As I mentioned in the previous entry, my vote in the upcoming election is already locked in. I was always going to vote Democratic regardless of who the nominee might have been. That said, I did have my favorite in the primary… and Joe Biden wasn’t it. I had nothing against him, I just had another preference. But after catching up on his speech last night on the final evening of the DNC, I’m a lot more enthused about the idea of President Biden.

He’s not the greatest speaker in the world. He doesn’t have the soaring oratorical skills of Bill Clinton or the infectious optimism of Barack Obama. But he’s authentic and he’s earnest. He wears decency and empathy on his sleeve. I like how during the course of this speech, you can hear flashes of genuine anger at how the current president has gone astray. Not just because I’m deeply, deeply angry about Donald Trump’s destructive rampage against everything the Democrats have accomplished since the New Deal, although I certainly am. But rather because it’s real emotion. That’s real humanity shining through, but not overwhelming his reason. I like when his voice thickens while he’s talking about his late wife and son, too. Joe Biden is a human being. Not some weird damaged husk, or a slick, impassive replicant.

And he says the things I want to hear. About what it’s going to honestly take to handle this goddamn pandemic, and that he’ll start to do it on Day One (we should’ve had a national stat-at-home order and masking mandate months ago). And also about rebuilding the country — broadband! — and fixing the institutions that are broken and confronting climate change. I like that he talks about trusting in science. And restoring our friendships around the world. I am appalled that Trump and his sycophantic organization have trashed decades-old alliances simply because of his xenophobia and obsession with the idea that America needs to be paid for everything like some kind of nationalistic protection racket. Biden’s words on the subject were… soothing. If he gets in, I think we have a chance of salvaging some degree of American prestige… although if the right wing thought Obama’s “apology tour” was too much, they’re going to lose their minds over what Biden will be required to do.

I am more dubious about Biden’s claim that we’re on the verge of getting rid of America’s systemic racism, even though the BLM protests of recent months have been the most remarkable thing around the subject that I’ve seen in my lifetime. But again, I like what Biden has to say about the possibility. I like that he’s talking about possibilities in general.

It was a good speech. I look forward to more like this…

Transcript follows the video (bolded emphasis is mine):

Good evening.

Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way.

Give people light. Those are words for our time.

The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness.

It’s time for us, for We the People, to come together.

For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.

I am a proud Democrat and I will be proud to carry the banner of our party into the general election. So, it is with great honor and humility that I accept this nomination for President of the United States of America.

But while I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president. I will work as hard for those who didn’t support me as I will for those who did. That’s the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base or our party. This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment.

It’s a moment that calls for hope and light and love. Hope for our futures, light to see our way forward, and love for one another. America isn’t just a collection of clashing interests of Red States or Blue States. We’re so much bigger than that. We’re so much better than that.

Nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt pledged a New Deal in a time of massive unemployment, uncertainty, and fear. Stricken by disease, stricken by a virus, FDR insisted that he would recover and prevail and he believed America could as well. And he did. And so can we.

This campaign isn’t just about winning votes.

It’s about winning the heart, and yes, the soul of America.

Winning it for the generous among us, not the selfish. Winning it for the workers who keep this country going, not just the privileged few at the top. Winning it for those communities who have known the injustice of the “knee on the neck”. For all the young people who have known only an America of rising inequity and shrinking opportunity. They deserve to experience America’s promise in full.

No generation ever knows what history will ask of it. All we can ever know is whether we’ll be ready when that moment arrives. And now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced. Four historic crises. All at the same time. A perfect storm. The worst pandemic in over 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The most compelling call for racial justice since the 60’s. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change. So, the question for us is simple: Are we ready?

I believe we are.

We must be.

All elections are important. But we know in our bones this one is more consequential. America is at an inflection point. A time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities. We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful, and more divided. A path of shadow and suspicion. Or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light. This is a life-changing election that will determine America’s future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be.

That’s all on the ballot. And the choice could not be clearer. No rhetoric is needed. Just judge this president on the facts:

• Five million Americans infected with COVID-19.
• More than 170,000 Americans have died.
• By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth.
• More than 50 million people have filed for unemployment this year.
• More than 10 million people are going to lose their health insurance this year.
• Nearly one in 6 small businesses have closed this year.
• If this president is re-elected we know what will happen.
• Cases and deaths will remain far too high.
• More mom and pop businesses will close their doors for good.
• Working families will struggle to get by, and yet, the wealthiest one percent will get tens of billions of dollars in new tax breaks.
• And the assault on the Affordable Care Act will continue until its destroyed, taking insurance away from more than 20 million people — including more than 15 million people on Medicaid — and getting rid of the protections that President Obama and I passed for people who suffer from a pre-existing condition.

