On the eve of the 2020 Presidential election I am hopeful that a blue wave will prevail. If it does, the Biden/Harris team and all democrats will have a heavy burden of work to carry out to get our country moving forward on a positive path. If a red wave prevails the Democratic workload will be even greater, and even more essential.
Among the many issues the country faces, these are the ones I have been thinking about on the eve of the election.
THE SUPREME COURT. I am glad Biden finally answered the question about whether he intends to “pack” the Supreme Court. His answer – to set up a commission to study if and how to reform the Court – was a good one. The approval process for Supreme Court nominees has been flawed for many years, allowing candidates to avoid answering key questions about their judicial philosophy. One of Trump’s real and valuable accomplishments is that he has helped identify the many flaws in our system of government that need to be re-thought and perhaps reformed. This is especially true regarding the nomination of federal judges at every level. Biden/Harris most likely will need to have several bi-partisan commissions to study and report on a host of issues. As the challenges facing our nation become more and more complex and critical to our existence, we cannot afford to waste time and lives in governmental gridlock and in Presidential candidates lacking experience, competence or interest in government.
IMMIGRATION and a DOMESTIC PEACE CORPS. Immigration reform and a path to citizenship for dreamers and the 11 million undocumented people who have lived here for years, are top priorities of the Biden/Harris team. I believe a key reason immigration is such a fraught topic is because it is framed as an “us versus them” issue.
This divisive perception – you are either with us or against – provides a simplistic and false frame to most of the issues facing the country. Most people live in their own silos. We can overcome this by building common experience.
I believe the country should institute some form of compulsory public service requirement – sort of a domestic “Peace Corps” — for citizens and for immigrants. A domestic “Peace Corps” can provide both public services and assistance to those in need. It can also provide an opportunity for all citizens and immigrants to work together, to share common experiences and to gain an understanding of what it means to be an American and part of our democratic system. It will give native born citizens and immigrants alike some “skin” in the game, hopefully imbuing both with respect for the privilege and duties of citizenship.
As things stand, too many people seem to have a very narrow and selfish view of what it means to be part of our experiment in democracy. We need to broaden that understanding through shared experience, much as the military provides training and activities that build bonds between and among those who serve. To help bridge our deep divides, Americans need the chance to work together and experience that all of us are on the same team, even if we have different backgrounds, religions, skin color, origins and life experiences
The Domestic Peace Corps could be compulsory for one year after high-school or college for young people. For older people and new immigrants, it might be like the Army Reserve or National Guard, where a person undergoes a month or two of training and work and then serves for several weekends a year for several years, receiving modest compensation for such service.
The details need to be thought through. But the concept of creating bonds between and among members of our diverse country will help unite us.
PREPARING KAMALA HARRIS FOR THE TOP JOB. Kamala Harris probably has a tougher job than Joe Biden. Despite, and probably because of, her success to date, she is disliked and not trusted by many more people than like and support her. She will have a hard job to overcome the prejudice and suspicion of her success. But she needs to understand and overcome those issues and persuade all Americans that she can represent them well, address their individual needs while also advancing and protecting our national interests across all racial and social lines, at home and abroad.
Right now most people believe Harris is not ready to serve as President. Perhaps that is to be expected, but it is essential that she come up to speed quickly to give the nation broader confidence in the Biden/Harris team. It will also be essential to laying the groundwork for Democratic success in the next Presidential election.
While Harris is effective at courting her supporters, she needs to learn to reach out to the many who distrust and fear her. This obviously includes Trump’s base of white blue-collar workers and perhaps Whites in general as well as Hispanics. It also includes Asian Americans who soon will be the largest racial minority and one of the largest voting demographics that needs to be listened to. Most Asian Americans are fearful of people of color and believe they are lazy and untrustworthy.
It is clear that BLM and our nation’s fraught history of racial relations needs to be addressed. But all sides of those conversations need to have confidence that their voices will be heard. Most American think Harris is only concerned with the views of black people. Harris needs to change that perception and prove that she is concerned with the prejudice and bias so many of our citizens face.
Harris will also need to come up to speed on many foreign policy issues, especially regarding China. The public has a gross misperception of China and US-China relations, fueled by ignorance and fear.
Biden has not been soft on China as Trump claims. And Trump, while pretending he has been strong with China, has been largely ineffectual and weak. The US needs to remain deeply engaged with China, especially as regards Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and intellectual property rights. But the issues are complicated and getting the US-China relationship right will be critical to American self-interest and to the world for the next 50 years or more.
