Tag Archives: joe-biden

Trump Must Go, Progressives Must Unite

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Overall, it was both a relief and an energizer to see Kamala Harris put Donald Trump in his place last night in the big debate. We can only hope this was a turning point in the much-needed popular shift away from the MAGA fanatics, a takedown that is not just an energizer for those who believe in democracy but a downer for those who are either hard-core racists/sexists/fascists or who have been taken in up to now by all the lies, the hype, and the appeals to the worst in the human condition.

I will personally be doing a lot over the next 55 days to help get Trump defeated and help Democrats hold onto the Senate and take back the House. After this decisive Trump debate defeat, all of those things seem possible, though by no means a certainty. I will continue to go to Pennsylvania almost every Saturday between now and election day to do door knocking and talking to voters, as well as evening phone banking 2-3 times a week. I have adjusted my life so that I can do these things, which I can do because I am retired.

But as last night’s debate unfolded I found myself feeling not just elation over Harris’ clear-cut debate victory but also the necessity of progressives across a broad range of issues, constituencies and organizations taking steps to be better connected, to unite in some kind of a way, after November 5. That is needed because the debate made clear that Harris is not running as a progressive, even though some of her positions are definitely progressive. She is running as a representative of a broad, pro-democracy united force that includes lots of people and groups on the Left but also people like Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney!!!

Trump is so bad, so retrograde, so dangerous that this truly remarkable temporary alliance has come into being.

There were a number of things Harris said and didn’t say last night that were problematic if you are a progressive:

-While opposing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and supporting a “two-state solution” and “Palestinian self-determination,” her words, she said nothing about ending, or even pausing, US weapons shipments to Israel.

-On climate she was decidedly weak. She was uncritical of fracking; she could have referenced that there are lots of landowners and community people who have been poisoned by the expansion of the fracked gas industry, but she didn’t. She never took the initiative to talk about the need for a rapid shift off of fossil fuels to renewables, battery storage, electric cars, buses and trains and electric heat pumps for heating and cooling. At one point she did say, “I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy.” That was good, no question. But she added to that sentence this problematic phrase, this very problematic reality: “while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels.”

-Despite Trump’s repeated racist and wildly inaccurate statements about immigrants, she never called him out on that.

-There was no mention of the importance of unions for working-class people, very little about labor.

-She continued to say, as she has done repeatedly in her speeches, that is a good thing that, to paraphrase, we are spending close to $1 trillion a year dominating the world militarily. She put it this way: “I believe in what we can do together that is about sustaining America’s standing in the world and ensuring we have the respect that we so rightly deserve including respecting our military and ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”

Is it necessary politically that Harris take these kinds of less-than-progressive positions in order to amass the votes needed to defeat Trump? Maybe. I’m sure there are those in her campaign leadership who believe this, and she clearly has bought into it.

That is why it is so necessary that after Trump and MAGA are hopefully defeated, hopefully decisively, on November 5th, progressives must find the ways to strengthen our connections and expand our support so that going into 2025 we are in a position to fight for truly progressive actions across the board. But for the next 55 days we must each do all we can for a defeat of the fascist threat. First things first.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

Door-Knocking Trump Households

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It’s great what happened yesterday, in so many ways, after Biden’s stepping down announcement and then endorsement of Harris. And it’s even better that as of now it looks very unlikely that anyone of substance is going to challenge her being the Presidential nominee.

The energy and funds generated less than 24 hours after these announcements by Biden are another very good sign. This morning, watching the news, it was a small thing but of note to see the new, virtually certain, Democratic Presidential candidate walking crisply and confidently down the steps of a plane. It may be a small thing, but for many voters they want leaders who radiate strength, energy and confidence, so this has importance. Trump does this but with no regard for the truth or falsehood of what he says. Kamala Harris does this but in an opposite way as far as truth-telling.

Any day now we’ll start hearing all of the lies and half-truths and distortions of Harris’ positions on issues and personal history from the Trumpists. There will also be criticisms from both the Left and the Democratic Party Right about weaknesses and problematic, past Harris positions or actions. It’d be nice if those criticisms were more constructive than destructive given the fascist, racist, misogynistic, climate-denying alternative.

For myself, as someone who has been about independent progressive politics since 1975, I have no problem being upfront about the clearly correct tactical necessity of doing a lot of work and donating money to defeat the MAGA Republicans.