And speaking of President Obama, a man I was honored to serve alongside for 8 years as Vice President. Let me take this moment to say something we don’t say nearly enough: Thank you, Mr. President. You were a great president. A president our children could — and did — look up to.

No one will say that about the current occupant of the office.

What we know about this president is if he’s given four more years he will be what he’s been 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 will 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?

I see a different America. One that is generous and strong. Selfless and humble. It’s an America we can rebuild together.

As president, the first step I will take will be to get control of the virus that’s ruined so many lives. Because I understand something this president doesn’t. We will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids safely back to school, we will never have our lives back, until we deal with this virus. The tragedy of where we are today is it didn’t have to be this bad. Just look around. It’s not this bad in Canada. Or Europe. Or Japan. Or almost anywhere else in the world.

The President keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him, no miracle is coming. We lead the world in confirmed cases. We lead the world in deaths. Our economy is in tatters, with Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native American communities bearing the brunt of it. And after all this time, the president still does not have a plan.

Well, I do.

If I’m president, on day one we’ll implement the national strategy I’ve been laying out since March. We’ll develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately. We’ll make the medical supplies and protective equipment our country needs. And we’ll make them here in America. So we will never again be at the mercy of China and other foreign countries in order to protect our own people. We’ll make sure our schools have the resources they need to be open, safe, and effective. We’ll put the politics aside and take the muzzle off our experts so the public gets the information they need and deserve. The honest, unvarnished truth. They can deal with that. We’ll have a national mandate to wear a mask-not as a burden, but to protect each other. It’s a patriotic duty. In short, I will do what we should have done from the very beginning.

Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to this nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.

As president, I will make you this promise: I will protect America. I will defend us from every attack. Seen. And unseen. Always. Without exception. Every time.

Look, I understand it’s hard to have hope right now.

On this summer night, let me take a moment to speak to those of you who have lost the most. I know how it feels to lose someone you love. I know that deep black hole that opens up in your chest. That you feel your whole being is sucked into it. I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. But I’ve learned two things.First, your loved ones may have left this Earth but they never leave your heart. They will always be with you. And second, I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose. As God’s children each of us have a purpose in our lives.

And we have a great purpose as a nation: To open the doors of opportunity to all Americans. To save our democracy. To be a light to the world once again. To finally live up to and make real the words written in the sacred documents that founded this nation that all men and women are created equal. Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

You know, my Dad was an honorable, decent man. He got knocked down a few times pretty hard, but always got up. He worked hard and built a great middle-class life for our family. He used to say, “Joey, I don’t expect the government to solve my problems, but I expect it to understand them.” And then he would say: “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community. It’s about looking your kids in the eye and say, honey, it’s going to be okay.”

I’ve never forgotten those lessons.

That’s why my economic plan is all about jobs, dignity, respect, and community. Together, we can, and we will, rebuild our economy. And when we do, we’ll not only build it back, we’ll build it back better. With modern roads, bridges, highways, broadband, ports and airports as a new foundation for economic growth. With pipes that transport clean water to every community. With 5 million new manufacturing and technology jobs so the future is made in America. With a health care system that lowers premiums, deductibles, and drug prices by building on the Affordable Care Act he’s trying to rip away.
With an education system that trains our people for the best jobs of the 21st century, where cost doesn’t prevent young people from going to college, and student debt doesn’t crush them when they get out. With child care and elder care that make it possible for parents to go to work and for the elderly to stay in their homes with dignity. With an immigration system that powers our economy and reflects our values. With newly empowered labor unions. With equal pay for women. With rising wages you can raise a family on. Yes, we’re going to do more than praise our essential workers. We’re finally going to pay them.

We can, and we will, deal with climate change. It’s not only a crisis, it’s an enormous opportunity. An opportunity for America to lead the world in clean energy and create millions of new good-paying jobs in the process.

And we can pay for these investments by ending loopholes and the president’s $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1 percent and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of which pay no tax at all. Because we don’t need a tax code that rewards wealth more than it rewards work. I’m not looking to punish anyone. Far from it. But it’s long past time the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations in this country paid their fair share. For our seniors, Social Security is a sacred obligation, a sacred promise made. The current president is threatening to break that promise. He’s proposing to eliminate the tax that pays for almost half of Social Security without any way of making up for that lost revenue. I will not let it happen. If I’m your president, we’re going to protect Social Security and Medicare. You have my word.

