Exceptional America and the Limitations of Joe Biden

America is exceptional. It has a society like no other. It has an economy that is an exception to the norm and, for its uniqueness, at times plays havoc on all other economies. It has joined an elite club of nations that have, in the postwar era, allowed a lunatic to become head of state. In the process America may have become ungovernable.

Many Americans and many of us in other countries look upon Joe Biden as America's redeemer. The president of the United States is the most powerful leader in our world although that stature is tattered and waning. Biden, we hope, will breathe new life into the presidency but how much? 

America's vaunted system of checks and balances has become a double-edged sword. Originally intended to prevent one of the three, co-equal branches of government from going rogue, it did not foresee the possibility of two of the three going rogue. That is a reality today with America's ideologically groomed judiciary and a thoroughly "bought and paid for" Congress.

The Senate was constituted to prevent oppression of the small states by the rich and powerful states. Each state, no matter how small its territory or population or economy, would have two senators, two votes. The America of 1789 when the Constitution came into effect bears little resemblance to America today and now, what was intended to be a shield for smaller and weaker states, has become instead a sword to frustrate democratic rights of the people of states such as California and New York. The imbalance of representation is destabilizing. 

How is Joe Biden to redeem America? The United States may be irreparably broken. Congress is broken. Reaching across the aisle is a quaint artifact in a legislature confounded by hyper-partisanship. The aftermath of the election shows that American society resembles something out of Lord of the Flies with a significant minority believing, despite the complete absence of evidence, that the election was stolen, that Trump won. America's ugly scars have re-opened: racism, white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and all manner of intolerance and bigotry. QAnon. Unsubstantiated belief has usurped fact and knowledge. No conspiracy theory is too ludicrous not to attract a following. How in hell can Joe Biden fix that?

I wouldn't be so pessimistic if it wasn't for the abrupt confluence of stressors arriving at this critical moment for American society and whatever remains of the country's democracy. The pandemic has been an eye-opener. Most of America has been dealt a Covid body-blow. Nobody is unaffected. The virus has reshaped the nation, the American people and their economy. The weakest and poorest are the most vulnerable. A National Geographic article reports that 50-million Americans, one out of seven, will experience hunger this year.  Meanwhile Robert Reich, in his tireless Facebook posts, reminds us that, as ordinary Americans face unemployment, poverty, hunger and eviction, unfathomable wealth has poured into the pockets of America's oligarchs.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up in Smoke. 300 Sq. Mi. of Amazon Rainforest Lost Every Day.

Image
  The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at what should be an alarming rate. 312 sq. mi. or 808 sq. kms. every day. Over the past 30 years humans have destroyed a patch of the Amazon equal in area to the states of Texas and New Mexico . The Amazon – historically a great carbon absorber, since trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen – now releases more carbon than it stores, which adds to, rather helps to reduce, our global climate crisis. Deforestation rates decreased slightly from 2004 to 2012. But since then, they’re back on the rise, especially in the past couple of years, since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil. In 2018, as Bolsonaro campaigned as a patriotic man of the people, scientists predicted that once the Amazon lost more than 25% of its tree cover, it would become a drier ecosystem, all because deforestation changes weather patterns (due to how trees respire), which in turn reduces rainfall. Furthermore, as the forest becomes fragmented, areas surrounded...
Read more

The Cognoscenti Syndrome

  There is a group of people I think of as the Cognoscenti, people who are well educated, very informed and of rapidly diminishing relevance. Their ranks include writers such as Chris Hedges and Glen Greenwald. These are people who have honed an almost Puritanical value system, readily finding fault in any direction. They are scathing in their attacks on Republicans and Democrats alike to the point where they become nihilists. They don't endorse. They prescribe. This is where they fail. They're unable to advocate for anything that might resonate with the public whose interests they argue are being trammeled. Donald Trump was bad but Joe Biden is scarcely better. This is where their elitism comes in.  74 million may have voted for Trump but, hey, they didn't know any better. The mob that stormed the Capitol. They were just victims of the system venting their frustrations. All the racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, white nationalism - inevitable side effects of their oppr...
Read more

Who Asks "Why?"

Every time there's a conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, all we hear is 'why?'  Why, as in, whose fault is this? It's easier to affix blame if you can truncate the event. Pick a convenient start date, something recent. In this case we'll make it either the Israeli eviction of Arabs from Jerusalem or the scuffle that took place outside the mosque in response. If those don't work, let's go for Hamas launching unguided rockets into Israel. That's even better because it tags Hamas with the blame. The nice thing about this approach is you can just keep using it. It goes on and on, just as it has for the past half-century since the '67 war. You can even date this whole mess to the beginning of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Israelis are said to have called these periodic wars, "mowing the lawn." The idea is that, every now and then, you have to take these Arabs to the woodshed. And then you keep your powder dry unt...
Read more