If we envision participation as including everything from who you vote for to whether or not you vote, then when we look at people who are abstaining, we have to understand that they represent a constituency that’s taking an active role in establishing their priorities. We need to shift from shaming or arguing over who people should vote for based on what we think and towards an understanding that many sectors in this country exercise their political agency through abstention rather than participation.

If we fail to understand this, we won’t have a clue for how to turn out those Bernie folks as well as other constituencies when it’s time to vote for Biden. I think this is something that is fundamentally incomprehensible to the Democratic establishment and nothing Biden said changes my opinion of that.

Charles Lenchner