Kamala Harris won the ‘remember me’ contest with her impassioned description of being bussed to school. It also pointed out something about Joe. Joe is an old school politician. His career was in a time when legislators were collaborators and in public, at least, dialogue was polite. Make no mistake, Joe is a seasoned politician but his perspective on the realities of Congress does not match the Congress of the 21st century. Today party politics is a dirty business devoid of statesmanship. What counts is raising lobby money and voting a hard line in an effort to beat the other party.
Donald doesn’t help. He provides no reasoned leadership to help balance the agenda of Congress. Congress is no more sophisticated than dodge ball. One could legitimately say that the Federal government is in disarray – including the Supreme Court who, similar to the political parties, produces decisions that don’t help the nation.
Many sociologists blame all this dysfunction on the high speed shift of world politics, technology, the Internet, morphing economics, and an over extended era of out-of-date mores. In the gap between yesterday and tomorrow, plutocracy and authoritarianism grow like nasty weeds in the garden of democracy.
It is a good sign that 15.3 million people viewed debate number one. The electorate has a degree of awareness that the 2020 election is not just another election. With a single election, a broken government must be repaired and a new leader must be found to steer the ship of state into the troubled waters of tomorrow.
Simultaneous to the time of the election, Congress must, must create a new economic direction. At the moment, the only concept on the table is the Green New Deal. It will restore honest jobs and wages to a lean working class; it will set an agenda for technology; it will redirect energy resources away from fossil fuels; most importantly, it will focus the nation’s attention on a war greater than any in history: climate change.
22 republican senators face reelection in 2020. Even more important than defeating Donald – if that can be imagined – is to take the Senate out of the hands of republicans. Republicans need time to reflect on how the world has shifted the concept of conservatism – else they will only increase the pain of dealing with rapid change.
Ancient Mariner