Tag: Blacks

Let’s not change horses in midstream: The case for another Biden term


The news hadn’t bode well for Joe Biden even before his disastrous debate with Trump.

The NYT, tracking 47 polls, shows Biden trailing Democratic senate candidates in the upcoming election in all, but one poll, where he’s tied.

His low polling doesn’t come as a rebuke of his policies, at least among Democrats. If one rightly judges the merits of a presidency by its ability to promote change bettering America, Biden outpaces his predecessors, including Obama, putting him in good company with Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

The problem is that most voters view Biden as lacking the physical and mental capacity to carry out the duties of office for another four years.

His ninety minute confrontation with Trump simply buttressed the public’s hesitancy.

Watching the debate was painful for me. Biden seemed laboring to reach the podium, stuttering repeatedly, losing his train of thought on one occasion, digressing in several of his responses, and looking down repeatedly as if searching for a response prepared by his handlers.

It was like watching a boxer, trapped in the ring corner, staggered by repeated blows.

Trump’s best line nailed it: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”

A healthy, nimble candidate would have atomized Trump quickly in fact-checking rebuttal. Trump was his usual self, hyperbolizing and mendacious, though to his credit, he exercised discipline in not interrupting his opponent.

Though just four years younger than Biden at 77, Trump came across as consistently energetic. “It seemed like a thirty year difference,” one reporter said.

So where do we go from here?

Despite a groundswell of party cohorts urging his withdrawal from the race, seconded by formerly friendly media, Biden is unlikely to heed their counsel—that is, unless there occurs another stumble, both literally and figuratively.

But here’s my take: With six weeks to the Democratic National Convention, August 19-21, an open convention would produce political chaos with a rush of candidates, inadequately assessed.

Kamala Harris is the likely designee. Biden, of course, could immediately resign, allowing Harris to assume the presidency. Any other choice, say a white male replacement at the convention, would spell unmitigated disaster, and assure a Trump victory.

Black and brown voters would abandon ship. As Areva Martin, a California convention delegate pledged to Biden, put it: “If you pick a white man over Kamala Harris, black women, I can tell you this, we gon’ walk away, we gon’ blow the party up.”

The caveat, however, is the improbability of Harris winning in November, polls indicating she enjoys even less favorability than the president.

I say, better not to panic. I believe Biden can still win. Twenty percent of Republicans distain Trump. In a close election, they could provide the margin of victory for Biden, whether by crossing over or not voting a presidential preference. I think it reasonable they’ll do just that.

As for a future four years, if Biden can’t carry out his duties, he can either resign, with Harris succeeding to office, or the Congress can implement the 25th Amendment, Section Four:

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Let’s not change horses in midstream. We can still win and smooth out any winkles. The alternative is unthinkable.

—rj

Scrubbing George Washington from History: Who’s Next?

Just a few days ago comes news that a San Francisco school district is mulling getting rid of a series of murals honoring our first president because a commissioned working group alleges it’s traumatizing students.

Imagine my surprise that founding father George Washington is now under attack by politically enlightened, self-lacerating guardians of the public interest, bent on scrubbing the pantheon of American heroes clean in writing a revisionist history:

We come to these recommendations due to the continued historical and current trauma of Native Americans and African Americans with these depictions in the mural that glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy, oppression, etc.

Seems our anointed censors will neither forgive nor forget that George was a slave owner and killed Native Americans in the French and Indian War. And, of course, we have to take into account its psychological fallout for students exposed daily to the murals.

Ironically, these murals were painstakingly done in 1936 by communist Victor Arnautoff, who simply wanted in his own words “to provoke a nuanced view of Washington’s legacy,” which the San Francisco United School District (SFUSD) has obviously misconstrued in its literalist approach.

Wonder what Dolly Madison would say about all of this.

But it doesn’t stop here. There’s Christ Church that Washington and his family attended in Alexandria, Virginia. Washington had purchased a family pew, marked by a plaque. Well, no more!

The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome. Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques.

Washington was a founding and contributing member of the congregation. Ironically, the church is located on North Washington Street. Y’uh thinking maybe they should move?

Last, but not least, comes this news from academia: Washington and Lee University board of trustees has decided on replacing portraits of Washington and Lee in military uniform with portraits of them in civilian garb.

In a formal statement, J. Donald Childress, rector of the board of trustees, and William C. Dudley, university president, said, “We appreciate the seriousness and thoughtfulness with which our fellow trustees have approached these matters. On behalf of the board, we want to express our gratitude to all of those members of the community who contributed to our deliberations, through countless letters and conversations over the summer and on campus this weekend. We are fortunate to be part of a community that cares deeply about this institution and is so dedicated to its continued success.”

Seems the leader of the Continental Army has been relieved of command.

I prefer distinguished American historian Fergus M. Bordewich’s take on these things in exclaiming it’s “a deeply wrongheaded habit to project today’s norms, values, ideals backwards in time to find our ancestors inevitably falling short. It betrays a very troubling intolerance of art and the ambiguity of art and the aspirations of art. It’s incredibly stupid if we try to erase history. It still happened, and you should argue about its meanings.”

–rj