Joseph R Biden for President - Part 2
This is Part 2 of a series declaring my endorsement of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the 2024-2028 presidential term.
Continuing with the philosophical positions I believe in that Republicans used to claim to support, this may come as a surprise to some:
I believe in free enterprise and free markets.
Yes, I believe capitalism is the least bad economic system. It’s not perfect but it can be fair if we make it so. See, capitalism doesn’t have to be predatory; it doesn’t have to be about in-groups and out-groups; it doesn’t have to be about I got mine, fuck you.
I am a globalist. I believe free trade can be a force for good. In general, free enterprise on a leveled playing field with fair and sustainable play, equal opportunity, and equal standing under the law is the most effective way to build wealth and prosperity for all. Republicans hate that.
Free markets work best when regulated to ensure fair play. That’s when free markets are opportunities to create wealth. Ready access for everyone under standard conditions is what makes free markets work. That bit, the access for everyone, is what Republicans don’t like.
Republicans want free enterprise and free markets for them and only them. Their view of capitalism is that it should be a corporatist patronage system where rules and regulations do not apply to the oligarchy—that’s them and their billionaire donors. The serfs (that’s us) just work themselves to death in silence, safely indoctrinated with religion, sports, and other forms of cheap tribalism.
That system exists today. That’s what China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are. But from all of them, Republicans see Russia as the example to follow. Russia is their north star.
Russia went from being an uncivilized, ungovernable third-world shithole populated by ignorant, drunken, drug-addicted brutes governed by ignorant, drunken, drug-addicted psychopaths, to being the same shithole ruled by an organized-crime syndicate led by Vladimir Putin and sustained by a close-knit oligarchy, that happens to have UN representation and nuclear weapons. I can say this will authority because I was in Moscow between 1989 and 1993 as all that was happening and I had a front-row seat as the dumpster caught fire and burned to ashes. The Republicans want the exact same thing for our country.
Republicans want the economy to work for them only; they want markets to serve them only. They want crony capitalism. For us, they want servitude and compliance. That’s not what free enterprise and free markets are about.
Joe Biden has done a great job taming inflation and growing the economy. Wages are up, unemployment is down, and the stock market is at record-high. Prices are high not because of structural pressures on the economy. Prices are high because corporations raised prices for no other reason than to grow their profit margins. When you hear Republicans bitching about the economy, they’re complaining about something their own oligarchs are responsible for. This is like taking a dump, not flushing the toilet, and raging about the smell.
Biden has said in multiple occasions that common-sense regulations are necessary to achieve sustainable prosperity for all. We all do better when we all do better. That’s the conscience of a liberal. Paul Wellstone said it best and Joe Biden understands that as well. That’s why I’m voting for him in November.
More on this on Part 3 coming up.