The US relationship with China is the result of 40 years of bipartisan agreement — with support from American companies and huge benefits to all Americans with cheaper goods – that engaging with China and trying to influence its economic and political development would work to our benefit and encourage China to be a responsible player on the world stage. It has worked to our benefit, but China has not reformed politically as much as we had hoped. It is time to re-assess US-China relations and reformulate our engagement with China.
Kamala Harris is already and will become even more of a transformational leader – for good or for ill. We need it to be for the good.
REFORMING OUR BROKEN GOVERNMENT. Our founders were geniuses to craft documents and our system of checks and balances that have brought us so far. But they could not have and did not imagine either the progress humans have made nor the complexity and multitude of the new challenges and dangers that have been the result. As visionary as our founders were, we need to update our system of government. Assigning fault for where we are is not critical, but understanding where we are and how we got here will likely help us craft solutions.
The October 31, 2020 editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorsing Donald Trump does a good job of identifying the real heart of our national divide: our citizens of all stripes believe fundamentally that our government has failed them. So, the only issue they care about and vote for is their pocket book. They have no interest in the common good and seemingly no recognition for the fact that every citizen, while living in his own cocoon, is the beneficiary of our common infrastructure and our common national heritage.
Pittsburgh may perceive itself as a self-sufficient island in a sea of fracking, but nothing is further from the truth. Pittsburgh, and each of our communities across the nation, is a beneficiary of our common infrastructure of communications, logistics, transportation, entrepreneurial zeal and manufacturing prowess, national intelligence and national defense and of our alliances and international relationships and the strength on the world stage of our democratic ideas, values and leadership. All citizens should have an obligation and some empathy for their fellow citizens and should want us all working together for the common good.
The Biden/Harris team, even while addressing the more practical and pressing multitude of issues that are the basis of daily government, must also work to change the framework of our belief systems and our sense of common humanity. They will need the help of each of us to succeed.
HEALING AND UNITY. The most important task for the Biden/Harris team and Democratic leaders across the country in the next four years is to bring our fighting factions together. Republicans and Democrats, native born Americans and immigrants, all our diverse groups, must learn how to talk with each other and work together for the common good.
Our country is rich in resources and talent. We can improve the lot of everyone, if we want to. What we seem to lack is the imagination and the desire to live in peace with our neighbors and to overcome our common challenges.
Currently we seem to enjoy mocking people with different beliefs and exaggerating our differences to deepen our divisions. We seem to gain in personal esteem by denigrating others. We relish the raw in your face politics of the Supreme Court nominations, impeachment proceedings and partisan divides. We seem to enjoy the combat of the boxing ring without paying any attention to the pain and suffering of the combatants – even when we are the actual combatants.
None of these spectacles brings respect or honor to any of us – perhaps least of all the pawns, such as Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, who provide the grist for the political and media mills. We seem to think our national political issues – jobs, healthcare, climate change, defense, cyber security, education, racial and class warfare and social justice and a host of other issues — are just games with the goal being to win a “Superbowl” ring. But these are life and death issues that affect each of us, our children and our national trajectory.
We seem to prefer re-litigating old issues – abortion rights, gay marriage, immigration, taxes, big government or small government – rather than facing the more challenging and common threats facing all of us. If we give low or no priority to climate change, clean energy, new technologies and job creation, national and cyber security threats from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and pandemics, known and yet to come, we will be like the Titanic heading for the ice berg but not even trying to avoid it. The consequences will not be pretty.
Regardless of whether the red or blue wave carries the day, Democrats must take the lead in working to heal and unite our divided country. This especially true if Biden wins the Presidency while Republicans keep a majority in the Senate. Our country will not succeed if our divided politics continue.
We cannot and must not give up our faith in our founding ideals and the zeal with which we work to realize them. We just have to realize that as much as the US has progressed since our founding and since the Civil War, the work is not finished. We still have a long way to go to create a more perfect union.
If Trump wins re-election, that means unequivocally that Democrats failed to accurately perceive the desires of the electorate. It means even a moderately left agenda is too far left for most Americans. Or it means that Democrats have failed to effectively counter Trump’s lies, fear-mongering and propaganda. Democrats will need to do some deep soul searching to figure out how to overcome Democratic shortcomings in 2016 and in this election cycle. In the next election cycle it will be imperative for Democrats to come together behind a Presidential candidate early in the primary season and use that time and money to mount a winning campaign.
Regardless of the outcome, all Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Joe Biden for his many years of selfless service to our country and for being willing to take on Trump in this campaign.