One tactical campaign idea I’ve had since the big Biden announcements yesterday afternoon is this: if it’s the case, as looks very possible, that there are going to be huge numbers of people stepping forward to volunteer for this historic campaign, some of them should, in an organized way, go door to door in neighborhoods in key battleground states that are pro-Trump areas. Probably not so much in the hardest core areas but I could see doing so in areas that went to Trump by upwards of 25% in 2020.

What would be the objective of this canvassing? While id’ing and encouraging Harris supporters would, of course, be one objective, another potentially critical one will be to raise enough questions in the minds of right-now-Trump voters that some of them will end up not voting for him when they vote this fall.

It’s important to appreciate the reality that some, at least 20% I’d say, of those who tell pollsters that they will be voting for Trump this fall are not diehard MAGA supporters. They are people who, if reached out to and spoken with over the phone or in person by well-trained canvassers, could end up deciding that they are too conflicted about Trump, and probably Harris too, such that they end up not voting for him when they vote this fall.

There’s another reason why this should be one component of a multi-faceted Harris campaign, both the official Democratic Party operation and those of more independent groups.

Whoever wins the White House, the House, the Senate and state legislatures this fall, progressives, particularly anti-racist white progressives, need to much more broadly interact with those working-class white people who support MAGA. There are a lot of bad reasons why they’re doing so but one understandable reason is past Democratic support for NAFTA and other policies that led to massive job losses over the last 50 years. Given the positive job creation numbers under the Biden/Harris administration, we have something to say about a different reality today on this, and on other, issues.

It is wrong to write off all MAGA supporters!

I live in New Jersey, an hour drive away from key battleground state Pennsylvania. I am so looking forward to going there many times over the next 3 ½ decisive months to do this kind of work. History is calling.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

The Trump Shooting

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You don’t need to be a pacifist to regret the attempt on Trump’s life yesterday. The MAGA fascists are not going to be defeated on November 5th, as well as beyond this election, by physical attacks, with guns or otherwise.

What will defeat them? Right now I would say there are two main things:

-In the short run, over the next four months, there needs to be a coming together of a massive and broad united front to mobilize tens of millions of people to come out and vote on November 5th for Biden/Harris, particularly in the battleground states, as well as for progressive and not-so-progressive Democrats for the House and Senate in every state. The exception would be If there were any progressive independents like Bernie Sanders running for Congress who had a real chance of winning, though I don’t know of any.

-Day-after-day organizing must deepen and expand beyond November 5th by progressive groups, increasingly connected, all over the country, including in the rural, small town and outer suburban areas where Trump/MAGA is strongest. Door-to-door and other outreach must be stepped up on Issues that are important to most of those in that overwhelmingly white, MAGA-friendly base, like health care, affordable housing and decent-paying union jobs, but without hiding our progressive approach on issues like racism, sexism, heterosexism, the climate crisis, militarism, etc.

Already, unsurprisingly, prominent MAGA Republican leaders like Mike Johnson and JD Vance are blaming Biden and the Democrats for this shooting. Vance, very possibly about to be Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate, said yesterday after the shooting, “”Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Bullshit.

This is why nonviolent tactics must be the kind of tactics we use as we unite to defeat Trump/MAGA this November and keep building afterwards. This doesn’t mean rejecting self defense. It does mean, imho, that there needs to be a widespread appreciation within our people’s progressive movement that a willingness to risk physical attacks or jail time, or worse, is part of the way we can win. Doing so keeps a focus on the issues we are taking action on, and it brings more people to our side.

Jim Crow segregation in the South would never have been defeated if not for the willingness of the young people of SNCC, SCLC, other groups, and grassroots Black working-class people to do just this. Their courage and sacrifices, their singing and spirit, were contagious and politically effective despite tremendous repression by the FBI, racists and southern power structures.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th, 1967, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism,” and more.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

The Aging Process Always Wins

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Joe Biden’s debate performance and the information that has come out since of other hidden-from-the-public signs of his declining cognitive condition have reminded me of a similar situation I experienced decades ago with one of the 20th century’s leading peace and justice activists, Dave Dellinger.

I had the privilege of working closely with Dave from the 70’s until the early 2000’s in the movement to end the war in Vietnam, for a mass progressive alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, for freedom for Leonard Peltier, and as part of the movement in 1992 to reject government plans to celebrate the 500th year of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Westen Hemisphere in 1492. In that year he and I and another dozen or so people took part in an organized People’s Fast For Justice and Peace in the Americas, a 42-day water-only fast on the steps of the US Capitol. 

The last meeting where we were together was a national “progressive dialogue” meeting I helped to organize in December of 2000, after the George Bush vs. Al Gore 2000 Presidential election. For several years in the early 2000’s there were meetings of a multi-racial, youth-and-elders cross section of leading progressive activists, convened for the explicit purpose of strengthening our connections so that we could play a more effective role in opposing two-party, corporate rule.

Dave was not himself at that meeting. He was still articulate, but he was also over the top in the way he expressed himself. I remember him demanding that people agree with his ideas as far as what we should be doing. He was not a positive force in the meeting. I had never seen him the way that he was then.

Dave was 85 at the time of this meeting, one year younger than Joe Biden will be if he is chosen next month at the Democratic Convention as their Presidential candidate, if he defeats fascist Trump and then makes it to the end of a second four year term as President.

Immediately after the June 27 debate debacle I could see no way that Biden could continue to be the Democratic Presidential candidate. But that now seems more likely after Biden’s very different performance in the George Stephanopoulus ABC TV interview last Friday, his North Carolina and Wisconsin rallies, as well as the just-expressed support for Biden by the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Bernie Sanders, AOC and others.

There’s no doubt that Vice President Kamala Harris has become a very consequential person going forward, and not just because she’s who would step in if (imho, probably when) Biden and those around him agree that he can’t make it until the end of 2028 and needs to step down.

I haven’t been much of a fan of Harris, based mainly on her performance during the 2019-2020 Democratic Presidential primary campaign. But I have been noticing that she seems more confident, more forceful and clear over the last month or so. And according to Michael Moore, “for over 8 months, it has been reported that Kamala Harris has pushed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.” This squares up with comments she made about Gaza and the war this March in Selma, Alabama.

For me and clearly others, a Biden/Harris slate in which Harris plays a visible and public role, showing us and the country, I hope, that she is prepared to step in if Biden falters and he realizes it’s time to step aside—that seems to me like a potential winning ticket.

For me, for Biden, for all of us, it’s 100% certain that if we make it into our retirement years, we can expect to experience the slings and arrows of the aging process, no doubt about it. When we start to experience bad days, poor performances, memory lapses, at an increasing rate, adjustments will be necessary to match what we want to do with what we can do. Those close to Biden have a responsibility not to deny reality but to help him adjust accordingly when it’s clear it’s his time to retire.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

Is Gaza Disqualifying for Biden?

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Several days ago I received an email from a good friend who had just come back from the West Bank in Palestine. My friend has been connected with Palestinians and active in the movement against Israel’s brutal occupation for a very long time.

One line of her email gave me pause: “When you think of voting for Biden, remember that this horror is of his making.”

I have been active since last October in the US movement demanding an end to US support of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, an end to Israel’s decades-long occupation, and for self-determination and justice for the Palestinian people. I’ve participated in weekly Friday street vigils in a nearby town every week that I am home. I’ve written about this issue. I’ve made phone calls to elected officials demanding they call for an immediate ceasefire and massive humanitarian aid for Gaza. But I think to encourage people not to vote for Biden/the Democratic candidate on the basis of this issue is very problematic for two reasons.

1–The next US President is going to be either Trump or whoever the Democrats eventually nominate. As problematic as the Biden Administration’s positions and actions have been for most of the last nine months since October 7, it is a fact that, because of the widespread popular revulsion against Israel’s actions in Gaza, the massive activist movement demonstrating in the streets and the constant pressure brought from within the Democratic Party by its progressive wing, the Biden team a couple of months ago finally began to use its leverage over the Netanyahu regime to demand that they change their tactics, with some success.

Does anyone think that Trump and the Republicans would be a better alternative when it comes to Palestine? Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, with Trump’s support, is bringing Netanyahu to the US to speak publicly from the floor of the House in late July!

2–In general, I don’t think a candidate’s position on any one issue alone should be how progressives decide who to vote for, especially in this Presidential election. I think it is important to look at both the overall program and the past actions on all the major issues by candidates, as well as whether or not a candidate has any chance of winning, or perhaps not winning but generating such a big vote that the progressive mass movement will be advanced despite a loss.

