Bernie-only supporters: How do you handle his endorsement of Biden and attempt to work with him? Is he imperfect but still worthy of support? Has he become a sellout in your eyes? If so, do you have an alternative that satisfies you?

POST 2 (A question to no-Biden-ever acolytes):

Let’s assume that we agree that the Trump administration promotes general evil, killing, racism, sexism and bullying (to put it mildly) in and out of government. Let’s further assume that every charge you make against Biden is valid (please don’t bother to repeat them–I’m well aware of them).

Why, instead of passively enabling another unquestionably agonizing four years for trumpism, aren’t you organizing, in the event of a Biden victory, to put his administration on notice that, starting the day after the election, we’ll be holding his feet to the fire to oppose the presumably lesser but still terrible damage you’re convinced will occur from his policies and appointees?

Let me save you the trouble of a reply: Yes, I must be a rapist-supporting, racist-supporting, [add your own vituperation here], worthless fucking asshole piece of shit. Amen.

For others, feel free to read on.

[NOTE: It is my posting policy never to comment on or reply to a nasty comment more than once.]

I am trained in and a retired teacher (high school to graduate school) of critical thinking and argumentation. Before I signed up for this group a few days ago, I had already been dismayed since the 2016 election at how many people who claim to be leftists write with as little thought as our worst enemies.

If we don’t set good examples for good thinking and government, who will?

After optimistically signing up for this group, I quickly became disappointed by numerous (not all) posts here that echo what had already been causing me endless sighs of frustration.

Biden certainly presents moral issues.* But those issues require considerably more thought than many attackers offer.

Was he a sexual predator? Quite possibly, though I’ve read enough by informed commentators trained in this field to make me suspend judgment while remaining wary. If he was, is he still? If he is, does that cancel out any benefit for a Biden administration (including court appointees across the board) over Trump’s?

Did he once support racist policies? It looks that way.

Is he mealy-mouthed on some important issues? He certainly can be.

And so on. But here’s the thing. Myself, I’m retired and have lived many decades, always on the side of most lefty positions (especially where social justice is concerned).** Both in my political and private lives, I have (you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn) made numerous mistakes. (I’m even told I STILL make them.) BUT: I would hate for old mistakes to be trumpeted as guides to whom I am now.

On another hand, I can willingly acknowledge older mistakes as part of modeling the value of assessing oneself honestly and then correcting what one realizes was wrong.***

I’ll take this farther: I know that my social context for growing up in the 1940s and 50s planted some horrible visceral prejudicial reactions in me that I must own, monitor, and make sure not to indulge. I have to fight off being ashamed when such thoughts cross my brain, but I solace myself with reminders that such human behavior can’t be helped but only regulated so it does no damage outside oneself.

So by all means, don’t soft-pedal Biden’s shortcomings, but also examine contrasting statements about their validity (and evaluate the credentials of who writes them), cut him slack where he appears to have gone beyond younger transgressions to make valuable changes, be ready to hold his feet to the political fire, and think about what a relief it will be to stop banging your head, day in and day out, against the brick wall represented by trumpist rule. (This is not to say some brick-wall head-banging won’t happen.)

I’m very curious to see if this post (or a few others I’m offering today) get approval. An earlier post of such spirit seemed to be rejected, though I was never notified or told why.

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* As someone who doesn’t register Democrat and has often voted for third parties, I previously offered my own brief commentary on Biden on my blog at wordpress/to-biden-or-not-to-biden/.

** You can find some of what I did up to 2008 at musingsandmeanderingshomepage.html. Recently, I’ve been putting comments on my blog (wordpress/). They include categories for COVID-19, social and political thoughts, and the climate crisis.

Ongoing activity during lockdown is only by donations and supportive posts, and in the several years before that teaching about the climate crisis and occasionally joining social justice and climate demonstrations. In recent months, I have especially resonated to (and given money but not physical participation) the Never Again group’s demonstrations that take Holocaust precedents as bases for resisting parallel treatment of immigrants today.

*** Such mistakes included youthful (teens and earlier 20s, I think, though maybe also later) dogmatic, vitriolic letters-to-the-editor (this, too, may shock you, but we didn’t have the internet then), political meetings that wrangled over angels-on-the-heads-of-pins positions (like, do we say, “Any means necessary” vs. “Any means possible”?), speeches at rallies, lefty local and national conventions, and other venues for communication.

MY COMMENT:

I returned to this site several minutes ago to check if I’d been removed from this group as I requested yesterday. Like most other posts I’ve offered, apparently my request has been denied. Go figure.

In the process of learning that I apparently will be eternally punished by never being removed from this group, I happened to notice this post, a vivid reminder of why I want no longer to be here. Normally, I’d reply in a gentle, collegial way, but I’m hoping this rude approach,* supposedly banned in this group even though numerous posts are approved without regard to those guidelines, will be enough to get me thrown into the briar patch of group non-membership.

