Friday I voted for Joseph Biden. No one who knows me will be surprised by that. While I know in January of 2017 that in the next election I would be voting against President Trump, that wasn't my motivation when I went into the booth to vote. While there were other Democrats I supported in the primary I was not just voting for the lesser of two evils. I don't think Joe Biden is a stand-in. He is the real deal.
Joe Biden, in the last several months, has shown he is ready to move the country back into the right direction. Now I have been a fan of Vice-President Biden since the eighties. I know his flaws. He has made bad policy decisions during his time in the Senate. Sometimes he compromises more than I would like. But he has shown that he can lead when necessary. He isn't the most articulate person either. His stutter, that he has fought his whole life, makes his verbal expression uncomfortable for him and sometimes for those who are listening. He also was often the odd man out in many situations so over the years he has tried to be cool. That has led to many of his gaffes.
But Joe was much more than his public speaking and his image he has and has allowed to be defined by others. Joe was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the ranking member of the Democratic party because he had a great foreign policy mind and other great minds in the Senate agreed. There was a time when many sought the thoughts of he and Senator Richard Lugar, a giant in the Republican party, when dealing with tricky foreign policy issues. I remember when President Bill Clinton spoke at Beth-El Zedeck a few years before the 2008 election spent the day with the motorcade. I had one of Clinton's staff in the car with me going to the airport at the end of the evening. We started talking politics and the possibility of Hillary running for President. I will never forget that he said "we need a Democratic Dick Cheney as Vice-President". I asked who and without hesitation he said Joe Biden. So while we watch the right wing noise machine and the President of the United States try to say Joe is dumb, has dementia, or other things, for those people who aren't just about partisan attacks, we know that Joe Biden is up for the job.
But it isn't about who Joe Biden was. We can talk about his time in the Obama administration and his work saving the auto industry or helping to deal with the Ebola crisis. But elections are about the future. So what will a Biden administration do that will be good for America.
1. Joseph Biden will listen to the scientists when is comes to handling the Covid crisis. Early, before infection rates skyrocketed, Biden penned an Op-Ed telling us how to handle and keep us safe. He saw the potential of the spread and called for a response. Now that we have failed as a country to contain the virus, Biden is looking to figure out how best to move forward. He is clear he will work with local leaders in areas that are raging with virus to promote lockdowns when necessary, masks and distancing. Ramp up testing in a way that tracks infection and work hard to create functional contact tracing. He knows the people who helped respond in the past to pandemics and Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, was the person who kept the country safe from the Ebola outbreak while working with international organizations to contain the spread. That is who we need in charge. The attack on his approach is that the economy will tank. But the economy can't grow in the wake of rising infections and hospitalizations. You can open everything up but in areas where Covid is spreading people aren't going to feel comfortable going out in crowded areas, and when some people do we have seen infections widening and thus there is a cycle of opening and closing. Attacking the spread of the virus head on is the only thing that brings us back to a growing economy.
2. Biden understands the stock market is not the economy. A little over half the country is invested in the stock market, most through retirement accounts and a smaller percentage would be invested enough in the Dow companies that current rises would be a substantial windfall for them. Stock prices make wealthy people richer. The real economy is on the ground. Jobs are important, good paying everyday jobs that can help bolster the economy. Joe's vision for higher wages (through a rise in the minimum wage) and an emphasis on American made products for government contracts will help the manufacturing sectors and build more jobs. Financial organizations like Moody's have said his program will grow more jobs than other plans available.
3. Racial issues in this country have exploded as activists continue to shine a brighter light on injustice and rise of white nationalism. Biden has had a difficult past when it comes to race. He has said things that are insensitive and is getting hit with the fact that he wrote much of the 1994 Crime Bill. While some of the criticism is legitimate, much is right wing nonsense. But the thing is that Biden has, on several occasions, acknowledged his short-comings and bad decisions and says he has learned from them. I think that we can see that in who has trusted him. President Barrack Obama, the first African-American President chose him as his running mate and kept him on the ticket for a second term. Senator Kamala Harris, joined his current ticket, even after being critical of Biden's past in the primary. Why? Because they know he either understands the racial issues facing America or will listen to people who do. Recently answering a young man in a town hall Biden outlined his path for African-American wealth development, as well as combatting the sickening rise of hate. I trust Joe Biden to move the country forward.
4. Many progressives are upset with the Democratic party for choosing a more central figure as the nominee. One issue that is important is Climate Change. Joe, who recently said he wants to phase out fossil fuels, does not completely buy into the ideas like the Green New Deal. While he won't end fracking for example, he will stop the spread of it. Biden sees himself as a bridge. We have seen the failure of trying to change these sorts of issues with a single pen stroke. But Joe Biden is dedicated to the idea of combatting climate change and he can do it by promoting renewable energy sources while not simply shutting down others. Companies, including energy companies, already know that in 50 years we will be using mostly renewable sources of energy. They already have started to use renewable energy at their own facilities. Biden may not be able or have the desire to be radical with climate issues and that is a problem. But he will move us back to a place where being radical moving forward could happen still in my lifetime.
5. Another front and center issues is health insurance. Biden, along with Obama created the Affordable Care Act after fighting with people within his own party and the opposition. From the beginning they knew it wasn't a panacea. But it helped millions get health insurance that didn't have it before. Now he wants to build on it to make sure that people have access to good insurance and create something that was an idea that was taken out of the original, a public option. A public option will be like Medicaid program that anyone can buy into. Since it will not need to have a profit goal nor pay millions to directors and CEOs it can focus on providing a place people can use to help pay for their medical costs at a cheaper rate. A public option does not end private insurance. It gives another possibility of access to insurance, thus health care. It will also create a mechanism to check costs across the board.
6. Overall Civil Rights is important to Joe Biden. The right to health care for women, including abortions is something Joe has fought for his entire life. It was him, in part, that pushed others to see the importance of marriage as a right for the gay community. He clearly sees that disability rights must be talked about as that has been a civil rights issue that gets very little play. Beyond police reform, the overall justice system needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Too often an issue of mental health is dealt with as a criminal act, sometimes ending in tragedy. While Joe is not a fan of defund the police he is in favor of funding them in a way that expands who answers the call, with people who know how to deescalate a crisis. We can't expect police to be psychiatric experts but we can give them someone who is during a situation.
These are but a few of the reasons I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. These are but a few of the reasons I believe a Biden/Harris ticket will be good for all Americans. Not everyone agrees but that is okay. This doesn't touch on foreign policy, which I could do a whole post on just on what I think the Biden administration will do to reinvigorate our relationships with allies. It doesn't touch on several topics that might be important to you. I say go an see his stand on issues on his website. It is time for a leader like Joe to bring our country out of the stagnation and pain we have due to the pandemic, racial strive and the subsequent economic crisis. Let's give him our support and if needed hold him accountable if he fails. We are a great country. We are in pain, but we can make it through the pain to better days. Join me, VOTE.
