‘Settling for Biden’: the moral dilemma of a Biden presidency

I know that there are people who aren’t voting at all this presidential election. Though I will be voting for Democrat Joe Biden this fall, lately I prefer stating that “I’m settling for Biden.”

The motto “Settle for Biden” has been flitting around social media, specifically pointed toward voters like me: progressive Americans who care deeply about equity and equality and are fully aware of Mr. Biden’s harmful rhetoric and actions in the past. This is truly a painful election, and I want to stress that I am not telling anyone how to vote, nor am I aiming to invalidate the pain anyone feels from Mr. Biden’s actions or words.

Mr. Biden opposed busing in the 1970s, and he wrote the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that disproportionately harmed people of color and led to the state of mass incarceration we now live in. He’s been accused of sexual misconduct, and has even insulted my own heritage as a mixed-race American, with his stereotyping comments in 2008 about Indian-Americans: “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”