I’m a
liberal-conservative. Or, I might be a conservative-liberal. For context, I grew
up in the northeast corner of Vermont when everyone up there professed to be Republican,
back when Republicans were Republicans. Generally, Democrats didn’t bother to
run for office. I don’t think they wanted people to know they were Democrats.
Senator George Aiken, a Republican, got more write-in votes in the Democratic primaries
than anyone in that party who actually sought the office, so he ran unopposed
in the general election. He served from 1941 and retired as Dean in 1975. (He was replaced by Patrick Leahy, now the Dean of the Senate) He
was one of the leaders of the liberal wing of his party and the guiding light for
my generation. Even conservative-Republicans were liberal back then compared to
the ultra-conservative-Democrats down South. Everyone agrees that our Union
needs fixing, they just don’t agree on the fix. Should we take a conservative
approach or should we take a liberal approach? The answer is Yes!
The nation’s economy is
near depression levels for most people. The stock market is at all-time highs
but nearly 25 million people are still without work. Small businesses are
collapsing. The pandemic, responsible for the business downturn, is raging
across the country with hardly any national policy or program to mitigate its
surge, while large numbers of people still think it is a hoax. The healthcare
system is at the breaking point and millions are without insurance due to costs
and unemployment. The nation is losing a trade war it started, and our place in
the firmament of responsible nations is de minimus. All the while there is a
concerted effort to undermine the democratic system by questioning the very
process of voting, to the point where nearly a quarter of the people think that
the system is rigged, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. We are a
nation divided and in trouble.
President-Elect Biden
(I hope he’s listening) will feel a tug from all directions, the progressives
are already nipping at his heels for being too conservative in his cabinet
picks, the moderates think he is too much to the left of center and ethnic and
racial groups think that his administration, to date, doesn’t look enough like
America. There is a lot to be fixed. He likely knows what needs to be done, but
it doesn’t hurt to jog his thinking. As President, he needs to concentrate on
the 20% that will fix the 80%. If he allows himself, his cabinet and
sub-cabinet to be drawn into daily battle with the tweets of an ex-president that
will surely come his way for the next three or four years, he will have wasted
his time in office.
Mr. Biden,
communicating to the public of a highly divided nation will be difficult.
President Trump indicated in the last week that he intends to mount a 2024
campaign, and that he might make it formal during your inauguration. He is very
good at controlling the message and creating disruptions. The Democrats may
have won the White House but they lost members in the House and, to date,
haven’t taken control of the Senate. Communications from the administration must
set a new standard for truthfulness, consistency, and relevance.
Mr. Biden, we can feel
it, we can see the results of the economic devastation. We must get the nation
working again. Seven-hundred-thousand people apply for unemployment each week. Across
the country, hundreds of thousands of families line up each week to receive free
food. Children go without food because the schools are closed. Rents and
mortgages are due and there is no money in the checking accounts. Millions are
without health insurance due to layoffs. Small businesses can’t make payroll. Large
corporations seem to be doing well, and highly skilled employees are doing well, but
small businesses are stuck in park. Restaurants need to open up again, to
employ cooks and waiters, to purchase from local farmers. Barbers need to be
able to work, people in manual labor and farm jobs need to work too. Our
infrastructure is riddled with potholes, bridges are rusting, our power grid is
ancient and subject to hacking, whole segments of the country are without
broadband and schools lack the technology needed to teach in the new learning
environment. The nation doesn’t need an economic stimulus package as it does an
economic lifeboat. Let’s blot out the root cause of the economic decline.
The pandemic is killing
people and killing the economy and must be stopped. President Trump made major
mistakes in dealing with the pandemic. As a result, a country with 4% of the
world’s population has 21.44% of the covid-19 cases and 18.2% of the world’s
deaths and climbing.
Operation WARP SPEED
may be an exception to the debacle. Charged with getting an effective vaccine quickly
and distributing it quickly, proved what can happen when highly competent
people are assigned and allowed to perform without political interference. Biden needs to convince the nation to follow
well-proven public health techniques until the vaccine is widely effective. The
quicker he can do that, the quicker we will get folks back to work.
The pandemic blew up
our comfortable credence about so many things: our ability to fight pestilence
itself, equality across races, economic strength, and the best healthcare system
in the world. We weren’t ready or willing! When asked to sacrifice for the good
of the whole, nearly half the people led by nearly half the governors said “No.”
