https://vimeo.com/417070612 photo by T.C.Hall Media Trump inspires the most reactionary, racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic sectors of U.S. Population; Biden represents pragmatic imperialism and a more socially liberal approach on domestic issues, says Phyllis Bennis on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay Transcript Paul Jay Welcome to theAnalysis podcast, I'm Paul Jay. There is a debate going on in progressive circles and otherwise about whether the Biden presidency, a possible Biden presidency, will be any better than a Trump presidency. Or not significantly enough better, that people that supported Bernie Sanders and others on the left, should in any way advocate for voting for Joe Biden. They say, well, Trump's language, some people say, has been bellicose and aggressive. He actually hasn't started any major foreign wars. And Biden supported the Iraq war. And so they say there's not any real evidence to do what Chomsky advocates and others, including Daniel Ellsberg and some other people, too. Yes, vote for the lesser evil. At any rate, to talk about, particularly this issue and foreign policy, is Phyllis Bennis. She joins us. She's the director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. She's written and edited about 11 books. And over the years, I've interviewed Phyllis and butchered the title of almost every one of her books. Among her latest, and I‘m reading it now, so I won't butcher it. "Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror, a Primer,“ as well as the just published seventh updated edition of her popular, "Understanding the Palestinian Israeli Conflict.“ Thanks for joining us, Phyllis. Phyllis Bennis Great to be with you, Paul. Paul Jay I'm surprised that some of the people on the left, you know, some fairly well-known people who are advocating don't even get involved in this presidential election. Focus on movement building and such. And it doesn't really matter whether Biden or Trump wins. What's your take? Phyllis Bennis Well, I think if we're talking about their policies in general, it's hard for me to imagine anyone saying that. If we're talking about foreign policy, there's a slight difference, although not as much as some people might think. But the notion that, for example, it would be enough for me to look at the question of who's going to be on the Supreme Court, who's going to be in the other federal courts, period, full stop. Because that's where you look at what's going to prevent us from protesting, what's going to prevent us from building movements? Courts could if we had all the reactionary judges that would be similar to the ones that are now being, even today are being approved in the Senate. This would be an incredibly dangerous, another four years of this. This would set in in stone for 40 years or more, a generation or two generations of right wing judges. That alone should give pause to anyone who wants to talk about movement building as if you can separate that from questions of power. Of course, we have to focus on movement building. And of course, it's true that in this country where democracy is so flawed by issues of class and race and so many other issues, it's never our turf and it's never our people, fully. It's all about lesser evils. But the notion that somehow if it's only a lesser evil, it doesn't matter is simply a question, in my view, of privilege of those who do not live at the bottom of the hierarchy of economic reality in this country. If you are among the poorest in this country,
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