I Voted for Biden and Here Is Why I Did

March 5, 2020 Off By Michael
Harold Michael Harvey at an early vote precinct in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia March 3, 2020, © 2020 Cascade Publishing House

The Georgia Presidential Preference Primary slated for March 24, 2020, in my home state. However, Georgia is among a few political subdivisions that have an early vote process where voters can cast their ballot before the scheduled Primary or General Election date.

I like early voting because the lines are usually shorter. I can get in and out in fifteen minutes or less. However, in the 2008 General Election, when Barack Obama was on the ballot for the first time, I stood in line about three and one-half hour to cast my historic vote.

I consider myself more an independent voter than one married to either the Republican or Democratic parties.

This year there is not any value in voting in the Republican Primary for the simple fact the House of Representative’s Managers proved the House of Representative’s impeachment case against President Donald John Trump.

Unfortunately, Republican senators did not follow the law and convict Trump of misuse of the Office of the President and obstruction of a congressional investigation.

Since the US Senate left it up to American voters to punish or not punish Trump for his gregarious behavior, I have but one choice, and that is to vote Trump out of office.

While my whole life has been a life of revolutionary change, it would seem that a natural choice for me this year would be Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2016, I chose him over Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

I like Sanders’ proposal for universal health care.

I am not afraid of the price tag on medicare for all, or how the government will pay for it. Magical things happen when appropriations are moved from one item in the budget to another to create room for the next new thing.

Free college tuition for anyone who wants to go to college, I’m all for it. I welcome a generation starting without the burden of student loans.

Ending the school to prison pipeline for Black and brown citizens, I champion this cause too.

A Fifteen Dollar minimum wage, I love it.

Does the country need a revolution? Heck, yes, it does. The time for the political coup was 2016. It didn’t come then because far fewer people in 2016 were ready for the revolution than are ready in 2020.

This year, what the country needs more than going from one disruptive presidential administration on the right to a disruptive administration on the left is stability. The ending of the Obama Administration in 2016 was a natural gateway into Sander’s revolutionary change because it would not have caused much disruption from the Obama path.

This year, I voted for stability. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for stable government and financial markets.

A Biden Administration will bring the nation back from the brink of disaster. I liken Biden to a steady hand in a tumultuous sea.

Additionally, Biden is the incumbent’s greatest nightmare, i.e., continued efforts by Trump to taint Biden with corruption in Ukraine, and this fact alone should tell American voters interested in replacing Trump all they need to know before stepping into the voting booth.

Harold Michael Harvey is the author of Freaknik Lawyer: A Memoir on the Craft of Resistance. He is a Past President of the Gate City Bar Association. He is the recipient of Gate City’s R. E. Thomas Civil Rights Award, which he received for his pro bono representation of Black college students arrested during Freaknik celebrations in the mid to late 1990s. An avid public speaker, contact him at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com.