1. Did Nader actually say this? No source or date is cited. (I could get anyone’s photo, type a statement with quotation marks, and encourage uncritical people to think it’s real–and fall all over themselves to praise the fiction.)
2. If Nader did say this and hasn’t repented it, I now kick myself for voting for him 20 years ago. This kind of sweeping, reductionist thinking is destructive to meaningful thought that sifts through nuances and makes plausible arguments. (Why not just say that everyone who disagrees with you on anything, regardless of the reasons or alternative ideas on which you might happen to agree, isn’t worthy of being on this planet?)
3. If this quotation is fabricated, then it reinforces my concern that this allegedly progressive site is really a shill for those wishing to sow dissension among leftists. Or perhaps an old-left residue that vilifies any leftist who doesn’t stick to a particular party line.
4. I fear for the training of teachers if this site represents the kind of uncritical, knee-jerk thinking that is coming out of our schools. Apparently such limitations aren’t the exclusive property of tea-party types. (I leave aside the occasional incoherent ramblings, sometimes even with lack of basic English grammar [I’m not talking about mere typos], that pose as mature thought.

Only if curiosity overwhelms my good sense will I return to this site. In the meantime, I’ve removed myself from its facebook feed so that I’m not tempted to make just one more itty-bitty critique.

To those (apparently few) in this group who do valiantly try to wrestle with meaningful discussion, I wish you my best but also suggest that you find a more receptive (truly progressive) location to share your interesting thinking.

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*If, as I sometimes have wondered, the bulk of what I’m criticizing comes from teen-agers and folk in their early 20s who are groping their way to nuanced leftist positions, I apologize to you. At that age, I was probably just as flamboyant and intolerant and simplistic in political matters, though I like to think I already knew (for by 22 I was teaching it) how to put together a thoughtful, even if imperfect, argument.

Given the group name and the guidelines to which I agreed, I expected to be encountering thoughtful lefty critical analysis that would be a refreshing change from the kind of unnuanced thinking I too often find in Facebook political commentaries. But instead, I’m seeing many (not all) posts that rant and vilify as much as our worst enemies. I see generalizations without supporting sources (or in at least one case, a notoriously unreliable source), and I am sometimes confused whether a mean attack is genuine or a bot designed to sow dissension within the left.

I find an enormous amount of repetition with no added light, as in the seemingly never-ending laments about Bernie’s defeat and how wonderful he is. (Yes, it’s sad, but don’t we need to move on and not mire ourselves in an irretrievable past?) And I’m especially disappointed in the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we-vote-for-Biden wrangling. While I haven’t read everything on this theme, what I’ve seen typically sounds identical (with name changes) to quadrennial election comments for the many elections in which I’ve previously voted. (If you want to see my own take, based on often NOT voting for a main party candidate—which depending on your own zeal may or may not moderate this polarization—you can check my blog post at wordpress/to-biden-or-not-to-biden/.)

Just in case this one day’s contributions are a fluke, and they’re normally much more thotful, I’ll watch for another day or two. But if nothing changes, I shall withdraw from this group (which presumably will please others as well as myself).

I’m curious whether anyone else reacts as I have to many of the posts here, or if in this group’s context I’m just a serious misfit. (I’m also wondering whether a lot of the comments are from younger people, for I can imagine myself as having written similar polarizing statements, or repeated laments, in my long ago, youthful political days.) I will respond to posts that seek to be thoughtful, regardless of whether they agree with me, but not to ones that think nuanced argumentation consists of nastiness and righteousness.

Mickie Coppa  The source doesn’t matter when it’s true. When a number of other sources also confirm this, it doesn’t matter which one I post. You are free to research yourself before condemning any story due only to its source.

Me I am going to try hard to sound neutral and helpful in this response. If my tone isn’t successful, let me apologize in advance and assure you that I’ve done my best—spent a lot of time on this reply rather than one of my other priorities—, even if it turns out not to be good enough.

For starters, try to step back and consider how you would react to a post that makes a claim with support/”proof” via a link to a statement by Trump or one of his minions—or probably, a link to a Biden quote—as the authority. I assume (and hope) you would be at least highly sceptical (and more likely dismissive) of its validity and would not feel it worth your time to see if it were validated by sources you respect; I assume (and hope) you have better things to do with your life. I doubt it would matter that even Trump occasionally (perhaps like the stopped clock that is right twice a day) makes an accurate statement, albeit in service of some malign goal. In fact, if the source is one you don’t trust, I would guess you wouldn’t even care about any possible buried truth in the quotation.

A basic principle of persuasive writing, as you may know, is that it’s the writer’s (not the reader’s) job to present arguments required to maximize the chances that the writer be convincing. Of course, this will often include citations from sources that you believe the reader will find credible.

In the end, it is the writer’s task to make it as easy as possible for the reader to be persuaded without having to do further investigation of her or his own (unless motivated by your own intriguing content), though of course you include links to your sources just in case your reader wants to double-check them.

The problem here is that an informed reader will know that even if it happens now and again to get something right (especially information that buttresses its own propaganda), the Washington Times is such a biased source that it’s not worth taking the time to read it, or to grope around for the remote chance of corroboration from a source one trusts.

Your post reverses the persuasive sequence: instead of providing enough evidence to give your reader trust in your fairness, you expect a wary reader like me to do the work to find out if your argument is indeed fair and to be trusted.

And finally, even a supposedly reputable source, of course, can get something wrong, accidentally or because of its own agenda.

At this point, however, we’re sliding into the problem of objectivity and inevitable bias in what anyone (including you and I) argues. But that’s a topic for another day.