There is plenty of harping on both sides of the aisle and popular opinions red and blue that Biden is just too old to run again for president. There is a case for him to run again. In the meantime, we hear the beating drum for someone younger from both political sides. He isn't macho enough, he stumbles over words, he is a lousy orator, he looks like an old man, and he acts and walks like one. Not macho enough? He was the first US president to visit a war zone (Kyiv, 2/20/23 )not controlled by US troops. As a family member and former military said: That takes balls. It is time for a new generation to run both parties. Biden's ace: you may think he is too old, but he can still push the veto pen. Given the close divide in both houses of Congress, making veto overrides a non-starter, that is a critical mass of power.
We can expect the GOP to make another case: Biden is too liberal, too enamored with expensive government programs, too big of a national debt, and too tough on rich people's taxes to pay for these social programs, so cut the social programs(unspecified) and restore those tax cuts. They object to how Biden opposes their cultural government programs designed to protect kids from modern liberal values, including using government to limit self-sexual identity and protecting tender ears from learning about how others think about such unpleasant history as slavery. Above all, expect the GOP to continue protecting the unborn from the minute of conception, giving them priority over the mental and physical health of the mothers and their ability to shape their futures. Aid for the born is not their platform as the United States' maternal and infant deaths and length of life expectancy fall to the lowest levels in the industrial world. They fear the libs we'll take your guns away, even from those who are too dangerous to have them.
The GOP goes for the gut as they base their case on appealing to emotions and instincts. They fly under the benign-sounding banner of "cultural issues" and ask, "what's wrong with that?" From the left's view, plenty is wrong. These are not pretty values that appeal to the good in all of us or the golden rule of Christianity. Their "cultural" view of democracy is rule by the use of the power of those they favor, even if they are in the minority in polls and election outcomes. Laws are meant to be tools to manipulate by those in control and who plan to stay in control in the future. While complaining about permissiveness and inclusion as values advanced by the "libs" with government policy, those on the right, too, advocate using government edict and laws and support strong men who flex their political muscles and lungs as tools to implement them. Ban books, restrict access to the ballot box and women's ability to exercise choice, and control the minds of children by only teaching them the viewpoint of which they, those in government, approve are just a few of recent initiatives. They ride the waves of bigotry and racial animous. They hype fear of changing demographics in an attempt to slow it down by inventing ways to suppress the vote and rights of those they see as threatening them or who have values of which they do not approve.
Here is a case for Biden running for a second term.
What Biden has, an old man can still wield political skills developed and honed with a lifetime of experience. His weapons: a telephone and a pen, and he knows whose buttons to push to even get bi-partisan support. He is stronger than he looks, as his recent 8-hour flight and a ten-hour train ride followed by a day of vigorous public diplomacy and a walkabout Kyiv, and then another train ride and a highly visible speech in Poland after that. Nonetheless, it does not demand physical strength to push a pen or talk on the phone.
It does not require a loud voice and soaring demagoguery as Biden demonstrated when he put down hecklers in the State of the Union address. He was quick on his feet. His mind was as sharp as a stiletto in classic put-downs from the podium.. Sometimes "sotto voce," a stage whisper, a squint, a grin works just as well when a mind is as nimble as his. What Biden can stop: GOP legislative initiatives which the majority of the public does not support: Biden's ultimate weapon: pushing the veto pen to stop a GOP House from rolling back health care, putting social security and medicare on the chopping block, to a national abortion ban. Who is in the Oval Office makes the most difference. His best argument for 2024? Imagine what would happen if the GOP pushed the veto pen to roll back these popular initiatives and women's right to choose.
In his speech in Poland 2/21/23, it is clear Biden plans to phrase US foreign policy as democracy v autocracy because democracy means freedom. Freedom means various things to various people, but it also begins at home. Those in America, too, are seeing advocates of autocracy raising voices. It is a movement in America, still a minority, that advocates for "strong leaders" who ignore and defy the will of the voters. We have seen some aspiring to be president skate close to autocracy. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, supports the state having policies that act to shape thought and practice of citizens to reflect the views of a his preferred religious group that women should have no choice and he promotes "anti-woke: legislation" which is an unmasked appeal to bigots. His edicts are shaping what children should learn about history that fits his ideology . That certainly is not freedom from oppression by one race over another or freedom from thought control by a government.
