8
votes
Joe Biden's apt US speech
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- Title
- Hope, Healing And 'Better Angels': Biden Declares Victory And Vows Unity
- Authors
- Camila Domonoske, Barbara Sprunt
- Published
- Nov 7 2020
- Word count
- 2290 words
Perhaps many have moved on from the massive collective exhalation this weekend brought to us. There are hangovers to nurse, holidays to somehow puzzle, and a watchful worry over the ongoing economic, pandemic, and moronic threats to our safety in the United States. But I would like to return to yesterday for an appreciation of Biden’s victory speech—dismaying in its religious overtones, maybe; shrewd in its ellipses, definitely—yet it sailed well over the inch-high bar of sounding more presidential than any of the emissions of the past four years, affectingly outlining a promise of humane and human leadership. He had me at “birthdays.” I mean, fucking birthday parties, people. As a humble, universal touchstone free from the stink of speechwriterly bromide, one could do far worse than to instance birthday celebrations. The number of our celebrations deferred are one way of reckoning the length of this nightmare. It had to connect with listeners. Though the speech put their return far after certain changes take effect next January, I thought it was masterful rhetoric.
A few further standouts: a roll-call of minority groups was absolutely warranted and appreciated. As someone with a disability, I believe I understand how it must have felt for trans individuals to have transgender campaign staff unselfconsciously thanked in the speech. Also, the line “what is the will of the people?” hung as though Biden’s win meant actual boons, and he was willing to ask for the addresses to which they should be directed.
While there was a call to root out systemic racism in particular, and the word “justice” rang out three times, the speech certainly failed to instill a sense in me that a day of reckoning would come for anti-democratic politicians. Further, I am doubtful about broad reforms succeeding given Biden’s “centrist” principles. But I thought it was a well-written and well-delivered speech, even if I had hoped never again in my life to hear that damned hymn.
What did you think of it?
{I'm not sure if this fits "~talk" or "~news" best. Feel free to move.}
I think that's a rather narrow conception of things. Our political system has been deteriorating ever since the first time a senile D-list actor sleazed his way into the white house (or arguably since Nixon's pardon), and the rot has spread to much of the rest of our culture in the last few years, but regardless, for the majority of the population, the United States today is still a significantly better place to live in than it was even fifteen or twenty years ago, let alone thirty or forty. Not to say that we don't have our work cut out for us dragging the place kicking and screaming into modernity, but this tendency to get fatalistic and remember all of the awful stuff of recent years while forgetting the progress really grates, and strikes me as counter productive.
I mean, gay and trans rights? Twenty years ago, sodomy laws were still a thing for god's sake, and trans people had to jump through arduous hoops to get access to proper care. I would say society becomes exponentially less tolerant of even marginally unconventional lifestyles the further back you go. Uninsured people with pre-existing conditions were pretty much fucked before the ACA. Minimum wage was, adjusted for inflation, even lower than today, and that's the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Not to mention, the consensus of economists was against it back then, something that's not so much the case today. I would say we've laid a lot of the intellectual groundwork for a revival of actual left wing politics in this country, the 80's-2000's were the decades of a suffocating neoliberal consensus. I realize this is a bit of a grab-bag and more focused on the social than the economic, but what exactly would you say was better in the recent-ish past than today?
What gave you the impression that I was telling anyone to wait for anything? We absolutely need to get out there right now, organize, agitate, and fight for our rights and our future. The fact that we've made some marginal progress doesn't negate that. I just don't think that pretending that we haven't even made that is conducive to pushing things further.
What did you get the impression my personal world view is? I would say left wing optimistic humanism pretty well encapsulates my thinking, but that is not the vibe your comment gave off with a line like: "The historic trajectory of the US has been downhill.", at least not the optimistic part. What I think is counterproductive about saying things like that is that it encourages a fatalistic attitude, discounting the existence of real progress in a way that comes off like we shouldn't even bother.
I see where you're coming from (minus the american dream being dead for a century; if anything, it was only ever alive during the mid-twentieth century), but I think it's a rather simplistic and fatalistic view of how society operates that doesn't leave a whole lot of conceptual room for working to meaningfully improve things. I suppose my take is that we tend to gloss over just how horrible the past was, even the relatively recent past, and this blinds us to the power and reality of the progress that we've made. The United States is only two lifespans removed from being a slaver aristocracy at war with a capitalist hellscape carrying out active genocides. Older people today were around when it was an apartheid state doing eugenics and nuking civilians. No doubt we've got a very long way to go before we even start to approximate a pluralistic socialist democracy, but it's important to remember that we've come a long way too, lest we give in to despair that weakens our resolve.