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Oct 30, 2020 Why I’m Voting for Biden By Hamilton Leithauser

With next Tuesday’s election day looming and millions of Americans already voting early, we put the word out to see if any musicians wanted to write about why they were voting for Former Vice President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump in a series we are simply calling Why I’m Voting for Biden. Hamilton Leithauser wrote this entry.

For those on the left, and the vast majority of the indie rock musicians we tend to cover are left leaning, this is very crucial election, especially as it’s one in the middle of a pandemic that has threatened their very livelihood, with touring put on hold until a vaccine is found and independent venues across America facing possible extinction.

Leithauser was formerly the of The Walkmen. In April he released a new album, The Loves of Your Life, via Glassnote. More recently he released the live album, Live! at Café Carlyle. Back in 2016 Leithauser teamed up with Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend) to release a collaborative album, I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, also via Glassnote.

Visit vote.org or headcount.org to register to vote, get information on your polling place or on mail in voting, and to find out what else might be on your ballot.

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I recently read an Op-Ed in the Washington Post by a woman from a conservative think tank who was explaining that with Trump at least she “knows what she is getting” (the other half of the argument was basically a brushed up version of that Qanon theory that Joe Biden is actually puppet for Bernie, AOC, and basically all the other non-white members of congress). I think that among his followers, this is actually a pervasive and persuasive argument.

The thing is…no one knows what they are getting with Trump. None of them. Not one single person on Earth—least of all the swollen buffed up idiot himself. Not Mark Meadows, Kylie, and Kellyanne—whose buffoonish clean-up acts of the President’s idiotic bloviations have long since rotted out any last smidge of comic relief, or head-spinning, can’t-look-away, disaster-footage type magnetism—not Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Anne Coulter, and any of those other banshees over at Fox News who’s tongue-twisting reactionary hypocrisy is way too angry to try and laugh at (but unfortunately way too far-reaching to just write off). Watch them—all of them—pivot 180 degrees (720 degrees) next time the President erupts, and ask yourself: I know they’re all cool with it now, and everyone’s got an explanation, but five minutes ago, did they really know what they were getting? Would they really be mangling this momentary logic without this crazed windbag barking blindly at the helm? Did they really see this coming? Do they really actually believe this shit? There are too many urgent and serious problems in the world to toss the keys to this chaotic, hate-spewing, selfish, spoiled, WHINY (why don’t more people talk about strictly the whining these days!!??) lying fraud. I am voting for Joe Biden.

www.hamiltonleithauser.com

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