No, I'm Not Especially Excited. Do I Need To Be?

I don't have a lot of strong feelings for Joe Biden. I'm guessing not too many other people do, either.

But there are sure more campaign signs up for him than there were for Hillary Clinton four years ago. Why? He's not a threat.

She, unfortunately, was perceived as one four years ago. 45, far more unfortunately, was ignored as one. Too many of us pretended to think that he would settle down once he became president and saw the tremendous responsibility. He didn't. He doubled down on the attention paid him. Whether he wins a second term or not, he won't have more attention paid to him anywhere, anytime, except maybe from the Southern District of New York, which has a few questions it wishes to ask him. It'll be a treat of schadenfreude to see how he handles it.

Now that he has revealed himself as a genuine grifter to far more people now, he's in trouble of not being re-elected. Why it's even close is a topic for another time.

Joe Biden will not lift us the way Barack Obama could, with soaring rhetoric. He's not capable, but few are. He can direct us toward a society, though, in which interdependence is considered something to try.

Quite a while back, I said that Biden wasn't the best Democratic candidate, and I still so stand. But a Democratic consensus formed around him, and hopefully, enough of us will come out and turn back an awful, horrible person who wants to take government apart in this country for no good reason other than he would be in position to do so.

To be sure, Biden's experience works in his favor. He knows the levers of power and can manage the infrastructure such that the replacements and adjustments can be made. He can speak the language of administration and implicitly knows the Cabinet positions. He will spend much of his presidency doing that--repairing the considerable damage that 45 has made. In some ways, it won't appear as if he's accomplished much.

That, alone, is plenty of reason why he's the better candidate. He genuinely cares about carrying out government for this enormous, diverse nation, as challenging as it sometimes is. 45 never cared a bit. He deconstructed things and couldn't have cared less about them unless they made him money.

In terms of the pandemic and climate change, we need a president who pays attention to science, as all of us should. Nobody else has answers that work, and the rising death and sickness tolls show it. We have got to get our heads on straight about this, act as a nation, and get a hold on this. Giving up on it is ridiculous and will condemn us to this cloistered lifestyle for years to come.

Environmentally, we need a president who cares. 45 has taken away protections of species that need it. He has, according to Michael Lewis in "The Fifth Risk," prevented people in the Department of Agriculture from using the phrase "climate change." That's an odd position to take, seeing as how the National Weather Service is part of the DOA.

We need a president to whom 545 missing children matter. That's the number that have been determined to being not yet found--notice nobody's improved that number since it was first published, either--from those who were separated from their parents at the border. Any administration screwing up that badly would be falling all over itself to improve that number by the election. 

And yet, it hasn't. They don't care. They never have. It is not an easy issue, but these are still human beings, deserving more than they've gotten. A ham sandwich would make a better president.

We need a president who respects the public education system enough to provide for it instead of deconstructing it in favor of the rich. The attitude of Secretary of Education Betsy DuVos, who fortunately didn't know all the levels she could pull these past four years (but who certainly would if given another four), has been to destroy the chances of those who need student loans and assume that only the rich deserve higher education. That arrogance disgusts me.

We need a president who doesn't insult people who disagree with him. We need a president who reads the reports people prepare for him every day. We need a president who doesn't automatically fire someone who brings him bad news, because presidents normally get a lot of it. We need a president who doesn't exaggerate or downright lie. We need a president who doesn't dwell in nepotism, completely corrupting the office. We need a president who appoints genuine, knowledgeable people to Cabinet positions that desperately need them. We need a president who doesn't drain governmental coffers for his own profit.

We need a person who treats our allies as allies, not just as hangers-on who owe money to NATO. That they do is a concern, certainly, but it's not as if we haven't printed a bundle of it ourselves to hold back the effects of a pandemic that should have been attacked from the start--but wasn't. 

But that also means that we must take the constant, unending threat of interference from Russia seriously. George Kennan, the controversial diplomat and prolific writer, said that Russia has always been interested in expansion; that whatever form its government takes, that will always be its primary interest. We do not need someone who has major economic interests in Moscow. We do not need someone who caves to Russia's leader automatically.

We need a normal person, in other words. Just normal. And Joe Biden is just normal, outside of his considerable governmental experience, his legislative experience, and his obvious humanity. He's had some bad breaks in his life, but he's bounced back from them. He hasn't blamed anyone else, either. Instead, he's utilized it to show compassion and empathy for others. He will need it if he's elected.

My final statement: Vote for Joe Biden and save our republic, at least for now. I think we'll have to confront the radical right down the road anyhow, but a Biden victory will at least provide a baseline of decorum and decent behavior and an attempt at compromise. Politics is the land of ten thousand tomorrows, and those don't look real good right now. But disaster will follow the re-election of 45, this terrible person, that's for sure.

He will throw every single legal and rhetorical roadblock in front of the train that appears to be headed toward his defeat. We should prepare for that (and we will hear from Bill Barr, who will do his worst to throw up legal roadblocks). So many of us feel exhaustion, but we must continue to be aware and participatory between now and January 20. So much bad can still happen. It will start on Tuesday night. 45 will declare victory early, then whine about corruption of mail-in ballots. He will lawyer-up when and where he can. The only thing that will stop that is a complete rout.

If you haven't voted yet, please go and vote for Joe Biden and wear a mask when you do it. America is in the lurch. It is truly at a crossroads. Our path is perilous if we do not eject our awful present president. He has terrible plans that he won't discuss. That means nothing but trouble. 

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

Mister Mark