Photo by Koushik Chowdavarapu on Unsplash

Are you voting to defeat a corrupt presidential administration or are you voting to defeat a corrupt system? Do you want results or a revolution?

This is an important distinction that former Vice President Joe Biden has continued to make during the 2020 Democratic Primary. For Vice President Biden this election is about winning at all costs. Whoever wishes to defeat Trump is welcome to join the bandwagon as it makes its way to Election Day. Republicans who voted for the current administration and the other party officials in power, who are now alienated from their vote are welcome. NeverTrumper Republicans who didn’t vote for Trump but still cast votes to support his administration and party’s policies are welcome. Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Bloomberg and Styer, the industries and titans behind Citizens United and the idea that money is equal to a citizen’s voice are all welcome. Any Democrat or Independent voter that just wants this administration to not have another four years is welcome.

Within this society where corporations are treated as people, where we trust our employers more than our government, where instant gratification is reinforced by our personal technology and the comforts we are able to afford, this appeal to immediate results is on point.

For Vice President Biden the win at all cost mentality heading into the election is the opportunity to return to the glory years of an Obama Biden administration that was the embodiment of the teenage years of the new millennium. The Affordable Care Act and saving us from total economic and social meltdown — they got the job done then, and Biden will get it done now. Biden was the moderate Democrat that provided President Obama with a conduit to moderate America, both Republican and Democrat. Sure, he had a few blemishes on his record regarding segregation and war, but he was the perfect bag man for President Obama — think Vice President Pence and Evangelical America. The system that the Obama Biden administration created, which pulled Wall Street from the depths of cultural relevance, and staved off the inherent logic of a regulated market for the sake of all of its citizens, was hacked, hijacked, and eventually gave way to the current administration. Silicon Valley and Wall Street were both left to guide and monitor their own behavior under the idea of a free and stable market.

This society where corporations are treated as people, where we trust our employers more than our government, where instant gratification is reinforced by our personal technology and the comforts we are able to afford is what allowed for disinformation, fake news, malicious rhetoric, hate, and all that "anti-establishment" drain the swamp jazz — essentially, the highest bidder won the 2016 election.

This is also a point of distinction between Vice President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. At the time of the economic collapse and subsequent Administration’s miracle work, a distinct choice was presented to America: we could bail out Wall Street and allow for it to thrive under its own regulations and will, or tax and regulate Wall Street to support middle and low income working families that were (and still are) unable to access the best health care and education that money can buy. This is the key dividend, the difference between Biden and Sanders, one sees the incremental change which accommodates the very same ills that plague our society; the other seeks to disenfranchise and return the stolen wealth from the ills that plague our society.

Vice President Biden is correct when he says that we do need results. We are at a point where the best medicine that our tax dollars help subsidize and fund is structured so that it is solely provided to the highest bidder. We are also at a point where education, preschool to college is structured so that the best schools go to the highest bidder. And, we are seeing yet another election that is allowing for the highest bidder to take the mantle. If revolution is ensuring that medicine, education, and government does not go to the highest bidder then perhaps we must reconsider how we view corporations and our employers, and maybe we need to reconsider our relationship to technology and comfort, because at some point all of these things might only be available to the highest bidder.