Everyone Should Vote Democrat in November

I’m not a Democrat, or at least not a natural one. I consider myself a small-government liberal. We’re so used to hearing “small-government conservative” that hearing something different might ring like an oxymoron to some people, but to my mind, liberalism — which is fundamentally about individual freedoms — organically aligns with a small-government approach. If we could ever have a viable libertarian party, I would probably only ever vote for them, but as it stands, I identify as independent and have voted for Democrats most of my adult life.

I don’t agree with a lot of Democratic approaches policy-wise. To be clear, I agree with the aims but not the methods. Democrats seem to have one solution to every issue: throw money at it. The goodness of an idea shouldn’t be judged by the size of the price tag that accompanies it. It was frustrating to watch the 2020 Democratic primary debates, as every candidate tried to run to the left of the others by vouchsafing another trillion dollars for this endeavor or that. Biden’s recent proposal for a $10,000 tax credit for first time homebuyers, to “lower the cost of housing,” made my head hurt. A demand-side intervention is never going to lower prices.

I have tons more that I disagree with Democrats about in terms of policy. And it’s precisely because I disagree with them about policy, that’ll I’ll be voting for them again. The Republican Party under Donald Trump has moved beyond the realm of policy debates. Instead, they’re going after institutions and the very process that allows us to have policy debates. Voting for someone like that on the basis of policy is like haggling over price with an armed robber. They’re both working outside of the system in the same way.

Before Trump first became President, it could be argued that his praise for autocrats and calls for his political opponent to be jailed was all talk. However, while in office, he actively worked to have investigations into him and his associates shut down, culminating in 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice (laid out by the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, in his report). Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey — so much so that former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, had to write then President Trump a memo outlining the legal consequences of doing so. He used the resources of the U.S. government to try to pressure Ukraine into giving him information on Hunter Biden, resulting in his first impeachment. He had peaceful protestors tear gassed in Lafayette Square to make way for a photo op. And most alarming of all, he incited his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol — resulting in his second impeachment.

The Trump administration also gave us one of the most blatant examples of corruption in modern American history: The 2 billion dollars that Jared Kushner’s investment firm received from the government of Saudi Arabia is one of those rare examples of corruption that is so obvious it doesn’t even require investigation. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, became a White House Adviser and was eventually made the person in charge of coming up with sweeping policy proposals for the Middle East. He defended Saudi Arabia at every turn, including in response to the murder of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Six months after leaving the White House, Kushner founded a new investment firm and received a cash infusion of 2 billion dollars from the Saudis. As of March, 2022, 80% of his firms investment capital was from the Saudi government. And almost all the rest came from other Middle East governments, including Qatar and UAE.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund has a panel that screens its potential investments. That panel objected to investing with Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Fund, on the following grounds (before the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman overrode their determination):

“the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump

There’s a laundry list of other potential acts of corruption, but I’ll only list this one because, in my view, it’s an undeniable and self-evident example of foul play.

Trump, and his administration, sought to use the power of the U.S. government to promote their own personal agendas. We can disagree about tax cuts, reproductive rights, or tariffs, and those would constitute policy debates. If it were a question of policy, I would not be completely aligned with either conservative or liberal ideology. However, the choice between Trump and Biden is not one of Republican policy versus Democratic policy. It is a choice between a government that works within a democratic framework and, in the case of a Trump administration, one that would have us move towards an autocracy.

There is merit to traditional conservative ideas of governmental non-interference or a foreign policy based on peace through strength. If our democracy were in a healthier place, we could go to the polls and have the option to vote for those ideas. Unfortunately, those won’t be on the ballot. We have governmental policy on one side, and the wants and needs of one man and his family on the other side. For this reason, every American should vote for Democrats in November. It’s not a policy decision; it’s a vote for democracy itself.

Whataboutism

Supporters of Donald Trump view most of what I’ve said about him in the preceding paragraphs to instead be true of Joe Biden and the Democrats, but none of this bears out under scrutiny. There was recently a congressional investigation into Biden family business dealings and alleged corruption, but it found no substantial evidence of wrongdoing and was insufficient to convince even the politically-motivated Republican caucus to move forward with impeachment proceedings. The star witness was, in fact, indicted for lying to the FBI.

Regardless, I’m not here to defend Joe Biden. If it should ever come out that he has acted corruptly in his roles as President, former Vice President, or former Senator, then let him be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, to date, no allegations against President Biden have ever been sufficiently substantiated to convince unbiased minds of wrongdoing on his part.

And to the more important point, Biden has not been found at any time to have used his powers as President in an extra-democratic fashion. He has not gassed peaceful protestors. He has zero reported instances of obstruction of justice. He has never even publicly discussed the criminal proceedings involving Donald Trump, much less been found to have tried to interfere with them in some way. His own son has just been convicted of felonies, and there is no suggestion that he attempted to intervene in that matter either. He has never sown doubt onto the integrity of our elections or tried to interfere with how they are conducted.

Some will point to the Justice Department’s telling social media companies that news about Hunter Biden was potentially Russian disinformation as evidence of Democratic efforts to use governmental powers to suppress politically damaging information. This action does deserve criticism. However, it precedes Biden’s term as President and reflects an isolated instance of governmental overreach, not a sustained effort by the Biden administration. Biden has not praised the act or called for more of the same. A vote for Biden is not a vote for that action. James Comey announcing that Hillary Clinton was under investigation by the FBI just days before the 2016 election is an even more egregious example of governmental overreach in the run up to an election, but it, likewise, was a bug not a feature. Trump, however, stands by the January 6th insurrectionists and calls them “hostages.” He stands by his efforts to subvert our rule of law and system of self-governance.

Finally, others will point to Trump’s own legal troubles as political persecution. There are too many charges against him to delve into each of them here, but you will never hear anyone say that he did not do what he has been charged with. I’ve heard many people argue that he should not have been charged for it, but never that he did not do what was alleged. People will say that some other person has done the same and wasn’t charged. It’s simple: If you break the law, you should face the penalties. If he had not broken the law — or even broken a law that had no legitimacy — then I would be fully opposed to his prosecution as well. But these are legitimate laws and his violation of them is well documented.

His attempts at election interference were blatant. There’s a recording of the call! His financial crimes are obvious and seem to never end. Many people have said that he shouldn’t have been prosecuted for them, but when his lawyer, Michael Cohen, was prosecuted for the same incident, no one batted an eye. Both Trump and Biden have been investigated for issues related to the handling of classified documents — let whoever broke the law in this manner be charged and tried. He should also be charged for the counts of obstruction of justice laid out in Mueller’s report, though Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, sought to snuff out that possibility immediately.

Conclusion

We have now witnessed a single presidential term from Joe Biden and a single presidential term from Donald Trump. A person can in good faith disagree with much of the policy enacted by Joe Biden, but Trump’s term as President was riddled with scandal and the acts of a would-be authoritarian. No levelheaded person can allege that anything similar has occurred during Biden’s time as President.

The choice that needs to be made in November has never been clearer.

Enjoy this article? I’d recommend following it up with: “Is Biden Going To Win Again?”