People will recognize this as the slogan of Bernie Sanders' campaign. "Not me, us," simply means that creating a new America will require our effort, and not merely the effort of a single politician. A political "us" is thusly constituted in his campaign. Here's Bernie Sanders, explaining what it means.

Toward that end, the end of "not me, us," Sanders stands by a platform that will benefit the great mass of Americans: College for All, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal. The platform is Sanders' contribution to "not me, us."

Other politicians also stand by platforms of "not me, us," but the "us," for most of them, means billionaires and other special interests. That's the "us" that currently misrules America -- the plutocracy. Maybe there are a few exceptions, but the plutocracy would not be a plutocracy if it did not command the allegiance of most of America's politicians. Of course, within that "us" are plutocrats so wealthy that for them it is all about "me" -- Michael Bloomberg comes to mind. Perhaps for Bloomberg "us" was constituted by people on his payroll.

At any rate, an examination of "not me, us" would not be complete without an examination of its opposite: "not us, me." Obviously everyone needs to do things to protect themselves, when the groups they are part of are confronted with losing situations. This is what happened when Bernie Sanders conceded in 2016 and endorsed Hillary Clinton. Clearly the program was dead, and so Sanders had to protect his own political fortunes, which were tied in with those of the Democratic Party. Perhaps Sanders was doing it "for us" and Clinton would have been a better President than Trump; but any improvement under Clinton would have been an accidental byproduct of Clinton's primary relationships, which were with plutocrats. The fact of the matter is that a political "us" died when Sanders' campaign died. Technically there might have been an "us" in the sense of "we Hillary Clinton voters" -- but it wasn't really a political "us," just a bunch of people who could be identified together as having voted for Hillary Clinton for various reasons, some of them related to personal gain, others badly compromised.

The main advantage of the plutocrats and their client candidates is that there is always a political "us" for them. Perhaps the slogan of the Democratic and Republican Parties ought to be: "Us, not you." It would certainly reflect the last forty years of their policies.

So, by the same token, when people say "I'm never voting for Joe Biden," it's also a "not us, me" moment. "Yeah not me boy I'm not voting for Joe Biden." JtC argues that "We, the disaffected left, have the power to split this Party," but that "we" isn't really constituted by anything more than a bunch of individuals, all of whom for various reasons are not going to be voting for Joe Biden this year. Or at least I should say it isn't yet politically constituted as an "us." Most eligible people don't vote in America; the margins of victory for Donald Trump in 2016 were constituted by people in Florida and in the upper Midwest who had voted at least once for Obama but who didn't vote at all for President in 2016. This is the problem with all "boycott the vote" campaigns: nonvoters do not constitute a political "we."

So today we may observe a great deal of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on Facebook, the major social arena left in America after quarantines destroyed the rest of the public sphere, over how the so-called "Left" is obliged to prop up Joe Biden's lame candidacy, else it will be held responsible for his defeat. "Enjoy more Trump, MAGA," they say, absent an immediate pledge of allegiance to the flag of Joe Biden. The serious answer to all of this weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is that Joe Biden does not represent "us." I've already gone over the many defects of "lesser evil voting;" here is Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti breaking down the current dilemma:

So basically the problem here, as Krystal and Saagar echo, is one of how the political "us" is constituted. It will mean nothing to declare one way or another about Joe Biden unless there is a PERSISTENT alternate political "us" constituted in America -- one that can survive bad election results -- and when that happens, watch out.