The Survival of American Democracy Depends on the Re-Election of President Joe Biden

We are now thirty-three days into the election leap year of 2024.  It's time to set aside all of the media noise and clamor of the past six months and focus on reality.  This is an election year.  And while Democrats love to discuss the issues, including a strong economy and the ability that it has to serve all Americans well, there is a lot more at stake this time.  The Constitution of the United States of America, and the democracy which is the foundation of the government it created, is all at risk of total destruction by a demagogue.  

We Can No Longer Depend on a Judicial System Weakened by Decades of Republican Deference to the Wealthy Elite 

It's pretty clear that the strength of the justice system, and the recognition of the rule of law, which pushed Richard Nixon to his resignation from the Presidency in 1974 has been systematically weakened by pressure from wealthy elites who are financially able to buy time and grace that ordinary people like the rest of us cannot afford.  And that's had the effect, frankly, of nullifying laws for a segment of the population that is rich enough to spend millions of dollars in attorney fees to delay, obfuscate, and get around the law for their own benefit.  

Every Republican President from Gerald Ford to Donald Trump has used their appointive power to undermine the system by putting people on the federal bench who are more attentive to the favors they get in exchange for their rulings than to the law.  Delays, appeals, all kinds of time to assemble, re-assemble, categorize and reorder evidence are way beyond the affordabiity of ordinary Americans.  So are bribes, in the form of buying homes for family members of justices and underwriting their very expensive vacations or their children's private school tuition.  And yes, that's one very obvious example but there's plenty of evidence to suggest it happens everywhere, all the time, without being investigated or stopped.

The American people are entitled to know, before they go to the polls and vote, whether candidates running for office are criminals.  And the laws that we have passed over the years, based on past experience, are there because we remain a nation of laws which lives under the rule of law, without exception.  That's not happening.  It needs to change.  

The only way to change this, to ensure the survival of our nation, and its Constitution, is that the American people are going to have to educate themselves as best as can be done, get the facts, filter out the falsehoods, and a clear majority are going to have to step up, re-elect President Biden and Vice-President Harris, make sure Democrats have a working majority in the House and control the Senate.  Then we can debate the finer points of left wing political issues, including who is entitled to what and how much how often.  If third party distractions and pickiness, and that's what I'll call it because it is, wind up costing Biden the election, even though he's going to get about 8 million more popular votes than Trump, there will be no debates.  We'll be watching as the National Guard round up people on the streets of the big cities and puts them into concentration camps.  Then we can talk about the finer points of our expected entitlements. 

Looking at the charges against Trump, and the evidence which supports them, convictions are inevitable.  The fact that a conviction doesn't render him completely ineligible for public office is a lapse in common sense that obviously needs to be codified in the law, without any doubt.  That must be changed.  No criminal should ever be able to run for President, or vote for President.  But the problem, produced by dawdling in the justice department and the endless and pointless ways of delaying the beginning of a speedy trial deliberately done to avoid accountability of perpetrators, is that the court never seems to actually getting around to having a trial.  In this case, it appears that the system, regardless of who appointed the justices or judges, is determined to avoid making any kind of decision in a timely manner.  That's the most self-serving, bloated, ineffective, inept, incompetent justice system in existence.  

There is No Reason Not to Support President Biden 

So we've had this six month run of news media chasing after ratings, including bogus, skewed polling data, sudden surges here and there, and huge amounts of coverage of the few issues and problems in which the Biden administration doesn't appear to be having a high level of success.  Yet another jobs report, another month of unexpected, unprecedented, consecutive growth, combined with the stock market soaring and the economy humming right along two years after the doom and gloomers predicted recession, underline the fact that the President kept his promise of recovery following the pandemic.  

Let's acknowledge that the economic downturn, resulting from COVID, and the lack of any comprehensive plan to help the American people get through the crisis, were gigantic, monumental failures of the Trump administration.  They were the direct result of his incompetence, which includes a mental and emotional failure that doesn't permit him to take advice from people who are far more expert than he is.  The inability of anyone to see this is due to total ignorance, steming from a lack of education in discerning facts and facing reality.  

So let's get past all of the trendy, pseudo-intellectual discussion centered around Biden's age and the need for a door to be opened to someone else to pursue the Presidency from the Democratic side of American politics.  First of all, there is no alternative candidate on the left who has anywhere near the experience, intellectual ability, or the staff of expert advisors to come anywhere close to governing this country as competently as Biden has done.  His list of first term accomplishments, on behalf of the American people and right down the line of all of his Democratic party constituency, is historic.  

