I agree that neither Mr. Biden nor Ms Harris are radical leftists. I think it is rather delusional to think so. But I also think that many people, (especially ones who are extremely vexed or frustrated) nowadays tend to more hyperbolic rhetoric. While I may be wrong - and Emily Lake can (and will, if I am wrong) correct me, but I think that is her situation.
I acknowledge that Biden isn't explicitly a radical leftist. But Both Biden and Harris have supported policies that I view as very progressive, and which I oppose. I am definitely extremely frustrated, there's no question about that. Both of them have embraced a style of identity politics that I think is detrimental to the country, and which fosters divisiveness.
Trump also fosters divisiveness, as do many Republicans. From my perspective, I don't think that the divisiveness that Republicans embrace is something that has any reasonable chance to become enacted as legislative policy. It's sucky, stupid, short-sighted, emotive fearmongering, absolutely. But not
policy.
I can deal with shitheads being shitheads. I can bite my tongue and leave people to believe whatever idiotic stupidity they want. It's policy that worries me, because policy is extremely difficult to undo. And for those few topics where both the right and the left are advocating policies that I find objectionable, I have to try to decide which policy is most likely to be enacted, which is most challengeable in the future, and which I'm most willing to tolerate.
I didn't think that there was any chance of Roe v Wade being overturned. I'm very unhappy that it was. But I also don't support completely unfettered abortions, because at some point a fetus is a baby. Sorry if that offends anyone, but it's true. And it's a view held by the vast majority of americans, who tend to think that somewhere between three and five months into a pregnancy, abortion should no longer be an option unless the life of the mother is at risk. But having abortion laws turned over to the states still allows for those laws to be challenged - and continuously challenged. So there is some recourse to oppose them and to change the approach in highly restrictive states.
Rewrites to Title IX and the (still forever stuck) ERA cause me more concern. If we can't even have a basis for what a woman is in the first place, there is no recourse to providing for a woman's right to bodily autonomy. And when the legislation coming from the top down requires that men can be treated as women in sports, prisons, medical provision, etc. then there challenges to restrictive abortion laws become almost impossible to pursue. Any reasonable approach to ensure that women have equal opportunity to participate in society become meaningless when men get counted as women. To me, that has some profound impacts on women, and it will be much, much harder to undo.
None of it makes me happy. I don't think there's a policy position out there from either party that I actually think is a good policy. But some are worse than others, some have more long-term negative consequences, and some are more insulated from challenge.
