Joe Biden – On Second Thought

What the Hell Happened, Joe?

I dug this up from a year ago. Given today’s announcement of President Joe Biden’s run for a second term, I thought this commentary would be appropriate. I’ll have more to say about his decision soon enough.

The news doesn’t look good from down here, Joe. Can I call you Joe? The polls look bad. We were so optimistic eleven months ago. Now, they say you’ve lost contact with reality. That you said that inflation is just a nuisance, and it will be soon under control. That the courts are just messin’ with you about vaccine mandates and that it will just be a matter of time before they all come to their senses. All these people screaming about vaccine mandates are just looney tunes, and we shouldn’t worry about them. And what the hell happened with Build Back Better (who came up with that name?). The moderates and the progressives are making fools of you at our expense. What the hell happened, Joe?

Then, I’m reading about Kamala, you know your vice-president. She is either the most incompetent or just the most ignored Vice-President in the nation’s history (okay, so I’m exaggerating). You made a big deal about the first person of color, and then it looks like you threw her under the bus. WTH is happening there?

Every day, I click open a news website, and it just seems like there’s nothing but bad news coming out of Washington and New York and Florida and Texas and pretty much most of the Midwest, South, and the West. All I hear and read about is how you don’t have a consistent message. Honestly, I just want to listen to a message, any positive message. I don’t want to hear about 3 trillion or 1.5 trillion. I want to know about the specific programs and policies that are going to help everyday Americans. About how you’ve united your political party so you can get something done before you get thrown to the GOP wolves who are already circling your body, and you’re not even dead. Yet. They’re sitting back doing nothing but throwing hand grenades with the assistance of that maniac in Florida and Fox News and every GOP member of Congress, and you seem to not realize the seriousness of the next two elections, 2022 and 2024.

Americans may not know their ass from their elbow about science and COVID and economic policy and inflation and that the GOP stands for Totalitarianism. Still, they know when someone ain’t shooting straight with them. They want reassurance that someone really cares about them and the issues that affect them. And the list is long: jobs with good pay and benefits, affordable housing, the price of gas (holy crap, what’s up with that), and making sure that we’re going to have Christmas gifts and food for the holidays. People are just trying to get their pre—COVID life back even if they are still doing their darndest to extend it by not getting vaccinated, hanging out without masks, and ignoring simple protocols. It doesn’t matter because, in the end, they will blame you because, well, they must blame someone in the White House. They say they want Leadership, Sanity, Calmness. Something that we didn’t get for four years from the maniac who was there before you.

Look, Joe, I can’t even imagine what life is like for you, and I’ve known you long enough to see that you do have a good heart, but a good heart is just not good enough these days. This country is splitting up. Breaking apart in all kinds of ways. We need some healing. We’re just trying to heal as a nation without getting jammed in the heart by the crazies out there. We need your help to unite us while at the same time protecting us and our democracy from millions of nut jobs out there.

I keep wondering what the hell happened to this country, and then I realize that as long as I’ve been alive, all seventy-three years, there have been nut cases out there, both right and left, who just can’t help themselves. That it’s always about them and screw the other person. My Way or the Highway kind of BS. I know from personal experience how easy it is to fall into that hole. We love to talk about how we are in this together and waving the flag and sacrifice and America the beautiful, but I know they don’t mean it. What they really mean is what’s good for them, and everyone else can eat dirt. Or is it cake?

Americans. If the GOP wins this year, you and we are screwed. I will never understand how a political party that has pledged allegiance to an idiot can win against a person who can think like a human being and dish out so much humanity. I just can never understand them. That political party is not the friend of People of Color, the working class, young people, or older Americans. They only want to screw us so they can help the rich. No debate about it.

But the Democrats have their own problems. Some of them are also out of touch and think that figuring out a way to allow most Americans to succeed with some help from our government is making them into a dependent group. I’m talking about you, Senator Manchin and Sinema. Look, I’m not looking for a handout. I’m just looking for some breathing room. An economic policy that doesn’t benefit just the rich. Talk about a dependent group. Dependent on a tax system that maintains them. Come on, we weren’t born yesterday.

Here’s my advice, Joe, talk to us every day. Go on national television and use your bully pulpit. Talk to the middle straight about what you’re doing to solve our problems. Press Conferences, Oval office speeches, one-on-one interviews, visit family homes, town halls in Des Moines and Bakersfield, not on CNN. Come on out and see us like you did on the campaign trail. Talk to us straight. We’re ready to listen. And bring Kamala along with you.

What the Hell Happened, Joe?

It’s Finals Week, so there is no time to come up with something original. Here’s a recent favorite from last Fall. Tragically, not much has changed.

Dear Joe

On the eve of the one year anniversary of the inauguration of President Joe Biden, I repost this open letter to him that I wrote on Medium.com on January 16. 2021.