One of the most powerful voices we hear in the country today is from our young people. They’re speaking to the inequity and injustice that has grown up in America. Economic injustice. Racial injustice. Environmental injustice. I hear their voices and if you listen, you can hear them too. And whether it’s the existential threat posed by climate change, the daily fear of being gunned down in school, or the inability to get started in their first job — it will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone.

I won’t have to do it alone. Because I will have a great Vice President at my side. Senator Kamala Harris. She is a powerful voice for this nation. Her story is the American story. She knows about all the obstacles thrown in the way of so many in our country. Women, Black women, Black Americans, South Asian Americans, immigrants, the left-out and left-behind. But she’s overcome every obstacle she’s ever faced. No one’s been tougher on the big banks or the gun lobby. No one’s been tougher in calling out this current administration for its extremism, its failure to follow the law, and its failure to simply tell the truth.
Kamala and I both draw strength from our families. For Kamala, it’s Doug and their families. For me, it’s Jill and ours.

No man deserves one great love in his life. But I’ve known two. After losing my first wife in a car accident, Jill came into my life and put our family back together. She’s an educator. A mom. A military Mom. And an unstoppable force. If she puts her mind to it, just get out of the way. Because she’s going to get it done. She was a great Second Lady and she will make a great First Lady for this nation, she loves this country so much.

And I will have the strength that can only come from family. Hunter, Ashley and all our grandchildren, my brothers, my sister. They give me courage and lift me up. And while he is no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day. Beau served our nation in uniform. A decorated Iraq war veteran. So I take very personally the profound responsibility of serving as Commander in Chief.

I will be a president who will stand with our allies and friends. I will make it clear to our adversaries the days of cozying up to dictators are over. Under President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers. Nor will I put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise — voting. I will stand always for our values of human rights and dignity. And I will work in common purpose for a more secure, peaceful, and prosperous world.

History has thrust one more urgent task on us. Will we be the generation that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character? I believe we’re up to it. I believe we’re ready. Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville. Remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists coming out of the fields with lighted torches? Veins bulging? Spewing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s? Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it? Remember what the president said? There were quote, “very fine people on both sides.”

It was a wake-up call for us as a country. And for me, a call to action. At that moment, I knew I’d have to run. My father taught us that silence was complicity. And I could not remain silent or complicit. At the time, I said we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. And we are.

One of the most important conversations I’ve had this entire campaign is with someone who is too young to vote. I met with six-year old Gianna Floyd, a day before her Daddy George Floyd was laid to rest. She is incredibly brave. I’ll never forget. When I leaned down to speak with her, she looked into my eyes and said “Daddy, changed the world.” Her words burrowed deep into my heart. Maybe George Floyd’s murder was the breaking point. Maybe John Lewis’ passing the inspiration. However it has come to be, America is ready to in John’s words, to lay down “the heavy burdens of hate at last” and to do the hard work of rooting out our systemic racism.

America’s history tells us that it has been in our darkest moments that we’ve made our greatest progress. That we’ve found the light. And in this dark moment, I believe we are poised to make great progress again. That we can find the light once more. I have always believed you can define America in one word: Possibilities. That in America, everyone, and I mean everyone, should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them. We can never lose that. In times as challenging as these, I believe there is only one way forward. As a united America. United in our pursuit of a more perfect Union. United in our dreams of a better future for us and for our children. United in our determination to make the coming years bright.

Are we ready? I believe we are. This is a great nation. And we are a good and decent people. This is the United States of America. And there has never been anything we’ve been unable to accomplish when we’ve done it together.

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney once wrote:

“History says,
Don’t hope on this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme”

This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme. With passion and purpose, let us begin — you and I together, one nation, under God — united in our love for America and united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark.

This is our moment. This is our mission.

May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation.

And this is a battle that we, together, will win.

I promise you.

Thank you. And may God bless you. And may God protect our troops.

Political conventions are basically pep rallies for the home team. They’re geared toward a sympathetic audience, and I am under no illusions that anything that’s said at the DNC can or will persuade anyone from the opposing party to change their vote. (Likewise, I am not going to be moved one iota by anything that might be said at the other guys’ convention next week — especially this year when there is no question whatsoever which side I’m voting for. As if there ever has been for me.)

