In 2016, Americans embarrassed themselves by electing Donald Trump as their president. Then Trump took over and has embarrassed them ever since. If they want to regain the world’s respect, they must not only elect Joe Biden next Tuesday, they must repudiate Trump. They must elect Biden in a landslide.
And they must do more than that. If there’s been a sorrier performance than Trump’s over the last four years, it’s been the craven behaviour of Republican senators. Even those who initially described him as the degenerate he is now genuflect before him. This pathetic collection of senators must also be repudiated.
If Biden wins he has a huge challenge ahead of him, starting with restoring America’s international reputation. This includes withdrawing U.S. notice to depart the Paris Climate Agreement, rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, and showing the country’s friends and allies that it can be once again trusted.
He would also have a mountain of work to do domestically, undoing the damage the Trump administration has done, at least as much as possible. The thousands of lives lost unnecessarily to COVID cannot be reclaimed, but a coherent science-based policy to fight the epidemic is desperately needed. Also of the greatest importance would be restoring dozens of environmental measures that the Trump administration has rolled back costing decades of environmental progress.
As part and parcel of the above, Biden would need to appoint a host of officials to replace the cronies Trump inflicted upon various federal agencies.
Biden will indeed bear a heavy burden should he win. The American people can atone for electing the monstrous Trump by repudiating the man and his enablers who have imposed that burden.
At this point a Biden presidency is indispensable for America, America’s allies and most of the remainder of the world. It won’t be nearly enough to redeem the United States. John McCain and Russ Feingold knew the key to salvaging the Republic was campaign finance reform. They knew American democracy depended on breaking the bonds between Congress and the “Donor Class” by which government had come to be not just influenced or corrupted by owned. McCain-Feingold was shredded in the courts, perhaps a harbinger of the Citizens United outrage.
You can elect a House and Senate jam packed with Democrats and it won’t make any difference unless Congress breaks free of its indenture to big money. About a decade ago I read an analysis by a US labour economist who explained that the monied class had realized it wasn’t enough that they influenced federal and state legislatures when they could own them.
This claim was borne out in the 2014 study out of Princeton by Gilens (Princeton) and Page (Northwestern) explored congressional voting patterns going back several years. They discovered that, wherever the public interest and private interests conflicted, the narrow private interest routinely prevailed. These two profs concluded that the US had long ceased functioning as a democracy but had, instead, become a plutocracy.
Sure, a Senate and House chock-a-block with Democrats would be preferable to a Republican-dominated Congress but that doesn’t mean there’ll be some democratic restoration. There is very little appetite among the Democratic caucus for driving the money-lenders from the temple.