Yes, I was relieved when Biden was elected President. But I was also disappointed quite soon after he took office. Those memories came crashing back this week.
The very first thing that Joe Biden should have done was to focus his efforts on voting rights. It was clear that they were under attack. When voting places in predominantly Black areas disappear and people must stand in line for hours and hours to vote - - that’s unacceptable. When it becomes illegal to offer those voters food or drink as they wait in line to exercise their right to vote - - that’s a violation of the democratic process.
The very people who organized and showed up to get a Democratic president elected (and have done for years) were the very people who had to push every step of the way against this increasing tide of voter suppression.
Politicians often talk about what they are going to do on Day One. Biden should been prepared on Day One to be relentless on doing everything in his power to protect Black voting rights in every state and to use one hundred per cent of his political capital to make it happen.
He didn’t. He let Black voters down and in so doing he let America down.
The Democratic Party is nothing more than pretty words if our elected representatives are not willing to use their political power and leadership to make justice happen. To require it. It enrages me that we have not done this.
Biden should have been willing to leave it all of the field for voting rights. We should be able to look back at his Presidency and say “he never gave up.” In every room where decisions were being made there should have been signs that read, “It’s voting rights, stupid.”
Yes, there are many different responsibilities that the job of President entails. But the ability of all voters to be empowered to vote freely is at the core of all of them. We should be fighting to ensure that and protect that with all that we have.
It is not something to negotiate or concoct compromises around. It is everything. And everything else that we care about connects to this.
If we are not willing to do that then no one will believe we are who we claim to be. Biden could have transformed this nation by refusing to sacrifice Black voters and he didn’t. He said a lot of folksy things about working together and reaching across the aisle and he let racists and big money interests get away with four years of planning for the demise of Democracy.
People whose goal is to take away basic rights from those who they have deemed inferior watched what Biden did and what he didn’t do.
Heck, let’s go after women and LGBTQIA people and immigrants, too. No one will stop us. They talk big but they are weak.
I don’t know what caused Biden to make such an enormous mistake in leadership but it absolutely was a mistake and the consequences of his inaction have been painfully clear this week.
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