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Well…Super Tuesday did not go as I’d hoped.

I remember in 2016, when folks were gearing up for the primaries, I really wanted Elizabeth Warren to run. She was progressive. She was smart. But my favorite thing was how good she was at explaining things — she was a professor, but that doesn’t always mean much…I’ve met some shit professors.

But alas, she didn’t run. And things went as they went, first it was Clinton and Sanders, and then Clinton and Trump, and then there was just Trump waving his Cheeto fingers around and getting smudges all over our worn but still functional democracy.

I have to say, I am honestly not optimistic about 2020. I want to be. I want to be among those people that believes in the blue wave. But as journalist Joel Anderson said on Twitter, “There is no bottom.” The US re-elected George W. Bush even though he stoked racism, started a war for money, and took a shit on our civil rights. I could easily see the same people re-electing Trump because, hey, we’re still here aren’t we? Guess all those liberals were just being cry babies because they lost.

But that’s enough cynicism. I want to quickly touch on the primaries and pretend like I still believe in change.

Warren ran this year, and by golly she would have been akin to Obama to me — not in policy because Obama was a centrist and honestly probably would’ve been almost Republican if our political system weren’t the equivalent of performance art. But the way he inspired folks. The way he had a clear vision for our country. The way he could ignite a fire in folks. That’s what Warren did for me. She had plans on plans on plans. It became a joke, but it was true. And they were detailed. She had no problem sticking it to old white guys and billionaires. In a race and in a party where it’s often considered best not to rock the boat too much, she came out swinging.

She was by no means perfect. In particular, her Native American blood stuff is super gross. And I don’t think she answered it well. But in all of the options available? That was a (relatively) small mark on an otherwise great resume. I held onto hope all the way until Tuesday evening when I watched her lose every state.

That would have been okay — my second choice, someone who had almost everything that Warren did as far as policy, was Sanders. And he did…pretty well.

Why Warren over Sanders? Sanders is a great revolutionary. He has great ideas, and fire, and spit, and vinegar, and he’s gonna tell you why the system is wrong and how to change it. But, in spite of historically doing great things for racial justice, he at times has eschewed addressing racial issues specifically in favor of a “economic policy will fix things for everyone” approach. And if it were applied evenly, that would be true. But history has shown that again and again, people of color, especially black folks, get left out of those kinds of financially boosting systems. FDR, in order to help the New Deal go through, disallowed black folks help with housing. “Racially blind” progressive policy rarely helps black folks.

He also doesn’t present himself as a listener. Warren got a lot of flack for changing her mind, for changing her stance on things, and I’ve always been confused by that. Warren having been a Republican at one time is not the same thing as Bloomberg running as a Democrat. Warren clearly changed her opinion on things as she learned, incorporated things into her plans, improved herself. Bloomberg ran as a Democrat, but changed none of his policies. I want a leader that can listen to things and change their mind. I want a leader that can convince other people to think their way, and who can be convinced to think another way. And Sanders, bless him, tends to come off pretty rigid. He tries to pivot and address things, but it sometimes seems begrudging, like he’s getting off of his message and bringing up obligatory other topics before getting back to what he really wants to talk about.

Also, the dude is old. And it’s not that I think that old people can’t be president. But he’s going to hit 80 if he gets the presidency, and I’ve seen pictures of every president before and after taking the office since we’ve had photography, and they always look like they were rode hard and put away wet. They look like they’ve been run through the ringer and barely survived. Even goddamned morons like W. Bush looked like he’d aged an easy 15 or 20 years by the time he left. Did you see how hot Obama was before taking office, and how tired he looked leaving? That job is hard, y’all, and Obama was a young man.

But, in the choice of two old guys, I would much rather go with the old guy with the progressive, daring politics. At least he has vision and is willing to push back on the status quo and argue for things that other countries have had for fucking decades.

Biden is a return to the old ways…and that’s bad. The old ways are what got us Trump. Trump isn’t an anomaly. Trump was a surprise, but that’s not the same thing. He’s the logical progression of decades of Republican politics, pressurized and crystalized to its purest form. He says things rudely, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t agree with what he says. They would just prefer he pretend a little more. It’s that old joke about he said the inside thing out loud. Because you can look at the fearmongering by Republicans of foreign brown people — from Muslims to Mexicans — and see that when Trump calls Mexicans rapists or tries to ban people from Muslim countries, that’s just him acting on the things they’ve been saying for ages.

Biden has said that he would be willing to consider a Republican running mate. He wants to return things back to the old ways. But apparently he’s forgotten that the old ways resulted in Obama nearly wasting 8 years of his life as he struggled to get anything pushed through an opposing Congress that shot down, gutted, or watered down every piece of legislation he tried for. Biden is a face of the establishment, and that’s not a great thing friends. He’s got a history of being handsy with women that does not mesh well with our current political climate, he’s easily angered and more likely to challenge someone to a pushup contest than debate policy with them, and he has some wild ways of dealing with race.

I understand why some folks are voting for him. It’s the same question I heard some well-meaning liberals ask when Trump was elected — did we push for too much change too fast? Was a black guy and healthcare reform too much?

No, y’all. It wasn’t. That’s silly. Besides, remember: Trump lost. After all of the gerrymandering, closing voting stations, disenfranchising thousands of people, and invoking foreign powers to interfere with our election…he still lost the popular vote. He won on a technicality. But it’s that technicality that worries me.

That said, if Biden does get the nomination, I’m obviously going to vote for him. More of the same, as dogshit as that was for a lot of people, is still better than having our president metaphorically re-enacting the ending of Dr. Strangelove with our country. And if we do have to vote for Biden, and if he actually gets the presidency, the important thing will be continuing to be LOUD. Because the first time Biden tries to soft shoe with something like healthcare, we will need to remember things like Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, and push back because we deserve better.

I wish this post were more optimistic and more focused. It’s mostly just me venting my anxieties and working out my fears. Because I worry what happens to this country if we get another 4 years of Republican rule — it’s not just the normal policies. Federal judge positions from the Supreme Court all the way down are being filled with hard right people who will continue to warp our policy for a generation, and I don’t know how we come back from that? Unless people are willing to make bold changes and back someone like Sanders or Warren, how do you implement things like no lifetime appointments for judges, no electoral college, health insurance for everyone, high taxation on the rich to close the cartoonishly large wealth gap? Because if we leave the system as is, even once Trump is gone, there will be negative effects felt for a long, long time.

I’m just not sure that America will be willing to do anything about it. I’m afraid that white people, in particular, will choose solidarity with their race, again, instead of doing what’s best for everyone.

I just hope, whoever wins, they pick a really good vice president. Because I worry that whoever that is will end up actually finishing the term, and the last thing I want is Biden picking a Republican running mate to show no hard feelings to the other side, and then getting 2 more bonus years of Republican governance because of a misplaced desire for equity.

Bernie 2020.

Or Biden…I guess.