Sorry for not being more clear. I wasn't saying "as a Democrat, I am not voting for Biden". I have never identified as a Democrat, and I have always had a non-homogenous set of values. One of my strongest held values, in fact, is that a two party system that is incredibly heavily financed by corporations and the wealthy is a fundamentally bad system. For this reason, I have often been tempted to vote for "third parties" in order to align with my values. Still, I have typically voted Democrat pragmatically, justifying it to myself as the lesser of two evils, etc. And, if I were in a swing state, perhaps I would still do this.
The point I was trying to make, though, is that, as a heterodox liberal independent, this paternalism by the Democratic party is too much. As I said, I'm just one data point. At the same time, elections nowadays are always won at the margins (as opposed to among the party faithful).
Well, at this point there is no chance to do primaries.
Totally not true. Other countries are able to do entire election cycles in a month or two, for a lot less money. I'm not saying that they have to follow the traditional primary process, but there is absolutely a way to do some transparent caucuses in some representative places or something similar.
What about democratic candidates down ticket.
If they were the person in the race that most closely aligned with my values, I'd vote for them. One value I hold highly, though, is honesty, and the national Democratic party has not demonstrated to me that this is a shared value.
Also FYI, there's never really a primary for an incumbent. This is normal, because the incumbent advantage is huge.
Absolutely true. Having an 81 year-old candidate (who, incidentally, promised at one time to be a single term president) is also not normal.
Do what you want, of course, but that's how we ended up with this Supreme Court - too many people protest voting or not voting in 2016.
Re: the Supreme Court, I would argue that the weakness of Democratic legislators in getting a nominee approved in 2016, coupled with the refusal of liberal judges to retire pragmatically (the proud tradition of which Sotomayor is continuing), is more to blame than protest votes. And, again, to be clear, I voted Dem in 2016 (and 2020).
