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P
olitics just keep on getting quirkier and quirkier. The guy who I and so many others on the farther left had, with some enthusiasm, written off after abysmal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire came back like wildfire to become the apparent nominee.
Early on many, myself included, who were tired of the status quo were looking to almost anybody but Biden. It’s not that we hated ol’ Uncle Joe. It was just that we were looking for a person who could bring about the transformational change our nation has needed for so many decades.
Biden is an Obama Democrat at a time when what we really need is an FDR Democrat. We desperately need Roosevelt’s second bill of rights. But voters made it clear that as much as a revolution may be wanted and needed, most folks at this point just want a return to some kind of normal (whatever that normal will look like once we’ve made it through the age of Trump’s coronavirus failures).
I was disappointed by peoples’ willingness to just settle for going back to the old status quo where the economy works for the top 5 percent, but at least the person sitting in the Oval Office isn’t a total flaming idiot. I suppose the old status quo was better than the current status quo, but I know we can do better.
I am heartened, though, that to date Biden is sounding like he could turn out to be more progressive, more transformational, than he has been given credit for. He has embraced some of Bernie Sanders’s policy positions. There’s a good chance, if he takes the subtle hint Obama gave a while back, that he could pick Elizabeth Warren for his running mate. Hell, by the time you read this he may very well have already done just that!
Now that Obama and Warren have officially given their endorsements it’s a whole new ballgame. Obama and Warren were both on the campaign trail in 2008 and 2012 respectively with the same winning message: You didn’t build that all by yourself. You are behaving selfishly and it must, by the power of lawful people, come to an end!
Obama and Warren are each in their own right extraordinary orators and setters of narratives. They will inspire a majority of eligible voters to get excited to vote for Uncle Joe! Biden just needs to follow their lead on policy while folks around him keep him from doing too many unscripted public appearances.
I’ve read and heard that as Biden drifts further leftward, it may make conservative African Americans and blue-collar workers in the rust belt, Michigan and Wisconsin in particular, a little nervous. That’s where Obama and Warren’s ability to set the narrative will be crucial. It will fall on them to bring these necessary constituencies enthusiastically on board and to the voting booth come November. If Obama and Warren can’t do it, no one can. I believe they can!
If our elections are allowed to be free and fair, and there’s sufficient reason for concern that they won’t, then Democrats sweep the boards; federal, state, local, straight ticket top to bottom.
There’s a saying that, much to my displeasure, rings true: Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love. This November there will undoubtedly be some Democrats who aren’t in love with Joe Biden. I’m here to say to them, “Get over yourself and do what needs to be done to quite literally save the world. Vote for Joe Biden.” But I suspect the vast majority of Democrats (and others) will be excited to do so, especially after Obama, Warren, and yes, Sanders, among others, help them to fully understand that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is at stake!
Jeff Taylor is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media.