They were not willing to shelter in place, wear masks, or change life’s
patterns. People didn’t trust their government, they were told that the virus
was a plot to weaken the President, they were told to ignore science, and too
many ignored good advice. Time at the beach and at close quarters in bars was
more important than self-sacrifice. The surge continues. Government officials
ignored good health practices and citizens wondered why they should bother to
alter life’s cadence.
Mr. Biden, we need to
deal with the political division in the country. My liberal side says we ought
to get a little conservative about this effort. The Democrats made a mess with
their messaging during the campaign and the Republicans took advantage of the
flaw. Change is difficult in and of itself, but, when congressional leadership
is the poster child for the geriatric set, not much is in the offing. People sixty years old or older represent only16%
of the population, yet septuagenarians- plus rule the Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court. Fifty-one percent
of us are under 40 years old, yet that cohort commands little real power in DC.
A squad of four thirty-something first term women
members of Congress scared the hell out of the leadership of both parties. They
became the Republican’s favorite bugaboo for convincing folks that these women
would lead the country toward socialism. The young voters of the country, a growing
number of new voters, by the way, don’t consider most of the progressive ideas very
controversial or even that progressive. Healing a divided nation is all the
more difficult when a soon to be ex-president has spent a lifetime demonizing
people and creating division among people, even to the point of mocking
democracy itself, by denying the validity of the voting process, ignoring
traditional institutions, and refusing to concede a lost election. Howard Dean opined,
“What’s going on is just shocking. We’re in serious trouble when you abandon
the rule of law as a democracy, your democracy is gone. And it’s going to be
gone before people realize it if we don’t turn this thing around.”[i]
This is the opinion of a liberal politician, but a conservative politician
could say the same thing and be correct. Though difficult to do, but not
impossible, we need to bring both conversations together into a dialogue aimed
a bettering the country and fixing its political ills. Both groups need to fix
our democracy which has been torn asunder.
Mr. Biden, we need to
fix the healthcare system. The pandemic illustrates vividly the different
levels of care available to Americans. Unlike most of the industrialized world,
the quality of our healthcare depends on our economic status. It is inhumane
for anyone to be denied good medical care because of the size of his or her W2.
The administration has to find a way to communicate that healthcare and health insurance
are two different things. If they all agree that everyone, everyone, should
have good basic healthcare, we can find a way to pay for it. Other countries
can do it, why can’t we?
The national stockpile
of protective equipment and medical supply requirements was underfunded by
several past administrations. Let’s not blame Trump for that. When we needed
it, it wasn’t there. As a result, at the start of the pandemic, states had to
compete with each other, the federal government, and the rest of the world for
basic face masks and other PPEs and ventilators to keep people alive. There is
no excuse for the richest nation on earth not to have enough supplies spread
across the continent for easy access. Most PPE is manufactured in other
countries who want to keep the products for their own people when emergencies
arise. The new administration must ensure that we manufacture emergency goods in
the US using US companies.
Mr. Biden, we need to
repair our standing in the international arena. The “America First” dogma
wreaked havoc with our standing in the firmament of nations. Technology made
the world smaller and more interdependent. Most nations want trusted allies.
When there is an absence of trust[ii]
among nations, they like any organization or group will begin to ignore former
allies and not include them in group decision-making. We have seen this happen
in the last few years, where Europe and China have new trade deals, where
European countries are working closely together to squelch the Russian appetite
for dominance and renewed hegemony over its previous empire. Our Constitution tells
us that the supreme law of the land is our constitution, our laws, and our
treaties. When we enter into a treaty with other countries, it is not an
individual president who is making the agreement, but our country. When
approved by two-thirds of the members of congress, the treaty has the same
weight as any other law. We must renew our support for major treaties to which
we have agreed. We need to support NATO, we need to support the Paris agreement
on climate and we need to stop the tariff war which is raising prices in our
stores and losing markets for our own manufacturers and farmers.
Mr. Biden, you can
renew the nation if you concentrate on the important issues. Bring back our
economy by ending the pandemic. Bring back our standing in the world by
renewing our Democracy and rejoining the allied nations of the world. Bring
back a united nation; make us one from many, Let ideas percolate and ideologies
wither. Bring back decisions based on facts and science and not personal
aggrandizement. If you do these things it won’t matter if you are a
conservative-liberal or a liberal-conservative. We will be America again.
