The Most Decent
Apr. 8th, 2020 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Although I'm currently living in Massachusetts, met my husband in upstate New York, and have lived in Chicago, California, and Virginia, I was born and raised in Delaware. When I mention this, the most common reaction I get is, "I drove through there once." Yes, Delaware is a place that people mostly pass through on their way to more interesting locations. :-) With our three -- count them, 3 -- Electoral College votes, I never thought that Delaware would be in a position to provide a presidential candidate to the nation. Well, live long enough, and you see just about everything. :-)
Joe Biden wasn't the smartest of the Democratic candidates running in the primaries this year; I'm pretty sure that was Elizabeth Warren. Joe Biden wasn't the most passionate of the Democratic candidates; I'm pretty sure that was Bernie Sanders. But Joe Biden has a bedrock decency and kindness and caring, and if you think that isn't important, then look at what's in the White House right now, and look at where it has gotten us.
Although I voted for Warren in the primary, I will be pleased and even proud -- not just as a former Delawarean but as an American -- to vote for Biden in November.
When Biden won so much on Super Tuesday, I sent him some money, which means that now he sends me e-mail. The e-mail he sent me today brought a tear to my eye. He said, In part:
(No, I don't want to debate who should have won the primaries. We have our candidate, and what I want to focus on now is BEATING TRUMP.)
Joe Biden wasn't the smartest of the Democratic candidates running in the primaries this year; I'm pretty sure that was Elizabeth Warren. Joe Biden wasn't the most passionate of the Democratic candidates; I'm pretty sure that was Bernie Sanders. But Joe Biden has a bedrock decency and kindness and caring, and if you think that isn't important, then look at what's in the White House right now, and look at where it has gotten us.
Although I voted for Warren in the primary, I will be pleased and even proud -- not just as a former Delawarean but as an American -- to vote for Biden in November.
When Biden won so much on Super Tuesday, I sent him some money, which means that now he sends me e-mail. The e-mail he sent me today brought a tear to my eye. He said, In part:
We will not defeat Donald Trump by being like Donald Trump. We won’t win with division, cruelty, or appealing to the worst in us. We’ll win with compassion, humanity, humility, and joy. We’ll win by being a campaign that brings Americans together -- a campaign that shows decency, but also determination. A campaign that shows humanity, but also grit. And in the end: we will show the country that a better future is possible.
Around this country right now, there are people stepping up to the call of a crisis. Nurses with nothing but garbage bags to protect them -- but they go into work anyway. Environmental Services workers -- like the one Jill spoke to just this morning in Chicago -- keeping our hospitals safe without attention or little appreciation -- but they work around the clock anyway. Teachers leading classes remotely, while balancing their own families at home -- but they teach anyway. There are grocery store workers and food delivery people paid far too little for the work they do - but they do it anyway.
It’s amazing who we are. I have talked a lot in this campaign about the Soul of America. Well -- we are seeing the soul of the nation on display every day in this crisis. Courage. Bravery. Selflessness. A commitment to something bigger than ourselves. That’s who we are. And it makes me so damn proud of America. And those are the things that make me so damn proud to be our party’s nominee.
So, yes: we’re going to defeat Donald Trump. But once we do that, we’re going to tackle the climate crisis head-on. We’re going to make health care accessible and affordable to everyone. We’re going to take on the NRA, and we’re going to relieve a generation of the crushing burden of debt. We will not win just the battle for the soul of our nation. We’ll transform it as well.
Go, go, Joe! I believe that your decency -- even more than Warren's brains or Sanders' passion -- is what America needs right now.
Go, go, Joe! I believe that your decency -- even more than Warren's brains or Sanders' passion -- is what America needs right now.
(No, I don't want to debate who should have won the primaries. We have our candidate, and what I want to focus on now is BEATING TRUMP.)
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Date: 2020-04-08 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-09 04:35 pm (UTC)I'm REALLY hoping that my parents are multiplied all across America -- Republicans who repudiate everything Trump stands for and turn to Biden to restore our country.
During the last election, Democrats were complacent. No matter how much people said they didn't like Hilary Clinton, surely NO ONE would vote for a man who was obviously both ignorant and insane.
We aren't complacent anymore. I think a LOT more Democrats will turn out this time than turned out last time. (I voted last time, but the lines at the polls were short.)
It's also true that the people who don't believe in science are more likely to die when a pandemic hits, so the most egregiously out-of-touch Bible thumpers probably won't have as many voters this year as they did in 2016.
Not that I wish them dead, but natural selection has no mercy...
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Date: 2020-04-09 06:56 pm (UTC)I know the Biden campaign needs my help, not just my vote, but it's hard for me to think about volunteering. (I used to be scared of just talking to people because I'm such an introvert, but it turned out that I could handle phone banking for Clinton and even canvassing for Prop #3.) I'm worried about working for the Biden campaign specifically. I'm afraid I'll stand there while some "likely democratic voter" says Biden is so problematic they don't feel like they can vote for him in good conscience. And I won't be able to answer them, because all my reasons to vote for him are strategic. I'm really glad you can see decency in him.
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Date: 2020-04-09 07:31 pm (UTC)My relatives live in Delaware, and the husband of one of those relatives was one of the paramedics who reported to the scene when Joe Biden's son was killed in a car accident. He told the family that Biden gave out his personal phone number to anyone else who'd lost a child and told them to call him when things were bad, and he'd sympathize.
When my relative's husband died, Biden came to the funeral. My relative said Biden sat in the back, so as not to draw attention to himself or to disrupt the funeral with his celebrity. When she thanked him for coming, she reported that Biden replied, "He was there for me when I needed him, so I wanted to be there for him."
The Biden campaign recently sent me e-mail from a Delaware rabbi. The rabbi said several years ago, one of his congregation had died, and they were holding a service for her. They had to have ten adults present for the service to be valid, but there wasn't room in her tiny apartment for ten adults to fit into it, so they were having it in the laundry room of her building as the closest place.
The door opened, and Joe Biden walked in and stood silently in the back until they were finished. He didn't have anybody with him -- no handlers, no guards, no press. The rabbi asked Joe what he was doing there, and he said that the lady who had died sent him $18 every time he ran for senator. He said he knew she didn't have much money, so $18 was all she could afford, plus it was some sort of good luck blessing because of the Hebrew characters involved. Now that she'd passed away, Joe wanted to honor her by coming to her service.
The rabbi said that Joe never mentioned having been there. He didn't talk about it to the press or use it to talk up what a guy he was. But he -- the rabbi -- wanted to use it to talk up what kind of man Biden was, because he thought it said a lot about Joe that he came to the service for a woman who had not exactly been a big donor, and it said a lot about him that he remembered that 18 meant something special to people who spoke Herbrew.
Biden's not perfect, by any means, but he's a nice man, and he listens, and he cares. Compared to Elizabeth Warren, he's a bit of a dope, but compared to Trump, he's wonderful. And even not compared to Trump, it sounds to me like Biden is a mensch.
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Date: 2020-04-09 07:52 pm (UTC)Its wonderful that Biden is so caring and considerate on the scale of individuals. I had been thinking of him on the much larger scale of congressional hearings and policymaking. I think you're right, that Delaware sees him in a way the rest of the country doesn't. All of us are constituents of the vice president, but it's not like being his constituents.
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Date: 2020-04-09 08:04 pm (UTC)My own depression is slightly better than it used to be. Chemotherapy re-makes one's entire body, and evidently it sanded off a little of my depression. Not that I'd recommend Taxol as a depression treatment. :-)
Biden isn't anywhere near as liberal as I would like, but I know that I'm out of step with the mainstream of the country. We're never going to get the president *I* want. I'll settle for someone whose heart is in the right place. I mean, compared to Trump, I'd settle for someone who merely wasn't actively evil, and I think Biden is way better than "not actively evil." :-)
Of course, an armadillo would look great compared to Trump. :-) I'm STILL amazed that anybody voted for that man who wasn't both evil AND insane. Even my parents didn't vote for him, and THEY still think that the Republicans are the party of Eisenhower ... or they did until Trump made them lose their faith in it.
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Date: 2020-04-23 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-26 02:16 am (UTC)I haven't actually thought of Delaware as home since I left there; Ithaca, NY feels like my hometown in a way that no place else ever has. But then, I was pretty much prevented from growing up while I was in Delaware, so Ithaca is the place where I began to grow up...
Biden has had a long history in elective office, and he has grown and changed over time, as I hope we all have! He's not the same guy now that he was in 1991, during the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings. It's been nearly 30 years since then, and he has learned a great deal in the intervening time. He's still not as liberal as I would like, but a candidate as liberal as *I* would like would never be elected.
Biden has given his personal phone number to total strangers once he's heard that they -- like he -- have lost a child. He has a great deal of compassion and IS teachable. I think that not only will he be a better president than Trump, I even think that he might become one of our better presidents.