Now, normally, I don’t need to hear the “go, fight, win” speeches myself. As I suggested above, my vote is pretty much locked in. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I am a liberal Democrat and I vote a straight-party ticket, Democratic all the way. Yeah, I know you’re supposed to consider each candidate individually and pick the best person for the job and all that. Fact is, though, since I reached voting age, there has never been a Republican I considered worth my vote. Not one. Not for president. Not for Congress. Not for dogcatcher. Their values, priorities and philosophies are not mine. Especially since Newt Gingrich, the Tea Party, and all the right-wing, ahem, commentators like Limbaugh, Hannity and Jones started defining what Republican priorities and values were. So yeah, my vote is solid and I don’t need any encouragement to use it.

The last few years, though, and the last six months in particular, have been deeply, deeply demoralizing. That horrible excuse for a man who currently occupies the White House, that small-minded, bigoted, hardheaded, narcissistic, petty, vindictive little crime boss, that inarticulate, bullying buffoon, has made certain that every single day of his term — every single fucking day — has brought some fresh new outrage, some new assault on decency, logic, precedent, history, science. Everything that matters to me as a Democrat and as a compassionate, thinking, ethical human being has come under attack. And though I’ve done my part to shore up my fellow travelers’ spirits — I’ve quoted Aragorn’s speech before the Black Gate a lot — I’m not immune to the effects of it all. Truth is, I’m tired. Tired of all the stupidity and casual meanness, tired of the malaprops and the meandering sentences that go nowhere and reference things that never happened and always end in a sneer.

Last night, I found, much to my surprise, that I did need to hear a convention speech. I needed to hear a dignified, intelligent man who can speak like an educated adult tell me that I’m not crazy for still believing in the common good. I needed to hear someone talk about the future with optimism instead of fear.

Barack Obama did not disappoint me. He did what he always does, what he does best. He made me feel, in the great words of Mr Spock, like there are always possibilities. And I’ll be honest… it was gratifying to hear him finally take a few shots at Donald J Trump, a pathetically needy man who has spent his time in the Oval Office trying to undo every single thing that Obama ever touched. Obama would have every right to be foaming-at-the-mouth furious. The fact that he does not give into the temptation to rant says everything about his character.

Know hope again.

Transcript follows (bolding is my emphasis):

Good evening, everybody. As you’ve seen by now, this isn’t a normal convention. It’s not a normal time. So tonight, I want to talk as plainly as I can about the stakes in this election. Because what we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come.

I’m in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn’t a perfect document. It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women — and even men who didn’t own property — the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government — a democracy — through which we could better realize our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who’d once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal, and more free.

The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us — regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have — or who we voted for.

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.

Now, I know that in times as polarized as these, most of you have already made up your mind. But maybe you’re still not sure which candidate you’ll vote for — or whether you’ll vote at all. Maybe you’re tired of the direction we’re headed, but you can’t see a better path yet, or you just don’t know enough about the person who wants to lead us there.

So let me tell you about my friend Joe Biden.

Twelve years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about him is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe’s a man who learned — early on — to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: “No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody.”
That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts — that’s who Joe is.

When he talks with someone who’s lost her job, Joe remembers the night his father sat him down to say that he’d lost his. When Joe listens to a parent who’s trying to hold it all together right now, he does it as the single dad who took the train back to Wilmington each and every night so he could tuck his kids into bed.

When he meets with military families who’ve lost their hero, he does it as a kindred spirit; the parent of an American soldier; somebody whose faith has endured the hardest loss there is.

For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president — and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country.

And in my friend Kamala Harris, he’s chosen an ideal partner who’s more than prepared for the job; someone who knows what it’s like to overcome barriers and who’s made a career fighting to help others live out their own American dream.

Along with the experience needed to get things done, Joe and Kamala have concrete policies that will turn their vision of a better, fairer, stronger country into reality.

They’ll get this pandemic under control, like Joe did when he helped me manage H1N1 and prevent an Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores.

They’ll expand health care to more Americans, like Joe and I did ten years ago when he helped craft the Affordable Care Act and nail down the votes to make it the law.

They’ll rescue the economy, like Joe helped me do after the Great Recession. I asked him to manage the Recovery Act, which jumpstarted the longest stretch of job growth in history. And he sees this moment now not as a chance to get back to where we were, but to make long-overdue changes so that our economy actually makes life a little easier for everybody — whether it’s the waitress trying to raise a kid on her own, or the shift worker always on the edge of getting laid off, or the student figuring out how to pay for next semester’s classes.

Joe and Kamala will restore our standing in the world — and as we’ve learned from this pandemic, that matters. Joe knows the world, and the world knows him. He knows that our true strength comes from setting an example the world wants to follow. A nation that stands with democracy, not dictators. A nation that can inspire and mobilize others to overcome threats like climate change, terrorism, poverty, and disease.

But more than anything, what I know about Joe and Kamala is that they actually care about every American. And they care deeply about this democracy.

They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred, and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballot, not harder.

They believe that no one — including the president — is above the law, and that no public official — including the president — should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.

They understand that in this democracy, the Commander-in-Chief doesn’t use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters on our own soil. They understand that political opponents aren’t “un-American” just because they disagree with you; that a free press isn’t the “enemy” but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.

None of this should be controversial. These shouldn’t be Republican principles or Democratic principles. They’re American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him, have shown they don’t believe in these things.

Tonight, I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala’s ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better. But here’s the thing: no single American can fix this country alone. Not even a president. Democracy was never meant to be transactional — you give me your vote; I make everything better. It requires an active and informed citizenry. So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure.

Because that’s what at stake right now. Our democracy.

Look, I understand why many Americans are down on government. The way the rules have been set up and abused in Congress make it easy for special interests to stop progress. Believe me, I know. I understand why a white factory worker who’s seen his wages cut or his job shipped overseas might feel like the government no longer looks out for him, and why a Black mother might feel like it never looked out for her at all. I understand why a new immigrant might look around this country and wonder whether there’s still a place for him here; why a young person might look at politics right now, the circus of it all, the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories and think, what’s the point?

Well, here’s the point: this president and those in power — those who benefit from keeping things the way they are — they are counting on your cynicism. They know they can’t win you over with their policies. So they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter. That’s how they win. That’s how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life, and the lives of the people you love. That’s how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks. That’s how a democracy withers, until it’s no democracy at all.

We can’t let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Don’t let them take away your democracy. Make a plan right now for how you’re going to get involved and vote. Do it as early as you can and tell your family and friends how they can vote too. Do what Americans have done for over two centuries when faced with even tougher times than this — all those quiet heroes who found the courage to keep marching, keep pushing in the face of hardship and injustice.

Last month, we lost a giant of American democracy in John Lewis. Some years ago, I sat down with John and the few remaining leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement. One of them told me he never imagined he’d walk into the White House and see a president who looked like his grandson. Then he told me that he’d looked it up, and it turned out that on the very day that I was born, he was marching into a jail cell, trying to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.

What we do echoes through the generations.

Whatever our backgrounds, we’re all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.

If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.

I’ve seen that same spirit rising these past few years. Folks of every age and background who packed city centers and airports and rural roads so that families wouldn’t be separated. So that another classroom wouldn’t get shot up. So that our kids won’t grow up on an uninhabitable planet. Americans of all races joining together to declare, in the face of injustice and brutality at the hands of the state, that Black Lives Matter, no more, but no less, so that no child in this country feels the continuing sting of racism.

To the young people who led us this summer, telling us we need to be better — in so many ways, you are this country’s dreams fulfilled. Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth. For you, it’s a given — a conviction. And what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self-government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions.

You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient — the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.

That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up — by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before — for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country we love stands for — today and for all our days to come.

Stay safe. God bless.

There’s never been any question that I would vote for Joe Biden if he is the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. I’d vote for a ham-salad sandwich if it was running against the current occupant of the Oval Office. But after listening to a speech Biden delivered today in Philadelphia ahead of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, for the first time I feel some genuine enthusiasm for him. He’s a low-key speaker, to be sure. He doesn’t have Obama’s eloquent delivery or Bill Clinton’s charisma. But I like what he said. And I liked the sense of earnestness and empathy in the way he said it. This is a man who gets it… who sees America for what it is and for what it ought to be. He’s not a revolutionary, he’s not promising utopia, but he’s not a cynic either, and I think a Biden administration will be a step in the right direction. Or at least a a step back toward the light:

“The battle for the soul of this nation has been a constant push and pull for more than 240 years, a tug of war between the American ideal that we’re all created equal, and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart. The honest truth is that both elements are part of the American character, both elements. At our best, the American ideal wins out. But it’s never a rout, it’s always a fight and the battle is never fully won.

