Better Breathing Through Politics
At times like this, I think of the axiom “Inhale the future, exhale the past”. My own breathing since the end of January has been better than it had in the previous 4+ years. Right now, I don’t even know where my Albuterol inhaler is hiding.
Gone are the days where I would wake up and instantly pick up my cell phone and tap Flipboard to catch up on the news. What mean, insulting, idiotic Tweet did DJTrump shit out at 3 in the morning from the porcelain throne? What latest announcement of horrid policy has been or will be announced today? How, once again, will the Trump Administration outdo itself in its back assward approach to policy, both foreign and domestic?
Yesterday, the Biden Administration — and indeed America and The World — celebrated 100 days of having a semi-rational person sitting behind the Resolute Desk. Gone is the sheer lunacy of the DJTrump sideshow, where “drain the swamp” ended up meaning “be the swamp”.
How about we look at the numbers?
In Biden’s first 100 days:
0 Insults.
0 racist rhetoric.
0 whining.
0 complaining.
0 bragging.
0 blaming.
0 hate speech.
0 crazy Tweets.
0 “it’s all about me” rallies.
And only 1 round of golf.
Covid cases cut in 1/2, grew employment by nearly a million in 1 month, an unemployment rate decreasing to near 6% again, a $1.9 mill covid relief bill passed through both houses of Congress and signed into law, with the most diverse Cabinet in history when DJTrump’s was 82% white and 83% male, rejoining the Paris Accords, rejoining the WHO, and preparing the way to rejoin the imperfect but decent Iran nuclear deal, over 100 million Americans fully vaccinated, throwing no shade against states that didn’t vote for him (we Texans can just ask Abbott), and making real headway in increasing the ubiquity of “Made in America”.
— — — — — —
On Wednesday, Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union speech. It was progressive and uplifting, included several very important and necessary plans to bring America back into the 21st Century and improve our infrastructure, tackle Anthropogenic Climate Change and truly make America better (I have loathed the term “M.A.G.A.” as it has always been a code phrase about keeping America lily white and ignoring the subjective factoid that America already is great, though we — together — can make it even better).
So of course, Ted Cruise-to-loose fell asleep during what should have been his wake-up call.
Some of Biden’s proposals (I’ll cover them elsewhere), especially regarding some of the tertiary provisions of the administration’s gun bills, are not my fave. Yet most are positive and forward-looking, hopefully will avoid the short sightedness of most Gov policy, and once again make our Republic once again by, for and about the people.
Today, I have a bit of hope for the future. Tomorrow– as in > 2024 — may be different.
