This is an open letter to Biden, etc. My objective is to remind progressives we're going to have to push Biden to do what needs to be done. Do not think that now that Trump is gone, everything is fixed. The task before us has just begun.
Dear President Biden, Vice President Harris, DNC, DCCC:
Congratulations on your winning both houses and your offices, though with an embarrassingly narrow margin, considering how destructive Trump and his often violent minions have been to our country and democracy. This narrow margin is a result of the Democratic Party - YOU - abandoning the working class. Your rich donors, who paid you to abandon us, cannot fix this with their money. You cannot fix this with window-dressing as Obama and both Clintons tried to do and thus lost the support of progressives. You need to implement substantive systemic changes that help Main Street, not Wall Street. Without the progressive vote for you in this past election, Trump would have been re-elected and you would likely have lost both houses of Congress.
The Trump revolution in 2016 is in large part a consequence of YOU and your betrayal and attempt to evade responsibility. The Democratic Party will suffer a fate in 2022 similar to the 'shellacking' (Obama's term) he got in 2010 if you betray progressives again, as most of your cabinet nominations seem to indicate that you will. Yes, we have no other party, but progressives can stay home or vote third party, which is a big part of why Hillary lost in 2016. Do not doubt that this will happen again in 2022 and 2024.
Form a more perfect union:
* Campaign Finance Reform to end legalized bribery
* Ending the revolving door between industry and government
* Term limits for all Congresspersons
* Bring back the protections in the Voting Rights Act
* Revitalize whistleblower protection; stop misusing the Espionage Act of 1917
* Pardon and drop and charges against whistleblowers that alerted the public to the country's crimes (Snowden, Assange, Manning, etc.)
Establish Justice:
* Integrate mental-health professionals with police departments when answering calls
* Continue criminal-justice reform that started under Trump; i.e., the First Step Act
* Encourage states to standardize voting on verifiable paper ballots across the country
* Encourage states to develop ranked-choice voting processes and implement them
Ensure domestic tranquility
* Reverse media consolidation
* Reaffirm and protect the Network Neutrality Policy
Provide for the common defense
* End our meddling (CIA, etc.) in other countries (like most recently Venezuela and Syria)
Promote the general welfare
* Healthcare/Medicare, and especially mental healthcare for all
* End special government healthcare for Congress; they should have what we have
* Fund Early Childhood Education
* Mitigate college debt
* Make real progress addressing climate change, along the lines of the Green New Deal
* Real investing in infrastructure like fixing the water problems in Flint and other cities
* End the cap on Social Security deductions to make the fund solvent
Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity with guard rails on capitalism
* End tax incentives for corporations to move their facilities out of the country.
* End large monopolies of banks and other companies that are too big to fail meaning they are too big
* Bring back an updated version of Glass Steagall
* Implement real Wall Street regulation, taxes, and punishments.
* Implement a transaction tax on securities and stock sales
Many of these policies are supported by a good majority of the population. They often don't get implemented because opponents successfully tar them with the term 'socialism'. But the demographics of voters are changing. Younger voters are no longer paranoid of the term 'socialism' as somehow incorrectly linked with horrible implementations in Nazi Germany and Russia, etc. Socialism, as in government control, is what makes our society more livable because it prevents some of the damaging excesses of unregulated capitalism.
In addition, what policies and programs people support has little or nothing to do with whether they are implemented because the rich donors owning both parties. This excellent video by Represent.US illustrates the problem: youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
And even more dangerous, if Trump or a similar disaster runs in 2024, he might very well win without us. You need progressive support to avoid this catastrophe. Hillary's loss can and will be repeated in 2022 and 2024 without us.
Please deliver on your promise.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana-1905).
-Paul Kinzelman, ran as a Democratic candidate in NM House District 8, see www.VotePaulK.org
Member, Board of Directors, Represent US, New Mexico Chapter (www.nmmop.org)