… 

“I ask every American, I mean this in the bottom of my heart, ask every American, look at where we are now and think anew. Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? Is this what we want to pass onto our children and our grandchildren: fear, anger, fingerpointing rather than the pursuit of happiness? Incompetence and anxiety, self absorption, selfishness? Or do we want to be the America we know we can be? The America we know in our hearts we could be and should be?

…

“We hunger for liberty the way Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas did. We thirst for the vote like Susan B. Anthony and Ella Baker and John Lewis did. We strive to explore the stars, cure disease, make an imperfect union more perfect than is been. We may come up short, but at our best, we try.

“My fellow Americans, we’re facing formidable enemies. They include not only the Coronavirus and a terrible impact on the lives and livelihoods, but also the selfishness and fear that have loomed over our national life for the last three years. And I choose those words advisedly, selfishness, and fear. Defeating those enemies requires us to do our duty. And that duty includes remembering who we should be. We should be the America of FDR and Eisenhower, of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., of Jonas Salk and Neil Armstrong. We should be the America that cherishes life, liberty, and courage, and above all, we should be the America that cherishes each other. Each and every one of us.”

Each and every one of us. E pluribus unum… out of many, one. That’s my America. And I want it back.

You want to know just how far we’ve tumbled into this awful parallel universe that’s like a distorted funhouse-mirror version of the place we’re supposed to be? Far enough that I’m actually finding wisdom in the writing of David Frum, the man who gave George W. Bush the phrase “Axis of Evil.” That’s how screwed up everything is. So screwed up that I’m not only listening to the propagandist who helped Dubya bamboozle this nation into an unjust, endless (and endlessly expensive) war, but that I’m nodding in agreement with him.

Frum’s breakdown in The Atlantic of Donald J. Trump’s catastrophically incompetent response to the COVID-19 plague is exhaustive, irrefutable, and frankly pretty damn nauseating. Given how quickly events have seemed to move and how quickly we’ve lost track of all the contradictory statements and back-and-forth dithering — a fog of war that I believe has been quite deliberately promulgated by the Con Artist in Chief — it’s well worth your effort to wade through, to remind yourself. But everything that the history books will really need to report is contained in the opening paragraphs:

That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the precrisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.

The lying about the coronavirus by hosts on Fox News and conservative talk radio is Trump’s fault: They did it to protect him. The false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines is Trump’s fault, because he told those lies to cover up his failure to act in time. The severity of the economic crisis is Trump’s fault; things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities. The firing of a Navy captain for speaking truthfully about the virus’s threat to his crew? Trump’s fault. The fact that so many key government jobs were either empty or filled by mediocrities? Trump’s fault. The insertion of Trump’s arrogant and incompetent son-in-law as commander in chief of the national medical supply chain? Trump’s fault.

For three years, Trump has blathered and bluffed and bullied his way through an office for which he is utterly inadequate. But sooner or later, every president must face a supreme test, a test that cannot be evaded by blather and bluff and bullying. That test has overwhelmed Trump.Trump failed. He is failing. He will continue to fail. And Americans are paying for his failures.

Today, Friday, April 10, 2020, my religious friends are all engaged in a day of fasting and prayer to heal the world of COVID-19. I don’t believe this will do any good. I’m not a religious man, and if there is a God, I don’t believe He or She or It troubles themselves much with what happens down here on this lowly speck of cosmic dust. But even I have reached a point where I just can’t think of much else to say except… God help us.

I’m no fan of Mitt Romney.

I’ve always thought he comes across as humorless, patrician, and condescending, an uptight son of privilege who’s too eager to wag a sanctimonious finger at his lessers. And the vibe I get is that we’re all lesser in his view, unless we belong to his church or his economic class, preferably both. The fact that he’s a hero to so many in my home state just makes him all the more grating: savior of the 2002 Winter Olympics and an aspirational role model of capitalistic success with perfect executive-style hair (never mind that his particular flavor of capitalism is the twisted evil kind that drives companies into the ground and ruins workers’ lives while a small handful of Wall Street gamblers makes enormous bank). Some true believers even claimed for a time that he was the fulfillment of a bit of Mormon folklore about a member of the Church riding in on a white horse to save the country when “the Constitution dangles by a thread.” Insert eyeroll here.