Whatever happens on January 20, 2021, or after, you will need to begin your administration with a clear vision, the vigor of spirit, and a powerful determination to take on the greatest challenge of this young century and possibly of our modern age. No, not the MAGA insurrection (I’ll address them later). Our nation cannot move forward until we work together to cure ourselves of the Pandemic. With millions of people worldwide affected by COVID-19, deaths and hospitalizations mounting daily, we cannot return to normalcy until we find the leadership necessary to show us a path forward. This crisis needs its own Marshall Plan.

The United States of America needs — no demands — a leader who commands respect, believes in science and medicine, makes reasoned decisions, and is willing to tap and trust the best minds to solve problems. You will need to call upon the best experts and leaders in politics, business, nonprofits, and education in the United States of America and the world. As President, you must harness the best resources available like no other time in our history. This effort cannot be some long-term (of say, ten years or more) project where studies are first prepared and submitted for consideration to the appropriate authorities for consent. We demand action by our government today.

No solution is possible unless you get everyone on board, and yes, that includes the opposing political parties. The goal of this current President and his allies is to delegitimize you and your administration. He and his sycophants want to cripple your ability to save this country so that they can cynically claim in two and four years that they must clean up your mess. We face a critical question, how do you break through the fog of misinformation and subservience to conspiracy theories? It will take a certain amount of courage to reach out to America’s moderate voices for help. I want to believe that political, business, and nonprofit leaders recognize that this will not end well if we continue to fall down the rabbit hole of evil accusations and retribution. For the past four years, only the most vitriolic voices have been the loudest. We must call upon all Americans who believe in this country’s ideal to raise their voices together to break through the toxic atmosphere enveloping our nation.

We must task the influencers in media, the arts, culture, advertising, and marketing to help create inspiring and proactive messages to revitalize our vision of shared social responsibility and dedication to a shared future. All of us must work together to fill with new hope and vision, the chasm created by dark forces over the past four years. Somehow, we must convince a large swath of Americans that, as a past President has described, “There are no red states or blue states, just the United States.”

I am too life experienced to believe that we will all join hands and sing Kumbaya by changing the messaging or legislative solutions. You only need to study American history to see that truth. However, we cannot forever be prisoners of our history. We must be ready to make our new future; one where every resident of this country receives the promises of our Constitution, “…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” In 2021, after all that has gone on over the past four years, I believe it is time for all of us to step back from this precipice we find ourselves and stop and think about the challenges that are ahead for us as a country. We cannot survive if we only live in past conflicts and do not forge a better future.

Now, we must spare no effort to hold those responsible for the MAGA insurrection. I’m not just talking about those who invaded the people’s house. You can trace the roots of that insurrection to the Tea Party’s birth and the lie of Birtherism. Unfortunately, too many in politics and the media didn’t take this seriously enough. We called it fringe. It was dismissed as racist and not deserving of our time and attention. The current President and his enabling elected officials, religious leaders, right-wing groups, and media pushed that fringe, the white supremacy monster, out of the darkness into the White House and the halls of Congress. We must protect ourselves from their desperation, mindful that they will continuously attempt to disrupt a return to constitutional government.

I believe that this last dying gasp of an America cannot survive the cataclysmic demographic changes underway. I have an older son who is two-thirds Puerto Rican and one-third Dominican (Yes, there is a difference). His daughter, my granddaughter, is a four-year-old who is half-Puerto Rican and half-Anglo. My youngest son is twenty-eight years old and is one-quarter Puerto Rican, one-quarter Dominican, one-quarter Black, and one-quarter Japanese. They are all members of that demographic wave. The new United States of America frightens many. It is not only race and ethnicity that scares them; it is also urban versus rural, old versus young, progressive versus some forgotten or non-existent past of what America was. The America that is shrouded in flags and myths hides what we have been and who we are today. When we accept the whole truth of our history, we can then immerse ourselves in the glory of the great moments we all shared and move forward as the United States of America.

Mister President-elect, I know the burden on your shoulders, and that of the Vice President-elect is great. But you will not be carrying the load alone. All of us who care for the future will be here with both of you. Reach across the chasm to those who did not vote for you. Those who did are ready to do the hard work. Create new ways for all of us to see and hear each other so that we can rise together and defeat the Pandemic and build the America that we need for the twenty-first century. As another American leader, Abraham Lincoln said during the last great war between Americans on a bloodied battlefield at Gettysburg, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure — It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

We must soar above the worst in us to new heights and a new America. Don’t f*ck this up, Joe. We got your back.

What the hell happened, Joe?

Americans. If the GOP wins next year, you Joe and we are screwed. I will never understand how a political party that has pledged allegiance to an idiot can win against a person who can think like a human being and dish out so much humanity. I just can never understand them. That political party is not the friend of People of Color, the working class, young people, or older Americans. They only want to screw us so they can help the rich. No debate about it.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: