Advice to Biden Supporters

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Some final thoughts on the election, especially for Biden supporters and others terrified of a Trump reelection.

Millions of people of all ages got off the couch and volunteered for Bernie Sanders. They canvassed, made enormous numbers of phone calls, sent huge numbers of texts, and gave millions of donations. It was the most racially and economically diverse campaign ever seen in this country. Its top donor categories were teachers, nurses, fast food employees, and Walmart and Amazon workers.

These people campaigned as though their lives were on the line — because they were. This was life or death for the people who are never heard from on CNN or MSNBC and whose stories most comfortable Americans have long ago tuned out:

• I know of one woman who got involved because her boyfriend got cancer and died last year because he couldn’t afford his health insurance.
• I have spoken with a man whose son was on an antidepressant but was late on a $20 payment, so the insurance company dropped him even though the drug he was on had a high risk of suicide on sudden withdrawal. The young man drove his car into a lake and drowned.
• I know of others who had a parent get cancer and make the horrible choice to not seek treatment because it would have bankrupted the family, so they chose to die in order to leave something left behind.
• I know of immigrants and undocumented people who have horror stories about losing family members in illegal wars funded and backed by our government.
• I know of people who work two or three jobs but who can never get ahead in a system that enriches a few and leaves those at the bottom with nothing left at the end of the month.
• I know of young people who are chronically anxious about the warming planet and have, among other things, decided not to have children because neither party has done anything to stop climate change.
• I have talked to other young people drowning under college debt, making shitty pay, paying very high rent, and feeling abandoned by the Boomer generation and a candidate who said, “Gimme a break, I have no empathy.”

We’re now all reading of warehouse workers, grocery store workers, and nurses in unsafe conditions who are…