I’ve got to hand it to him, though: I think he showed true courage and character yesterday when he broke ranks with his party to vote “guilty” in the impeachment trial of Donald J Trump,  the only Republican with spine enough — and moral clarity enough — to do so. He knew it would cost him; he even addressed that possibility in the speech he gave before the vote. And sure enough, a lot of those same folks who were so quick to link him with that hoary old prophecy in 2012 are this morning calling him a traitor (ironic, considering that, well, the Constitution is dangling by a thread right now, and Mormon Mitt did what he could to try to save it). I have no doubt Trump has underlined his name three times on the Imperial Enemies List, and back here in Utah, our local Republican apparatchiks have called him in to discuss censuring him or maybe even recalling him from Washington for good.

No matter what happens in that regard, though, he followed his conscience, and I respect that.

His full statement is worth reading if you’ve got a minute, but here’s the important bits:

The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a “high crime and misdemeanor.”

Yes, he did.

The president asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.

The president withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so.

The president delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders.

The president’s purpose was personal and political.

Accordingly, the president is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust.

What he did was not “perfect” — no, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.

…

I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the president from office. The results of this Senate court will in fact be appealed to a higher court: the judgment of the American people. Voters will make the final decision, just as the president’s lawyers have implored. My vote will likely be in the minority in the Senate. But irrespective of these things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me. I will only be one name among many, no more or less, to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial. They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the president did was wrong, grievously wrong.

We’re all footnotes at best in the annals of history. But in the most powerful nation on earth, the nation conceived in liberty and justice, that is distinction enough for any citizen.

Now, there are cynics who say that this was a calculated move to play both sides of the aisle and gain some good press clippings to use in another possible run at the Oval Office in 2024. I suppose anything’s possible. But I honestly don’t get that feeling from any of these words. I watched the video of him delivering this statement, and I do think he was sincere.

I still don’t like the guy and I will never vote for him. He’s still all the things I said in my introduction, and by his own admission he’s voted for about 80% of Trump’s agenda, which in my opinion is more than enough to disqualify him from the presidency. (Let’s be honest, the odds of me ever voting for a Republican for any office are virtually nil at this point.) But he did a good and honorable thing yesterday.

Frankly, he surprised me.

I only wish a few more of his fellows had been equally as strong and unexpected with their votes.

As the impeachment trial of Donald J Trump stumbles to its likely conclusion this weekend, if not tomorrow, I am under no illusion whatsoever that Senate Republicans will vote to remove that poisonous carbuncle from the White House. It is clear that they’ve abandoned any pretense of caring about anything other than maintaining their own party’s grip on power. I can only hope that a tsunami of angry voters washes them all out of office this November, and even then, the succeeding administration is going to have a very big job repairing the damage done to our nation over the past three years. Honestly, I’m not sure if anyone can repair it. And that’s assuming that Trump and Mitch McConnell don’t manage to stay in office. If that happens… well… let’s just say the country I grew up in already feels very, very far away.

No matter what happens tomorrow, though, or Saturday or eight months from now, but especially if things don’t go the way I’m hoping they will, let no one ever say that there weren’t people who tried. That there weren’t those who were absolutely aware that we’re standing at a crossroads and who didn’t do their damnedest to appeal to the other side’s intellect and patriotism and sense of morality. Consider the remarks made by Representative Adam Schiff a week ago tonight as he concluded his opening arguments. In my view, this was a genuine Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment. The fact that these thoughtful words didn’t sway anyone on either side, that minds were already made up and votes predetermined before this sham trial ever even began, speaks volumes about these crazy, exhausting times:

The American people deserve a president they can count on to put their interests first. … Colonel [Alexander] Vindman said, “Here, right matters. Here, right matters.” Well, let me tell you something, if right doesn’t matter … it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were. Doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. Doesn’t matter how well written the Oath of Impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost.

If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. The Framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what [President Trump] did was not right. That’s what they do in the old country, that Colonel Vindman’s father came from. Or the old country that my great grandfather came from, or the old countries that your ancestors came from, or maybe you came from. But here, right is supposed to matter. It’s what’s made us the greatest nation on earth. No constitution can protect us, [if] right doesn’t matter any more. And you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters and the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost.

Otherwise we are lost.

I fear I already know the answer to that implied question. I won’t be surprised when the Senate acquits Donald Trump with a vote along party lines. No, I won’t be surprised in the least. But I will mourn. Because once upon a time, I believed that what Schiff was saying, what Vindman said, was true. And I no longer do. And if I’m honest, I haven’t in a very long time. And that is heartbreaking.