It appears that before proceeding with comments relating to Biden, it is obligatory on Turn Left to reassure readers that one is not happy he will be the nominee. I know for some readers, such posts must be riddled with impassioned vitriol or they’re worthless, and if you’re such a reader, I will alert you that you won’t like what I’m about to write, so please stop reading.

For others, feel free to read on.

[NOTE: It is my posting policy never to comment on or reply to a nasty comment more than once.]

I am trained in and a retired teacher (high school to graduate school) of critical thinking and argumentation. Before I signed up for this group a few days ago, I had already been dismayed since the 2016 election at how many people who claim to be leftists write with as little thought as our worst enemies.

If we don’t set good examples for good thinking and government, who will?

After optimistically signing up for this group, I quickly became disappointed by numerous (not all) posts here that echo what had already been causing me endless sighs of frustration.

Biden certainly presents moral issues.* But those issues require considerably more thought than many attackers offer.

Was he a sexual predator? Quite possibly, though I’ve read enough by informed commentators trained in this field to make me suspend judgment while remaining wary. If he was, is he still? If he is, does that cancel out any benefit for a Biden administration (including court appointees across the board) over Trump’s?

Did he once support racist policies? It looks that way.

Is he mealy-mouthed on some important issues? He certainly can be.

And so on. But here’s the thing. Myself, I’m retired and have lived many decades, always on the side of most lefty positions (especially where social justice is concerned).** Both in my political and private lives, I have (you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn) made numerous mistakes. (I’m even told I STILL make them.) BUT: I would hate for old mistakes to be trumpeted as guides to whom I am now.

On another hand, I can willingly acknowledge older mistakes as part of modeling the value of assessing oneself honestly and then correcting what one realizes was wrong.***

I’ll take this farther: I know that my social context for growing up in the 1940s and 50s planted some horrible visceral prejudicial reactions in me that I must own, monitor, and make sure not to indulge. I have to fight off being ashamed when such thoughts cross my brain, but I solace myself with reminders that such human behavior can’t be helped but only regulated so it does no damage outside oneself.

So by all means, don’t soft-pedal Biden’s shortcomings, but also examine contrasting statements about their validity (and evaluate the credentials of who writes them), cut him slack where he appears to have gone beyond younger transgressions to make valuable changes, be ready to hold his feet to the political fire, and think about what a relief it will be to stop banging your head, day in and day out, against the brick wall represented by trumpist rule. (This is not to say some brick-wall head-banging won’t happen.)

I’m very curious to see if this post (or a few others I’m offering today) get approval. An earlier post of such spirit seemed to be rejected, though I was never notified or told why.

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* As someone who doesn’t register Democrat and has often voted for third parties, I previously offered my own brief commentary on Biden on my blog at http://www.richardyanowitz.com/wordpress/to-biden-or-not-to-biden/.

** You can find some of what I did up to 2008 at http://www.richardyanowitz.com/musingsandmeanderingshomepage.html. Recently, I’ve been putting comments on my blog (http://www.richardyanowitz.com/wordpress/). They include categories for COVID-19, social and political thoughts, and the climate crisis.

Ongoing activity during lockdown is only by donations and supportive posts, and in the several years before that teaching about the climate crisis and occasionally joining social justice and climate demonstrations. In recent months, I have especially resonated to (and given money but not physical participation) the Never Again group’s demonstrations that take Holocaust precedents as bases for resisting parallel treatment of immigrants today.

*** Such mistakes included youthful (teens and earlier 20s, I think, though maybe also later) dogmatic, vitriolic letters-to-the-editor (this, too, may shock you, but we didn’t have the internet then), political meetings that wrangled over angels-on-the-heads-of-pins positions (like, do we say, “Any means necessary” vs. “Any means possible”?), speeches at rallies, lefty local and national conventions, and other venues for communication.