Sixteen months ago, I wrote a column for the Monitor titled “Waiting for Biden?” Hillary Clinton was plugging her way to the 2016 nomination, facing considerable grassroots pressure from the supporters of Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden, still grieving the death of his son, Beau, seemed an unlikely competitor for lots of reasons, principally that he was himself ambivalent about entering the race. But there were other concerns: He was too old; he was just “more of the same”; he sometimes seemed goofy; he’d already run a few times and been trounced.
Well, Biden stayed out. And now we have Donald Trump. And here’s why I believe that Biden – and perhaps only Biden – can rescue America from the untold harm being wreaked by Trump, Pence and the corporate magnates and billionaire oligarchs whose interests they serve. Nobody on the horizon, not Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not any of the untried second rank of Democrats can offer our nation what Biden can, were he to decide to run in 2020.
Just for starters:
– Biden represents a return to sanity, the rule of law, and the hope for bipartisan action on the increasingly severe crises facing America and the world.
– Biden is a known entity, with the depth of experience, both nationally and internationally, to reassure America and the world that the horrors of the Trump experiment can be swiftly reversed.
– Biden has the range of contacts, both nationally and internationally, to move quickly to restore the basic functioning of our government and to resume America’s world leadership. He knows where to find the experienced diplomats and department leaders who can right the ship of state.
– Biden’s record as a senator and vice president is free from scandal, from excessive self-promotion and from dependency on special-interest groups to enable him to stand in sharp contrast to Trump, Pence, and the extremists, demagogues and corporate greed-mongers who surround them. He would be the candidate most immune from the kind of campaign the right and far-right can be expected to wage against anyone threatening their nefarious agenda.
– Lastly, Biden’s roots among working-class Americans give him the best chance of allowing those former Democrats who jumped ship to support Trump to return to their roots in a Democratic Party working hard to reform its elitist and “identity politics” tendencies.
So, what’s the counter argument? Biden’s too old? He’s not progressive enough? We need a whiz-bang orator to nail Trump to the wall? We owe it to Sanders because the Democratic machine tried to screw him last time? Or to Warren because it’s high time to put a woman in the White House? We need a fresh face because Americans are fed up with those who appear to represent the status quo?
None of these arguments stand up, mainly because Americans – yes, even many who voted for Trump – are desperate for someone who will lead us back from the brink, someone we can feel safe with, someone who will not expose us to the unknown and the untried, and above all, someone who can represent the great majority of Americans who are kind, generous, fair-minded, patient and who believe we must seek peace, justice, environmental sanity and equality of opportunity in our land and across the globe.
We don’t need, and can’t afford in 2020, a candidate who can out-shout the angry, defiant, nativist crowd of die-hard Trump supporters. Democrats can’t indulge themselves in choosing someone who mirrors far-right with far-left ideology – and yet we do need a candidate who can identify with and listen to those who have been left behind economically, educationally and socially.
Trump promised these people a restoration of American “greatness”; he has provided them only with nasty tweets and an ongoing invitation to hate.
I’m with Bernie on single-payer health care. I’m with Elizabeth Warren on reining in the Wall Street gang. But first we need a period of stability, a national healing, a period of quiet reflection and competent leadership.
Biden, together with a younger running mate who also identifies with working-class Americans, can eliminate the scourge of elitism that has infected the Democratic Party. America will flock to him as a kind, humane, realistic and experienced antidote to the ignorant, self-obsessed, horrifically destructive team that now inhabits the White House.
New Hampshire can be the place where we begin to restore sanity and compassion to our nation and our world. Recent polls of New Hampshire citizens suggest that many of us believe that Biden could well be the one to do it.
Will you consider joining me to help get this movement started?
(Robert L. Fried of Concord is a retired educator who is now a writer, gardener and tinkerer. He can be reached by email at rob.fried@gmail.com.)