I voted for Joe Biden in the general election last time (after voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary) for at least two reasons:

 

1.) His opponent, the former occupier of the White House, was (and remains) the antithesis of everything I believe to be honorable or noble in a human being, whose policies and proclamations, each and every time, are anathema to everyone but rich, white male supremacist oligarchs, plutocrats and corporations.

 

2.) Bernie Sanders said that keeping the country in sane, thoughtful, honorable hands was the best step to take in the direction he wanted to lead our country. Given the  choice between Trump and delayed gratification, my decision was an absolute no brainer.

 

But so had my decision to vote for Hillary Clinton, who was also endorsed by Bernie Sanders when his campaign ended,  against Trump in the previous election. Too damn many Bernie Believers (In Name Only) made the wrong choice that time! (It appears likely that a qualified woman will only become POTUS through succession, not election, in the United States of America for the foreseeable future, since we can’t even seem to get the Equality Act or the Equal Rights Amendment passed given the number of remaining sexist misogynists in our government and in the general voting population.)

 

I wasn’t expecting much from Joe Biden. I expected him to be more or less a placeholder — a gentle spirit holding space for further advances — since he told us himself that “nothing would fundamentally change” under his administration.  (Talk about  political humility on steroids — or the admitted near impossibility of getting anything done while the far-right off-the-rails GOP has as much influence as it does!)

 

RFK BUST

 

But when Biden moved into the Oval Office I noticed that he had placed busts of RFK, Cesar Chavez, and MLK Jr. on desks surrounding him. I was surprised by that! “WHOA! Wait a minute!” I thought!  Joe Biden, without saying a word, had just spoken my language fluently! I realized then that there is more to him than meets the eye and the ear, given his many prgressive and conservative detractors.

 

I read both of his books PROMISES TO KEEP and PROMISE ME, DAD.

 

I was hooked because I believed he had more up his sleeve (on his agenda) than he was letting on.

 

Joe Biden didn’t run just to beat Donald Trump. He ran because he knew his job as a national and global influencer was far from over. He knew he still had things on his political bucket list that could be forever thrust beyond reach if Donald Trump got back into the White House.  And he knew the country and the world was already a disaster (global pandemic, unemployment skyrocketing, economies plummeting)  and headed for additional downfall the longer a taker instead of a giver resided there.

 

He could have rested on his laurels after sixteen years serving as VP to Barack Obama and decades as a civil servant in Congress and the Senate.  He’d “given at the office” aplenty.

 

But he knew he could do more.

 

And he did

 

WHAT SPECTACULAR RESULTS

 

He surrounded himself with the best and the brightest people he knew –including political POTUS rivals Kamala Harris (who became his VP), Bernie Sanders (who now heads up HELP) and Pete Buttigieg (Transportation Secretary), plus scores of others I should name by won’t — trans, lesbian, gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist and agnostic — a cross section of this nation of immigrants.   In Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s administration, everyone matters, from capitalists to sanitation workers. But he knows where the scars and bruises are, and where things aren’t fair and equitable, and he’s working on ironing those out so everyone feels they should have enough stake in America to want to turn out and VOTE to keep it on the up and up, in the direction it’s heading under his leadership.

 

On my Facebook page I have pegged (until Electon Day on November 5th) the many accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration.  I know some friends are tired of seeing it every time they go there (I have been told this more than once), but I am adamant about making sure it’s available QUICKLY for everyone who starts dialing in on the 2024 election from now until election day. I don’t want anyone to miss the HIGHLIGHTS of what the Biden-Harris Administration has accomplished despite lockstep opposition from the Party of Trump.   They’re getting important stuff done, stuff that is benefiting you, me and the world at large. They’re pissing off some plutocrats, oligarchs and organizations who are kicking because Biden-Harris want them paying their fair share of taxes so you and I aren’t saddled with more of the national debt than they are (who benefit most from our efforts and purchases).  This administration is looking for equity and fairness.

 

Now, if you’re not for improved/ increasing equity and fairness, I can totally understand why you might vote Republican despite the monser who heads it up. But I don’t know why anyone else would. And if you aren’t for improved equity/fairness, we have very little in common because I think your capacity for empathy  is smashed to smithereens, but do I wish you well. And I do want you, and every other American citizen, to be able to vote the way your heart and brain direct you to.

 

But I want decent, compassionate, proactive human beings at the helm, so that’s who I vote for. Every time. I have never regretted a vote I ever made. Even when I lost big time .(George McGovern/Sargent Shriver 1972. Result: More Nixon until he resigned in disrace due to Watergate.) I got Christmas cards from George and Eleanor McGovern for years afterward.

 

We have decent, compassionate, proactive human beings at the helm now.

 

I hope we elect to keep them there and to vote blue all up and down the ballot in November so they have sufficient support in the halls of Congress to do even more for us.

 

SOTU ADDRESS

 

I was on my way out of the country when President Biden gave this year’s State of the Union Address. I just watched it last night.  I posted the link in the section heading above so you can watch it if you missed it.

 

Biden is a curiously adept self-promoter despite the occasional stammer/stutter (a lifelong challenge) — and he’s a charming, disarming adversary. Watch how he handles the GOP hecklers in attendance. Watch Mike Johnson behind him (GOP Majority Leader), especially how he responds to Biden’s policy proposals whenever Biden’s side of the aisle stands and claps.  (“In my heart, I’m clapping, too.”) There are a few times when he shakes his head to dislodge from viewer’s minds Biden’s charges that the GOP isn’t operating in good faith on some things. He doesn’t like being called out on his fealty to Trump or to being a Christian hypocrite.)

 

That’s what needs to change. We need people in Congress who share Biden’s positive vision for America, not representatives like Johnson who kowtow to Trump, Putin, oligarchs, plutocrats and corporations. We need to have enough BLUE in Congress to support Building Back Better instead of thwarting forward progress to capitalize on and telegraph disfavor of the present administration.  (The southern border bill brouhaha is only the most recent Trump-caused monkey wrench thrown into the cogwheels of progress.)

 

A few times, I almost felt like Mike Johnson wanted to clap but knew he shouldn’t. Like he wanted to nod his agreement but knew he couldn’t and remain Minority Leader.  If he’d become less interested in maintaining his position and more interested in maintaining our democratic republic, he might even be  a candidate for changing parties.  But I won’t be silly enough to hold my breath. (Still, he’s young, and God might convince him, if he can manage to step far away enough from The Orange Antichrist to actually hear what’s being conveyed from the heavenlies and nearly everywhere else!)

 

Biden has already been deemed the 14th best POTUS on record (Trump being dead last). I think he can go even higher, given another term to work  more of his policies into the fabric of our nation.  I’m all for giving him that latitude.

 

I hope you are, too!

 

He hasn’t failed us yet. He isn’t about to start now. He has a record to beat — HIS OWN!