United Front for National Salvation? Not A Bad Idea.

I heard a fellow named Larry Kleinman the other day. He's a well-known organizer on the Left Coast.

He's also a well-known writer. His commentaries have an excellent following. He was on a Zoom call with other organizers, discussing what we have to do between now and the November election.

Yeah, it's late April. Turn the page to next week, and we're six months out. I've been around; that's not a real long time. If you're going to get something started, now would be the time.

That's especially true with the virus all around us. A lot of organizing must be done online now. Though it's the best way to connect people, door-to-door is pretty much out of possibility.

We are at an existential moment, which has been obvious for a while now. The damage that 45 has done to this country--now expanded by his intentional delay on the virus, pretending it'll go away on its own; check the New York Times on 4/29--will take a long, long time to repair, perhaps longer than the next presidential term.

But there must be a presidential term without him in it for that to begin. We are terribly wounded by this man's trampling; our system needs to breathe.

Kleinman's discussion was a grab-bag of ideas but some unmistakably blunt ones: for instance, that the survivalists will want to promote the scarcity that will undoubtedly accompany the pandemic. The front edge of that is currently being touted by Tyson, which says that tons and tons of meat will go to waste because the supply line is now wearing thin. We already know that Idaho potato farmers and Wisconsin dairy farmers have had to ruin their produce because there are far fewer markets for them. Our tone-deaf president has evoked the Defense Production Act to save meat, but not to produce masks.

So the state for panic is being set by the virus and our pitiful response to it. The survivalists, say Kleinman, will want to tout an authoritarian response to that scarcity, creating a neo-fascist state that would, I think, please 45 and people like Stephen Miller to no end. If that happens, guns will take over our society in a fashion that will be truly frightening, instead of occasionally so.

We are nearing the edge of that precipice. But Kleinman has something that might get in the way of that: What he called the United Front for National Salvation. There are six months to go before the election: Six months of mischief for 45 to pull. Things will get far worse before they get better. There must be an entity that will push back against this president's worse inclinations.

In a sense, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been at cross-purposes. Hunkering down in his home, he's been unable to get out and start really campaigning. But 45's mistakes and faux pas have allowed him to get away with that. In effect, he's winning the campaign (ahead in several battleground states) so far by default.

But that won't last forever. We're going to hit bottom. Some economic recovery is likely, especially this summer. 45 will try to make it look like first, he's responsible for that (even though he says he's not responsible for the spread of the virus); and second, that everything will eventually be okay and not to worry and vote for him anyhow. And that will, incredibly, gain some traction.

Biden must engineer a response. He can't have the luxury of sitting there until November. Yet, promoting rallies runs against the social distancing that's key to flattening the curve. Now what?

The United Front for National Salvation can create a Biden shadow Cabinet. He can act now, instead of waiting for the normal vetting. Instead of just naming a running mate, he can name an entire set of assistants to reassure the country that the moment he becomes president, he won't waste a single moment in righting this terribly listing ship.

Not only that, but he can empower them to make public comments when people in their positions in 45's Cabinet do things that counteract good governmental policy. Think of someone as Biden's shadow Secretary of Education, for instance, objecting to damn near everything Betsy DuVos is doing in that position, which would be pretty easy to do. Whatever she would do would have a strong response, distributed to the mainstream press, which would be duty-bound to report it since it would be directly connected to the Democratic nominee. Bingo--a policy debate before the election that would demonstrate, directly, how the new government would act.

It might calm people down. It might mute panic, because people would know that help would be on the way. All they would have to do is go and vote. They would know exactly what they're voting for. It would be all out in front of them.

And there's nothing 45 could do about it but tweet. He looks worse and worse as he falls all over himself. It would be comical if it weren't so deadly serious.

Would those tweets be fierce? Of course. They've always been fierce and full of innuendos and lies. But standing up to them have to be a prerequisite for winning this election, anyhow, either implicitly by ignoring them or explicitly by response. Either way, the nation will be watching.

I like Kleinman's idea. It's not bullet-proof, because it would put a great deal of trust in that Cabinet. But confusion and uncertainty are 45's best weapons, and they would be muted by a running, calming commentary that would be authorized by, but not always stated by, the Democratic candidate, who's been known to make a few gaffes himself.

But this is an idea out there on the Left Coast. It hasn't gotten anywhere near him yet. I just had a thought: I still have some thin ties to the NEA. And I know they're fond of him; he and former president Dennis Van Roekel were like buddies. (I have a 'holy picture' of him and wife Jill from 2007) I'm going to try to reach out and see if this idea can have some legs. It's too good to just leave it sit inside someone else's blog.

45 can be intercepted and deflected, which would be utilizing his best weapon against him. He's going to be more desperate as we approach November, because he now knows he's in trouble. His bag of tricks isn't empty yet. We must gird ourselves against it.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark