{"id":3256,"date":"2020-09-14T08:46:26","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T12:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=3256"},"modified":"2020-09-14T08:46:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T12:46:32","slug":"first-things-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2020\/09\/14\/first-things-first\/","title":{"rendered":"First Things First"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Just seems appropriate today \u2013&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HCTunqv1Xt4\">When I\u2019m Sixty-Four (the Beatles)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Optimism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As anyone who knows me politically will tell you, I am an optimist.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s caught me sometimes, specifically when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton weren\u2019t selected.\u00a0\u00a0I wasn\u2019t wrong about who \u201cwon\u201d the popular vote even those times.\u00a0\u00a0But I am a lot more careful today.\u00a0\u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With all of that, still I am an optimistic Democrat.&nbsp;&nbsp;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.&nbsp;&nbsp;I think the nation is ready for an end to the turmoil of incessant tweets, hate, and division.&nbsp;&nbsp;Joe Biden is not everything I asked for in the Democratic candidate, but he is absolutely the candidate of healing.&nbsp;&nbsp;And that\u2019s what America needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Get on the Bus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>By the way, for my friends who were ardent supporters of other Democratic candidates, there\u2019s a saying of a good friend of mine that comes to mind:&nbsp;&nbsp;\u201cyou\u2019re either on the bus, or you off the bus\u201d.&nbsp;&nbsp;You can\u2019t stand on the sidewalk and lean in the door, the bus is leaving, and you need to get on board.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Your choice is now \u201cbinary\u201d (that word still gives me flashbacks to Computer Programming 101 in 1974).&nbsp;&nbsp;If you don\u2019t choose Biden, you essentially support Trump.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rather have Buttigieg, or Bernie, or Klobuchar or Yang?&nbsp;&nbsp;Too bad, their bus never showed up.&nbsp;&nbsp;And by the way, all of them are on the bus for Biden, so get on board too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So once Joe wins the election, we will have more \u201cfun and games\u201d as we hold our breath for whatever \u201clast stand in the Reichstag\u201d McConnell and Trump will pull in December.&nbsp;&nbsp;You hope that both would have lost their taste for action, that Trump will \u201cretire\u201d to Mara Lago early and play golf, and the McConnell will just go into his shell.&nbsp;&nbsp;But it\u2019s just as likely that they will try to pull every \u201cshenanigan\u201d they can to push forward their agenda, particularly in the Courts where they have full power and sway.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">January 20th<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>But come January the new Senate will end McConnell\u2019s court packing project, and Inauguration Day will see Donald Trump removed from the White House.\u00a0\u00a0I still bet he doesn\u2019t even stick around for the ceremony.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s not unprecedented.\u00a0\u00a0John and Abigail Adams were in a carriage on the way out of town when Thomas Jefferson swore the oath of office.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0I bet Biden will even lend Trump the plane to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once Biden is in office he will have an enormous number of things to do, and perhaps just as importantly, undo.&nbsp;&nbsp;But first things first:&nbsp;&nbsp;here are the first three issues of the Biden Presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">On Day One<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Number One<\/strong>:&nbsp;&nbsp;he must address the COVID-19 pandemic.&nbsp;&nbsp;He must have a national strategy, ready to go before he even gets to the first inaugural ball.&nbsp;&nbsp;Whether there\u2019s a functional vaccine or not, President Biden must present America with a plan that starts with, \u201cAmericans must work together to control and defeat this virus\u201d and ends with \u201c\u2026we will overcome this crisis just as we have done with so many others, as Americans united in our \u2018righteous might\u2019 to act together\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Number Two<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0he must also have an economic plan for Congress to address the impact of COVID-19.\u00a0\u00a0That includes the financial impact on the wages of workers, assistance for the unemployed, and helping small businesses survive.\u00a0\u00a0And 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Number Three<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0he must address the United States\u2019 role in improving the environment.\u00a0\u00a0As I write today, the West is on fire, fierce hurricanes are commonplace, and floods and droughts are numerous.\u00a0\u00a0We have changed the world with our pollution.\u00a0\u00a0It is our responsibility to repair that damage, and it\u2019s just as much in our own self-interest as it is the worlds.\u00a0\u00a0We have lost four more years of recovery in the Trump Administration, and in fact gone in \u201creverse\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Day one \u2013 Biden must put us \u201cin drive\u201d again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s on day one: one thousand, four hundred-sixty to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just seems appropriate today \u2013&nbsp;When I\u2019m Sixty-Four (the Beatles) Optimism As anyone who knows me politically will tell you, I am an optimist.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s caught me sometimes, specifically when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton weren\u2019t selected.\u00a0\u00a0I wasn\u2019t wrong about who \u201cwon\u201d the popular vote even those times.\u00a0\u00a0But I am a lot more careful today.\u00a0\u00a0I take a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2020\/09\/14\/first-things-first\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;First Things First&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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