What Biden brings to the table is an inherent blue-collar economic populism that rings true in his soul. He is the man of both the past and the here and now: his weapon, himself, Scranton Joe. shaped by a compelling life story of family economic struggles, tragedies, and governmental experiences that are just as relevant today. One of Donald Trump's biggest assets was that he recognized the need to prop up the rust belt. It was a logical political strategy. He wanted to bring manufacturing home to America, and without a background in how to pull the levers of beltway power, he settled for the most direct route: raise tariffs, an attack against the free traders who had always claimed a corner of the GOP. His anti-union GOP traditional stance neutralized somewhat offset his newly found support from blue-collar workers. The devastating impact of COVID kept him from executing his plans, but the "buy and make it in America ball was picked up by legislative savvy Biden, who carried it to the end zone: the chips bill, the buy America government procurement edict, the switch to a new economy of environmentally friendly batteries. EVs, windmills, and solar panels all made in the industrial midwest, which translated to jobs, jobs, jobs, and more well-paying union jobs. The greatest millstone around Biden's neck and hangover from COVID was inflation that which he left to the federal reserve, mostly a holdover from the Trump administration, which at least was not as bad as the rest of the world experienced. He released oil reserves and increased well pumping to offset the Ukraine war impact, putting weaning from dependence on fossil fuels on temporary hold while supporting full speed ahead of the development of renewables, with nary a yelp from the greens.
What wise old men like him offer to America: stability in the face of scary, violent, divisive bigotry, a safe harbor from a nerve-shattering storm, and the will to empower those who felt marginalized. His weapon: empathy for those who are the victims regardless of race or religion and innate dedication to inclusiveness. His is a steady hand at the wheel in such rough seas blown foaming high with cultural winds . Like Nixon, the staunch anti-communist who opened up relations with Red China, Joe, an old white man, brought the message of inclusiveness to the rest of America in a way that no one of color could.
What he offers to the world is unmatched experience. Biden has an unusual advantage in leading American foreign policy from serving for many years as Senate foreign relations chair and an update as a recent vice president: His weapon, and a long-term personal knowledge of his greatest world power adversaries: Putin and Chi of China. He looked into their eyes and knows what they are about. He is no one's fool.
What we are facing are 50 years of unresolved issues in foreign relations that have evolved to present-day threats to American national security interests. Putin in Russia is a continuation of the cold war mentality, if not under the red banner of communism, but the flag of hyper-nationalism with the goal of re-assembling Russia's influence and control as it was at the epitome of the power during the cold war as the USSR. Biden's experience as a savvy participant in shaping and leading American foreign policy stretches over the same fifty-year span. It is not only knowing the history and not repeating the mistakes in theory, but he has a knowledge and understanding that no history book can provide, hands-on and personal involvement that has also evolved at the same time. There is a profound contrast of Biden's foreign policy experience with the naive, self-serving, ignorant comments by Ron DeSantis or others who have had no experience or interest in foreign policy but who are aspiring to be president but who try to downplay Russia as a threat. It may cater to the American first wing of the GOP, but it only demonstrated his naivete and lack of foreign experience chops. It is not only the contrast that is important; it is the danger to American national interests their ignorance caused as they mouth the same concepts and words that appeased and glorified the rise of fascism and tolerance of the German invasion of their neighbors before Pearl Harbor. The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of Russian imperialism in the form of the USSR. Biden has been there, done that, and is facing a similar threat all over again in the form of a former KGB agent who has made it his stated goal to reassemble the glory days of the USSR.
Let the 2024 games begin. It is one team against the other, gut v head, and feelings v problem-solving pragmatism. The divide is deep, fundamental, and as old as humanity itself. It will be the weighing of one set of values against another by the few still in the neutral zone.
U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis Continues to Worsen | Commonwealth Fund
DeSantis downplays Russia threat after Biden visit - POLITICO
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