know that you have to speak truth and be honest about their record,” Purnell says.
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