Just seems appropriate today – When I’m Sixty-Four (the Beatles)
Optimism
As anyone who knows me politically will tell you, I am an optimist. It’s caught me sometimes, specifically when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton weren’t selected. I wasn’t wrong about who “won” the popular vote even those times. But I am a lot more careful today. I take a closer look at the vagaries of the electoral system, and, frankly, I am much more concerned about disinformation and election tampering by foreign powers than I ever was before.
With all of that, still I am an optimistic Democrat. I think the United States will elect Joe Biden as President, Kamala Harris as Vice President, and give the Democratic Party a majority in the Senate and House this November. I think the nation is ready for an end to the turmoil of incessant tweets, hate, and division. Joe Biden is not everything I asked for in the Democratic candidate, but he is absolutely the candidate of healing. And that’s what America needs.
Get on the Bus
By the way, for my friends who were ardent supporters of other Democratic candidates, there’s a saying of a good friend of mine that comes to mind: “you’re either on the bus, or you off the bus”. You can’t stand on the sidewalk and lean in the door, the bus is leaving, and you need to get on board. Your choice is now “binary” (that word still gives me flashbacks to Computer Programming 101 in 1974). If you don’t choose Biden, you essentially support Trump. Rather have Buttigieg, or Bernie, or Klobuchar or Yang? Too bad, their bus never showed up. And by the way, all of them are on the bus for Biden, so get on board too.
So once Joe wins the election, we will have more “fun and games” as we hold our breath for whatever “last stand in the Reichstag” McConnell and Trump will pull in December. You hope that both would have lost their taste for action, that Trump will “retire” to Mara Lago early and play golf, and the McConnell will just go into his shell. But it’s just as likely that they will try to pull every “shenanigan” they can to push forward their agenda, particularly in the Courts where they have full power and sway.
January 20th
But come January the new Senate will end McConnell’s court packing project, and Inauguration Day will see Donald Trump removed from the White House. I still bet he doesn’t even stick around for the ceremony. That’s not unprecedented. John and Abigail Adams were in a carriage on the way out of town when Thomas Jefferson swore the oath of office. “Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out”. I bet Biden will even lend Trump the plane to leave.
Once Biden is in office he will have an enormous number of things to do, and perhaps just as importantly, undo. But first things first: here are the first three issues of the Biden Presidency.
On Day One
Number One: he must address the COVID-19 pandemic. He must have a national strategy, ready to go before he even gets to the first inaugural ball. Whether there’s a functional vaccine or not, President Biden must present America with a plan that starts with, “Americans must work together to control and defeat this virus” and ends with “…we will overcome this crisis just as we have done with so many others, as Americans united in our ‘righteous might’ to act together”.
Number Two: he must also have an economic plan for Congress to address the impact of COVID-19. That includes the financial impact on the wages of workers, assistance for the unemployed, and helping small businesses survive. And it also needs to include a re-evaluation of our healthcare system so that no one is left out, and no one is financially broken by injury or disease.
Number Three: he must address the United States’ role in improving the environment. As I write today, the West is on fire, fierce hurricanes are commonplace, and floods and droughts are numerous. We have changed the world with our pollution. It is our responsibility to repair that damage, and it’s just as much in our own self-interest as it is the worlds. We have lost four more years of recovery in the Trump Administration, and in fact gone in “reverse”. Day one – Biden must put us “in drive” again.
And that’s on day one: one thousand, four hundred-sixty to go.
