The legitimacy of a democratic state (broadly defined) rests on the consent of the governed and this is expressed through voting. As such, you should vote and should support (or at least not oppose) efforts to ensure that all citizens can vote without facing an undue burden. In terms of who you should vote for between Joe and Donald, that is obviously up to you. But this guide is intended to help people pick between Joe Biden and Donald Trump based on their espoused political views.
Starting on the extreme left, if you are an authoritarian in red, then Donald is your guy. An authoritarian in red favors strict obedience to the state but favors “workers unite” over “blood and soil” and prefers hammers and sickles to eagles and lightning bolts. Donald is your best bet because Joe is not an authoritarian. Donald does not so much have an ideology. Rather, he has personality and moral defects that correspond closest to authoritarianism. While Trump is on the right, the work he is doing to establish authoritarianism will weaken the democratic defenses and can allow you and your fellow comrades a better chance of getting that leftist authoritarian state that would make Stalin proud. It is, after all, no accident that Trump has lavished praise on China and North Korea—they are red authoritarian states.
While this horribly oversimplifies things, I will smash together the radical left: the anarchists, the communists, and the socialists. While they differ in important ways, they do have remarkably similar endgame goals. They all want to replace the brutally exploitive capitalist system with one that is none of these things. The communists and anarchists also want to eliminate the brutally oppressive state. These two goals are linked: brutally exploitive capitalism requires a brutally oppressive state to maintain it, and this state exists to maintain the brutally exploitive capitalism. While this might sound insane, Donald is your guy.
Donald, unlike the recent presidents, has abandoned the efforts to keep the lower economic classes appeased with a share of the gains of capitalism. While he lies constantly, his efforts are aimed at enriching the upper classes and thus harming the lower classes. He has also been open in his use of the power of the state and his office to maintain the economic class structure and to keep institutionalized racism and classism in place. In short, Trump is doing what many radical leftists predicted: he is pulling away the curtain on the class conflict that other presidents have tried to keep in place. As such, Trump’s selfish and cruel devotion to the rich can help bring about the conditions that radical leftists crave: open class warfare and the destruction of capitalism and the oppressive state. The obvious risk is that Donald is also pushing to the right and class warfare can often be replaced with racism. The road to the radical left’s goal and the radical right’s goal are largely the same—they split at a critical point. But no risk no reward, comrade.
Joe is not your guy: he will extend that metaphorical road by pulling the glass shards out of the whip, enjoining the ruling classes to gently whip the lower classes and he will offer a bit of salve for the bloodied backs of the oppressed. That is, he will keep the system going, pushing back the revolution.
If you are a moderate leftist to a centrist, then Joe is your guy. He will do moderate and centrist things, push moderate and centrist policies, and do his best to get us back to 2012. Essentially, he is offering Obama’s third term—if you liked the first two, Joe is your guy.
If you are a moderate or center right person, Joe is also your guy. While he will use some moderately leftist language and do some things that are to the left of your values, he will do his best to bring us back to how things were in 2012. Things were rather good for you then. He will also do things you like: re-establishing our military and economic alliances, boosting free trade, pushing the American agenda overseas and so on. While he will commit many “Joe-isms”, he will have far more dignity than Donald. One also suspects his tweets will be few. Best of all, he agrees with you about the far left and radical left—he will be a bulwark against their cries for radical reform. Joe is far more likely to delay the revolution than Donald.
If you are of the radical right, Donald is obviously your guy. As noted above, Donald does not seem to have any ideology and is utterly lacking in a political philosophy beyond the notion that the state and his office should be exploited to serve his selfish desires. He is also fine with letting others in on the grift if they serve his interests and ego. So if you are a big grifter, he is your guy. He is either a racist or utterly fine with it; something Joe is not. So, he is down with providing you with cover, rolling back protection against your racism, and advancing policies that actively advance your racist goals. He is also fine with sexism if you are into that. And I know you are. As such, if you embrace all that evil stuff of the radical right, Donald is either with you because of his flaws or fine with you doing your thing if it helps him.
If you are an authoritarian in black, then Donald is obviously your guy. Again, he does not have an ideology or philosophy, but his defects of character and ethics make him an instinctive authoritarian in practice. He is doing his best (with impressive results given his lack of competence and work ethic) to destroy the defenses against authoritarianism. So, if you dream of wearing black with eagle and lightning bolt insignia while shouting “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us” Donald is your guy. There are, however, two worries for you. One is that the authoritarians in red will end up winning. But hey, you can always switch sides. You would also look good in red, right? The other is that while Trump’s lack of heart is in the right place, he might do things so badly that he pushes the country to the left—perhaps even into socialism. But the history of authoritarians shows that they are more Trump than Einstein, so he might be your best shot.
Be sure to vote. If you want to—it is a right but you also have the right to ignore your rights.
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