Your protest vote for Warren is actively devaluing black, disabled lives like mine

This might be hard to hear, but saying you're "Warren or nobody" is essentially saying your moral posturing is more important to you than the suffering of others. It is the epitome of privilege

Too many white, wealthy women are saying they don't want to vote for anyone but Warren — but this isn't what she would want you to do (AFP/Getty)

My heart sank when I saw the notification on my phone this morning: Liz Warren had left the 2020 presidential race. My friends, my classmates, and most of Twitter were aghast, and understandably so. Warren had great policies, fantastic debate performances, a deeply personal campaign, and many of us, myself included, wanted to finally see a woman in the Oval Office.

While many of her supporters took the news well, I found myself disturbed by one trend that started to take hold after her announcement to pull out. Some Warren supporters started proclaiming that they’d be protest-voting for Warren in the general election. They stated that Sanders, Biden, and Trump would never have their support; that it was Warren or nothing for them, in the style of the “Bernie or bust” crew in 2016.

As a black woman in America with a very expensive medical condition, I will be the first to tell you that a protest vote is not what Elizabeth Warren would want. She’d want you to vote for Bernie. This is no longer about which president we’d prefer out of a diverse line-up — it’s about voting for the person who will initiate the most progressive change and work for the benefit of all Americans, not just the rich.

Biden, at his best, is a centrist, and a centrist cannot bring about the change that Warren so desperately fought for. Trump, at his best, gets four more years to actively harm marginalized Americans and benefit his billionaire buddies. They both aim to hold continue current systems that make inequality worse, from medical care to college debt. Like Warren did, Bernie Sanders wants to combat inequality through Medicare for All, eliminating college debt, and a Green New Deal — and pulling a #StillWithWarren just makes it so less likely for these plans to even have a chance to be implemented.

Under Biden and Obama, the price of insulin skyrocketed. Biden told wealthy donors that “essentially nothing will change” while on the campaign trail. If essentially nothing changes, marginalized people will continue to suffer, dying from a lack of access to medication, food, and shelter, while drowning in debt. If Warren rejected this as the status quo, her supporters should continue to as well.

You can dismiss personal experience and testimony, but the facts are there. Biden has a notably anti-black record, advancing mass incarceration in the 1990’s with his “tough on crime” initiative. And we all know the Trump administration hasn't done much, if anything, for marginalized people on a mass scale with the exception of the First Step Act. Eighty-three per cent of African Americans say Trump is a racist. His administration, quite literally, locked undocumented children in cages in horrific conditions and refused them flu vaccines. Trump kicked transgender people out of the military. Biden is the pot, and Trump is the kettle. Neither are good, and your protest vote for Warren only makes one of those two evils more likely to be the American president.

A protest vote for Warren — or, frankly, against Sanders — is a vote that actively devalues black and disabled lives, as hard as that may be to hear. It is simply saying that the suffering of others doesn’t matter to you as much as your own moral posturing, and is the epitome of privilege. Your vote is your own, but know the facts — by splintering the democratic vote further, you’re electing Trump.