The Enemy Of My Enemy Is Not My Friend

It's an old Arab proverb used to justify alliances with people you shouldn't join forces with: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I fell victim to that proverb in 2016.

The millions of people who supported Bernie Sanders and the dozens of us who supported Martin O'Malley did not obviously agree on the same candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign.  We also didn't agree on the same things all of the time - in fact, given O'Malley's pragmatism and Sanders' radicalism, we sometimes couldn't agree on what to do about something about an issue even while agreeing that something had to be done about it.  But because we had a common adversary in Hillary Clinton, we stood together against her.

When O'Malley was eliminated from the 2016 presidential primaries, however, I didn't follow the lead of other O'Malley supporters who decided to go all in for Hillary because they thought she was the safer choice.  To me, Hillary was still the enemy.  I walked backward into the Sanders camp and without much enthusiasm, but I was seriously thinking of voting for him in the 2016 New Jersey primary until it became apparent that it was ridiculous to register as a Democrat to vote for an independent in the Democratic presidential primary - especially when Hillary was all but guaranteed the nomination by the time the New Jersey primary was held.  I sat out the primary and supported no one.  When Hillary became the presumptive nominee, I did what the Bernie bros did - I backed the Greens' Jill Stein for President and called for the Greens or a new party to replace the Democrats.  I made good on my promise to vote to Dr. Stein to get back at Hillary Clinton, her enabler Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and everyone else who tied a symbolic rock to Martin O'Malley's ankle so as to avenge my candidate.  Hey, so what, it wasn't like Trump was going to win, right?

But Trump did win, though Hillary carried my state of New Jersey, and here's where we are now.  The progressive movement is a joke.  Progressives did nothing to build a new party around their values in the past three years; they only caused more trouble for the Democrats.  Sanders ran for President as a Democrat again despite the fact that he is not a party member.  Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are gone, and Democratic National Committee Tom Perez let the presidential primaries go on without a finger on the scale . . . and Joe Biden emerged as the presumptive nominee after a fairly fought and difficult contest - a contest which Biden almost sank to oblivion in.  And there's a pandemic going on.

At this point, Bernie bros have shown their true colors.  Having taken a verbal flamethrower to not just Biden but to all of the Democratic presidential candidates  not named Bernard by their mothers, they've since taken to ridiculing Biden for his stutter, mocking him as being a daffy old creep, and now pushing a sexual-assault charge that has more holes than Swiss cheese.  They've conveniently ignored his liberal record as a U.S. Senator and the context of some of his more controversial Senate votes and tried to smear him as an unfit candidate, calling on him to step aside so the runner-up can take his place.  Guess who the runner-up is.

Never mind that Sanders has endorsed Biden, trusts him, and is urging his supporters to vote for him rather than go third party in November because of the need to defeat Trump.  Good luck with that, Bernie.

I'm not voting Green in 2020 even if Biden is projected to win 90 percent of the vote in New Jersey and doesn't need me.  Because I am not with the Bernie bros this time.  Bernie bros, the enemies of my enemy in 2016, are no friends of mine.  I have come to understand that they have no interest in compromising, cooperation, or any other activity a political system admittedly in need of reform requires in order to achieve the big-picture goal of getting your side to win the White House. Bernie bros refuse to accept their candidate's loss and work with the Democrats to get Trump out.  They want everything their way - no compromise, no concessions, no give and take - at a time when it is politically unfeasible.  They have no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with them and they are willing to destroy the Democrats for not being pure enough on the issues at the risk of helping Trump.  They're a bunch of mean-spirited spoiled brats. They're a cult.  They're, as I like to say, the Islamic State of political fandom.  And I'm sick to death of having to deal with them.  In 2016, at the Democratic convention, Sarah Silverman said they were being ridiculous over their refusal to support anyone other than Sanders.  Now they're just being petulant.

And they would have treated Martin O'Malley with the same displeasure, distrust, and hatred they've shown to Biden had O'Malley ever become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in either 2016 or 2020.  They would have played up the charge that he had a love child with a black TV newswoman, a charge ten times as implausible as the charges against Biden.  They would have bashed his criminal justice record as mayor of Baltimore.  And I know this because, it turns out, they considered O'Malley a joke in 2016 as much as Hillary Clinton supporters did.  Both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns were united in their disrespect for O'Malley, which only clinches for me the following conclusion.  The enemy of the enemy is not your friend. The enemy of your enemy is still your enemy.

Hillary Clinton may have been an adversary to me, but Hillary is no longer a concern.  Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton.  Joe Biden is not my enemy.  He is my candidate.  Go with Joe.