Something To Believe In
By Ed Kociela
One of the things I like the best about President-elect Joe Biden is that at an age when many are too old to dream and are consumed by nightmares and regrets, he is an enthusiastic agent of hope.
Biden was painted as an infirm hanger-on by an administration so mired in lies and bluster and divisiveness that it invented an inelegant, ill-conceived, inaccurate thing the propaganda machine christened as fake news, in an attempt to cover its tracks any time the daily report contained information pointing out its ineptitude. The fake news thing was a false flag, a way for people with no background or training or understanding of the news to suddenly become experts, claiming contextual discrepancies and manufacturing falsehoods that didn’t really exist and somebody else to blame other than the guy in charge. It dogpiled to taint the national mood, but in the end, the hounds were nipping on the president’s heels as even his most fervent supporters and loyalists in the media abandoned him. Even Fox News turned to the evasive, for the network, truth, deciding to not bathe in the karmic stank any longer. But, the bad mojo has spread far beyond the headlines, clouding our relationship with once-strong allies and the nation’s standing as a global leader has plummeted.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are coming off the blocks at full sprint, however, heading down the track with plans regarding how to defeat COVID-19, how to restore an economy that, going into the pandemic, was shaky at best when you truly analyze it beyond the snapshots of how much the seven top moneychangers — Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers – were profiting while the misery index was discounted, and how to extinguish simmering systemic racial imbalances.
Some Republicans are, meanwhile, holding firm to the president’s shirttails, at least until the bitter end when, by law, his term ends in January. I predict it will not end well for them.
It will be much different, however, once Biden and Harris are sworn in. While the populists, the Boogaloo Bois, the Proud Boys, and other white nationalist terror groups will still have their backs up, the government will, eventually, get back on track because, well, we will have a president who understands the Constitution and respects the rule of law. Besides, we will also have a president who has relationships with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and ranking Republicans in both the House and Senate. They have history and relationships that have, hopefully, not been poisoned by the torrent of vitriol that has marked our politics over the last four years.
Until then, however, we will see more and more heads lopped in the administration, more and more outlandish executive orders doomed to upper court rejection, and more and more payback. For starters, do you really think the president will get behind another stimulus package that would benefit an electorate that resoundingly kicked him to the curb? Will the pandemic ever come back into the radar? Will the United States normalize relationships with its allies? Will steps be taken to eliminate the anger and hate that has polarized the nation?
I don’t know that Biden has the salve for all of the nation’s ills, but I do think he has the ability to restore the functions of government that have been mishandled or flat-out ignored by the administration whether willfully or as a result of ignorance about how the system works.
I truly get it that there were a lot of people who wanted an outsider to come into power, somebody “different,” who wasn’t steeped in our sometimes ornate, sometimes archaic, but always a meaningful system of government. They wanted somebody fresh, somebody with new ideas. The thing is, to efficiently run a government, like any other business, you have to have people in place who understand how it works. I mean, would you hire a plumber to do surgery or a chef to fix your car? Of course not. You would want somebody with the background and training to do the job the right way.
Well, the same goes for governance. You can’t just pluck somebody off the street, hand them all of this power, and expect them to do a good job. Besides, the White House is not the place for on the job training because as Harry Truman said, the buck stops there.
Biden, I think, realizes this, which is why, despite the president’s outrageous claims and pouting, he is doing everything possible to prepare for the transition that will take place on January 20, 2021 despite this administration’s obstruction of the process.
Sure, he is feverishly working the COVID-19 problem and looking for economic and social fixes, but he is also showing a deep commitment to reconciling the nation, hoping to bring the disparate factions to a place of peaceful coexistence. He’s not doing it with pep rallies that bolster his image, he’s doing it with inclusionary politics and a genuine reaching out, even to those who refuse to extend a hand.
The next two months will be critical to the United States with the actions of the lame-duck president placed in the sharpest of focus. Delays in how his administration works in the peaceful transition of power will have a stark impact on how we do business at home and abroad and how the nation is perceived globally, which is, like it or not, incredibly important when it comes to our stature, power, and economic standing.
I don’t expect Biden to have all of the answers, nor do I foresee a quick fix. It took four years to sink to this point, it will take some time to dig out and mistakes, I am sure, will be made along the way.
But, I think the decisions made as we move forward will come from warmer hearts and sharper minds.
And, that is why I am glad we have a president who hasn’t given up on his dreams.
It gives me hope because, without hope, we have nothing.
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