On issue after issue Biden and the Democrats, despite their ties to big money and corporate power, are better than Trump and the Republicans: the climate emergency, women’s rights, abortion rights, voting rights, racial justice, lgbtq+ rights, labor rights, democratic rights and the right to organize and demonstrate, to name just some of the huge differences.

Of course, there are two Presidential candidates whose positions have been strong on the Gaza war and on these other issues, Cornel West and Jill Stein. But neither of them will win the Presidential election or draw very many votes, as reflected in Stein’s past voting results and current, month-after-month polling results. The primary, immediate practical result of their campaigns will be to draw votes away from the Democratic candidate and increase the odds that Trump wins.

There is one thing they could do which would change this inevitable result. They could publicly call for their supporters to vote their conscience, at least, if not for them to vote for the Democratic nominee, in the battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. They could acknowledge the existential threat posed by the MAGA movement. So far this hasn’t happened.

For the planet, for the people, for our rights, for democracy, Trump and MAGA must be defeated at the ballot box on November 5th.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

Activist Risk Taking, Then and Now

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April 30 is a day I remember because it is my mom’s birthday. She died in 2005. But it’s also a day I remember because, on that day in 1971, while serving what turned out to be an 1l-month sentence in federal prison for my draft resistance activism against the Vietnam war, I was indicted with seven others by the Nixon Justice Department for a supposed conspiracy to destroy heating tunnels under DC and kidnap Henry Kissinger.

Those charges were bogus; when they finally got to a jury in conservative Harrisburg, Pa., they were hung 10-2 for acquittal, and that was the end of that particular “conspiracy” trial during the Vietnam War.

It is inspiring that on that April 30 day yesterday, several hundred people were arrested around the country, mainly students, as part of the massive worldwide movement to stop the Gaza genocide and end this war. And I saw an email just a couple hours ago from someone reminding people that on this same day in 1975, the United States military completely vacated Vietnam. This brought to an end the 30-year US effort to take over the colonizing and repressive role France had played for almost a century.

Here are some personal reflections on all of this:

-There is a level of intensity on the issue of the Gaza war that is very similar to the level of intensify many of us felt as young people during the Vietnam War, for good reason. When the daily body count is in the hundreds (Vietnam) and literal genocide—“ethnic cleansing” Bernie called it—is taking place in Gaza, intense and focused action is absolutely appropriate.

-Many of us who were students who took part in the Black Freedom and/or Anti-Vietnam War movements felt so deeply about these issues that some of us left school and we and others found a way to make a living while being a dedicated organizer for revolutionary change. Frankly, to have hope of success in our people’s movement for human and ecological survival and just and truly democratic societies, we need more young people to consciously take this step.

-It is clear that the overwhelming number of young people taking part in this spring justice uprising are doing so with a peaceful, if angry, spirit. Much of corporate media is spinning it very differently, painting the movement as violent and abusive. It is a responsibility of all of us to criticize these inaccurate characterizations and demand that the truth be reported.

-The dominant forces in the Democratic Party, and of course Republicans, really don’t like to have their policies criticized or their political power undercut by those of us willing to speak truth to power. Democrats respond one way when that happens, Republicans are much harsher. That’s been true for a very long time. As I wrote in my book Burglar for Peace, “The Nixon Administration that was in power 50-plus years ago was a repressive government, known for illegal wiretapping, inflammatory rhetoric, criminal prosecutions of peace and justice activists, and outright physical attacks, including killings, against Black Panther Party members. I had followed the Chicago 8 trial a year and a half before, a clear case of government repression against anti-war and Black Freedom activists, following the police riots during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.” 

The years 1969 to 1974, when Nixon was President, were very rough for a lot of us, although most of us survived.

-The conditions for organizing are much more positive under Democrats than under Republicans. This would be particularly the case if Trump is elected this November. He and the Republicans have made clear that they have every intention of taking this country so far backward that the Biden Presidency would come to be seen as a very good four years. It’s not. Some things are good, yes, but some things aren’t, Gaza in particular right now. But compared to a Trump Presidency, it would be like night and day.

So as we keep fighting for a ceasefire and an end to the war and movement toward true Palestinian self-determination for that long-suffering people, let’s be sure to respond to the US electoral process accordingly. Trump and the MAGA Republicans must be defeated. Strong progressive candidates like The Squad need to be supported.

It’s all of one, multi-colored piece. Si, se puede.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.