Cornell West just doesn't have the kind of leadership ability that will be needed in the Presidency over the next four years, as the world seems to edge closer to anothter world conflict.  Jill Stein is a Putin-lover whose words give her away, frankly, as a clueless, empty, dimwit with nothing to offer her party that they aren't already going to get from Biden.  The ridiculousness of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as a serious candidate is laughable.  He has no leadership ability, no intellect, and doesn't have the emotional stamina to have the kind of responsibility that is involved in the presidency.  No Labels appears to be living up to its name, with no followers either.  

Yesterday, on one of the MSNBC programs, the statement was made that Biden is seeing an erosion of support among Black voters.  I wish the media would get this straight and coordinate their contradictory statements, after reports the previous week about polls showing his support increasing among Black and Latino voters.  They went to a barber shop in South Carolina and brought in four African-American men who expressed their "doubts" about voting for Biden.  None of them actually articulated a reason why, except to cite the common narrative of his age.  One of them said, "I'm not really sure he did for 'us' what he said he would do." 

And what, exactly, was that?  

Unemployment among minorities is at record lows.  There are more African-Americans in the federal judiciary now than there ever have been, many of them women, including one on the Supreme Court.  COVID ran rampant in the black community, the Biden administration focused on that problem specifically, and got it under control.  No one actually mentioned West, by the way, in that interview. My question to black voters is this; if you are hoping to see specific issues addressed by the government, and by the president, who is going to be better at doing that for you, Biden, who has been doing it all along, or Trump, whose only shot at election is if you stay home or vote third party?  Not voting is a vote for Trump and so is voting for a third party candidate.  And that will set your progress back again this time, perhaps all the way back to the Civil War.

Age is Not an Issue Here

While a lot can happen in four years, age is really no issue at all here.  Joe Biden is not a nincompoop like his predecessor.  He has an administration, loaded with experts who are all good at their job, and he listens to their advice before making decisions.  He never jumps to conclusions, he thinks things through and trusts his advisors.  His retaliatory response to Iran, following the deaths of three soldiers in Jordan is a classic example of this.  So is his border policy which has prevented, at least so far, a major humanitarian disaster.  Ukraine would be a Russian province once again and Putin would be on the march of destruction of other democracies in Eastern Europe by now.  

If something happened to him, there is a competent administration in place and a competent Vice-President ready to step in.  Nothing would change.  He's not the kind of President who leaves his administration hanging, not knowing what to do if something did happen.  So I'll say that age is an issue in this campaign, in this regard, but it's not Biden's age or mental competence that is the problem, it's Trump's.  

So is There Anything Else? 

Solving the inflation problem is not an overnight activity, but the Biden administration's policies have led to its reduction.  The fact that he predicted it, told us where it would go, what they would do and when it would ease have all been right on target.  Inflation is a sign of a prosperous economy, something we've enjoyed almost from the day Biden got into office.  And yet, Democratic party economic policy produces the most prosperous economic circumstances, even for the fabulously rich.  

The President also leads out on women's health rights.  There's no question this is a divisive issue that is always mischaracterized by the far right.  But we've had some real-life illustrations of exactly what we are dealing with here, and the far right perspective is missing the reality of what is at the core of this issue.  The overturning of Roe will have farther reaching effects on women's health care than just banning abortion.  And the far right's perspective on it misses the point and turns it into something it isn't, based largely on an imposition of religious beliefs.  And given the popularity of codifying the principles of Roe into law, at over 65% of the electorate, this is another example of a President who listens to the people.  

It's pretty obvious who Trump listens to.  He listens to no one.  

Elections Have Consequences

The American electorate is, for better or for worse, becoming more separated from logic, reason, facts and common sense, products of education, than it ever has been before.  The past two Presidential campaigns have moved completely off the issues, into a cultural and social hole that seems to be bottomless.  I attribute this shift to the utter failure of American public education to teach students even the basic facts about their government, and to require them to know these things before they get a high school diploma.  That's largely due to the Republican party's systematic dismantling of it by reducing its resources and the scope of its work when they are in charge.  And the fact is that they've been continuously in charge since this is largely a state issue, not a federal issue.  

The time, then, does come when we have to muster all out strength and take it back.  We go with the hand we've been dealt.  Joe Biden has, over the past four years, proven that he is up to the task and can do the job by actually doing the job, something Trump proved, in four years, that he couldn't do.  

What I want to see, with Democrats in charge of the federal government, is a clean sweep of objectives.  Break the filibuster.  Restore individual rights that have been lost.  Establish a single-payer, universal health care system.  Make it impossible for a convicted criminal to run for or hold public office.  Pack the Supreme Court, choosing justices who will uphold the rule of law.  That's a start.  Protecting our democracy is the primary job and we'll vote to get it done.