The other day while tinkering with this website, I happened to pause on a post from August 23, 2020. The post, titled A Big Effing Deal, was a commentary on a speech Joe Biden had delivered a few days before. It was his nomination acceptance speech, the highlight of the Covid-era “virtual” Democratic National Convention.
It was Biden at his best. Not often notable for eloquence, Biden delivered a speech that was aspirational and substantive, powerful and sometimes lyrical. As I read through the transcript from the 2020 speech, I was struck by how relevant his words are still today.
He described the 2020 presidential campaign as a contest for the soul of America. Although he eventually won the race when the votes were counted that November, I do not believe the contest for America’s soul has yet been won.
In his speech, he spoke of the choice facing the American people. It is a choice we still face today. He said:
We can choose a path of becoming angrier, less hopeful, more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion or we can choose a different path, and together take this chance to heal, to reform, to unite. A path of hope and light.
He described what he imagined a second term for the Republican candidate would be:
What we know about this president is if he’s given four more years, he’ll be what he’s been for the last four years: a president who takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators and fans the flames of hate and division. He’ll wake up every day believing the job is all about him, never about you. Is that the America you want for you, your family, your children?
Biden was, of course, describing the same man who, in 2024, was given four more years by the electorate, and what Biden imagined in 2020 that those four years would be like is our present reality. Biden foresaw a corrupt presidency and today we watch the chiseler-in-chief daily tell outrageous lies to America and the rest of the world. He does believe the job is all about himself.
A large segment of the 2020 speech addressed the Covid-19 pandemic (and the failure of the then incumbent administration to deal with it effectively). At that time, the virus had infected 5 million and had killed more than 170,000 Americans. Biden promised to implement a national strategy to combat the ravages of the virus. It was a strategy that later proved effective. Biden combined the Covid-19 recovery strategy with a plan to rebuild the economy.
I have recently heard politicians and pundits express the opinion that Democrats have failed to communicate effectively what they stand for. The criticism is that Democrats cannot be a party that knows only what it opposes. The party must articulate what it stands for and what it has to offer to the nation’s future. There is a double standard at work here. Republicans offer little to lift up the American people.
The fact is that Joe Biden, speaking for the Democratic Party in 2020, articulated his party’s offer. In my 2020 blog post, I summarized issues Biden spoke to in his speech. He told the American people where Democrats stood and what they would do for their country:
He highlighted a range of issues that would become the focus of a Biden presidency: having a plan to control the pandemic of coronavirus; building the nation’s economy back better; building on the Affordable Care Act; making a college education affordable; providing child care and elder care; making a humane immigration system an economic asset; empowering labor unions; assuring equal pay for women; paying essential workers rising wages to support families; responding effectively to the global threat of climate change and creating good-paying jobs in the process; protecting Social Security and Medicare; and standing with international friends and allies instead of “cozying up to dictators.”
Democrats still stand for these things. In short, they see that the purpose of government is to improve the lives of people.
Since the 2024 election, Republicans have done the opposite. They have allowed an unelected drug-addicted megadonor to haphazardly fire and ruin the lives of federal workers and the people they serve. They have promoted an anti-immigrant policy of thuggery and denial of due process. They have abandoned the Ukrainian people, who continue to defend Western democracy against Russian invaders (some even going along with the grotesque fiction that Ukraine started the war). They have threatened China (and raised prices for Americans) with exorbitant and illegal tariffs. They have endorsed a budget that would fund tax breaks for the wealthy by taking away health care for millions through cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
In these and many other ways during these four years, Republicans have made and will make people’s lives worse. They have redrawn the portrait of America in ways that do not make us proud to be Americans. Biden could have been talking about 2024 when he described a life-changing election that would determine what America will look like for a long, long time.
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Some other stuff for later,
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John, thank you. When I look back over the past almost nine years I wonder why anyone would vote for this egoist. He demeans those with physical disabilities. He ridicules those who have served, such as John McCain who spent years in the Hanoi Hilton. He degrades and bullies anyone who disagrees with him. The man is devoid of empathy and incapable of love. And now, we see the results of this in the casting aside of people who worked hard and tried to lead honorable lives with the gestapo like tactics of ICE. Shameful.