Stop Trying to Shame Socialists Into Voting for Joe Biden. It’s Not Going to Work.
The New York Times attack yesterday on socialists who won’t endorse Joe Biden isn’t actually about convincing socialists to vote for him — it’s about performatively denouncing leftists as irresponsible, for the edification of the liberals who are watching.
Democratic presidential candidate former vice president Joe Biden speaks on stage after declaring victory in the South Carolina presidential primary on February 29, 2020 in Columbia, South Carolina. Spencer Platt / Getty
In the New York Times yesterday, Mitchell Abidor added his voice to the swelling chorus hectoring young leftists to support Joe Biden. Leaning on the bathetic open letter published by veterans of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Abidor chides the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for not heeding their elders and endorsing a candidate whose career has been spent opposing everything they stand for.
Abidor’s letter is remarkable for the utter lack of effort it puts into making a single convincing argument. He scoffs at Daniel Finn’s argument in Jacobin that Donald Trump is no fascist, but he evidently doesn’t believe his reader requires any convincing on the point. (The irony involved in comparing Trump to fascists openly, in the pages of the country’s leading newspaper, is evidently lost on him.)
But Mr. Abidor’s op-ed isn’t actually about convincing socialists to vote for Joe Biden. Instead, it’s about reassuring liberals that socialists are bad and irresponsible.
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