With a Mountain to Climb, Here’s Joe’s First Task
Joe Biden’s to-do list is long enough to trail out into the Rose Garden. Obama had a major financial panic on his hands as he settled in to the Oval Office and we wonder how both he and the nation survived.
Joe’s got that, as well as
a pandemic,
the nationwide collapse of small (and large) businesses,
chaos in the streets of major cities,
police under attack,
a totally dysfunctional political arena within which to govern,
49.5% of the electorate having voted against him,
schools closed,
plus cities and sometimes entire states locked down.
Yet he has one priority that stands above all others
He and Kamala must immediately reach out to Trump voters, and I don’t mean by waving an olive branch or mumbling a few platitudes. I’m not quite sure how well Democrats understand how wide the divide has become between the party they once were and the one they have become today.
An eyewink less than half the voters wanted Trump back
With a scant two years until a mid-term election and four before a full-scale presidential election, Democrats had better get their asses in gear. I was around during WWII and know what it looks like to see America with its back against the wall, everyone hunkered down against a common enemy and working together.
We are not that nation today. Half of us have somehow been convinced to hate the other half. A nation in that condition is ungovernable, so we better get over it. And quickly.
That’s going to take some soul-searching by Democrats
Trump voters are not your enemy. Nor are they ignorant ‘deplorables’ as Hillary once named them. They’re mostly Democrats you walked away from in your race to what you thought was a solid Democrat center. It no longer exists after 40 years of neglect by both parties.
We now are a nation made up of haves and have-nots—and we know who represents the haves. Trump voters are what’s left of the abandoned middle class and those you made jobless by globalization. You once represented these people, before you got too well-fed to associate with them.
You better run like hell to get them back
That’s not impossible.
Take a look at what Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were preaching to the crowd in the run-up to the 2016 election. It was a nearly identical message and Trump rode it to victory. Hillary fed her starving voter-base the same old leftover political scraps, while promising change and doing what Wall Street told her.
And against all odds, look who won. And Joe, if Trump were a shade less shady, he’d have won again.
Will you guys ever learn?
I don’t know where Bernie belongs in your cabinet, but it better be a solid platform from which he has both power and voice. He’s good at that, Joe. If he’d been the Democratic candidate in 2016 he’d have won. But, for some horribly misjudged reason, it was Hillary’s turn.
There is always a time for the brave
I have a question for you, Joe.
Are you brave?
Photo by: Marc Nozell