Here's what's wrong with the 'lesser of two evils' argument
It's lazy and it's totally wrong
Issue #525 The Choice Thursday, March 7, 2024
We need to get something straight; President Joe Biden is not the lesser of two evils. President Joe Biden is not evil. Period. End of sentence.
No, wait. It’s not the end of the sentence. Because if you’re one of those types who like to say that Biden is the lesser of two evils and that’s the only reason you’re supporting him, you’re being lazy and you’re not doing your homework at a time when all of us need to be plowing through as much homework as we can possibly stack on top of the table. The evidence of all the positive things Biden has done - and the remarkable positive effect those efforts are having on the country - is clear and it is not hard to find. Chances are you’re already benefiting from those accomplishments, even if you don’t know it. So if you’re not seeing these benefits reported on your favorite TV news program - or Instagram feed, TikTok, X, or whatever - take the initiative and dig a little deeper. Maybe change the channel, or expand your information universe.
Now if you want to argue about Biden’s continued support of Israel and why we continue to send Israel money for weapons in this ongoing horrific war and human tragedy in Gaza, then we can do that. Because I don’t agree with that either. At all. I think our continued support of Israel amid their starvation and destruction of an entire population of people is a huge mistake that may haunt the Biden administration for years to come.
But I also did not agree one bit with our involvement in the Vietnam War, a war in which 58,220 United States soldiers were killed. President Lyndon Johnson’s determination to win that war rather than withdraw, despite all the American casualties and the fact that we had no business there, is largely what pre-emptively torpedoed his chances at a second successful campaign for office. Young anti-Vietnam War protesters took to the streets chanting “Hey, Hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”
According to the Miller Center:
The major initiative in the Lyndon Johnson presidency was the Vietnam War. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had already lost 30,000 Americans there. Johnson's approval ratings had dropped from 70 percent in mid-1965 to below 40 percent by 1967, and with it, his mastery of Congress. "I can't get out, I can't finish it with what I have got. So what the hell do I do?" he lamented to Lady Bird. Johnson never did figure out the answer to that question.
But that very same President Johnson was also responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most substantial of them all, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I would add that he expended just about all of his political capital to accomplish these monumental acts and did so knowing that these actions would so enrage Southern legislators, his former close friends and allies, that they would bolt the Democratic Party. I would also add that President John F. Kennedy, whose horrific assassination in 1963 opened the door for Johnson’s presidency, could never have accomplished either of those things, even though he is much more lovingly and fondly remembered in history as The Beautiful One.
I make this comparison between Biden and Johnson to make the point that sometimes our greatest leaders can still make bad choices. And at the time, it always seems like it is those bad choices that frame the leader, not what that leader has accomplished. It was years before a more honest re-evaluation of Johnson’s presidency could take place that wasn’t completely overshadowed by his decisions on Vietnam.
President Joe Biden, imperfect though he may be (like all humans) is what stands between all of us and chaos. Voting to give President Biden is not a hold-your-nose lesser-of-two-evils proposition. Not hardly. Voting for Joe Biden is a vote for the only human being available who can literally save the country. And if Trump wins, and Putin hangs on, and Ukraine falls (which it will if Trump wins) and then Trump and Putin solidify their connections with North Korea and Hungary’s white Christian Nationalist dictator Victor Orban - not to mention if China decides to weigh in on the dark side of the scale once they see which way the pro-dictator wind is blowing - then it’s not just America’s future at stake.
Tonight, President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address. I hope you will watch, and I hope you will keep in mind what I said as you listen. And if you think I’m exaggerating about Trump, simply go back and listen to what Trump has been saying (over and over again in public in front of crowds of people). His plans, like Biden’s accomplishments, are not a secret. His insanity is quite easy to locate.
But our future as a country will not be quite so easy to tolerate - or survive - with Trump in office.
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