The Dominion Post endorses Joe Biden for president.
Do we think Biden will be the perfect commander in chief? No, but we do think Biden is the right person for the job right now. Over the last 250 years, the American experiment has undergone a number of different phases and trials. Some lead to improvement; some take us back, or leave us stuck. Politics as usual didn’t feel like it was getting us anywhere, so the last four years under Trump was a test to see what would happen if we put a purported billionaire businessman in the Oval Office. Most Americans — and most of the world — would agree that this particular phase of the democratic experiment was a failure. Now, what we need is a return to homeostasis.
Biden’s focus is on stabilizing the foundation of our country so we retrieve the ground we’ve lost and move forward again. Biden understands the only way to get America through a simultaneous pandemic, recession and civil rights movement is to bring Americans together (metaphorically speaking; social distancing is still required) instead of driving us apart. Trump’s presidency ripped open and widened old wounds that had been festering; Biden’s presidency will hopefully begin the healing process.
Biden has already seen the U.S. pull out of recession and handle a pandemic once before. As President Obama’s right-hand man, Biden assisted in leading us out of the Great Recession and combatting the swine flu (H1N1). This gives Biden an extra advantage: He was in the room where it happened when decisions that worked were made, so he knows how to get there again. And he has the privilege of hindsight. Four years removed from his time in the White House, Biden has a clearer idea of what approaches were successful and which were not, and he has had time to see the effects.
It would be a relief to have a president who believes in science, who will put public safety ahead of his own ego and who will seek to benefit the United States instead of himself.
Biden will put us back on track to deal with climate change. He’s already laid out a gameplan for getting the U.S. to zero net-emissions by 2050, which emphasizes creating a new green infrastructure and upgrading current infrastructure to use more efficient energy sources. And, despite the Trump campaign’s repeated claims, Biden does not plan to ban fracking. He’d like to halt new leases for fracking on federal land, which only makes up 10% of fracking business, according to Snopes.com.
Biden will get us through the coronavirus pandemic. No more vague claims of it disappearing; no more mixed messages on masks; no more promoting unproven “cures” on social media instead of letting doctors do their work; no more incentivizing people to break social distancing rules or flout safety precautions. Biden takes COVID-19 seriously, and we think we’ll see real progress in the fight against coronavirus under his leadership.
Biden will put the needs of the average American ahead of his own. His economic plan is designed to support the middle and working classes instead of making millionaires even richer. According to multiple sources, including The Balance and Investopedia, the tax plan Trump implemented in 2017 will permanently lower taxes for big business and high-income earners, but all the benefits for the middle class will expire in 2025. Biden will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. In other words, taxes will only increase on the top 1% of earners. Biden’s plans also include making college more accessible by increasing the number of available Pell grants and reforming student loan forgiveness so student debt doesn’t become an impossible burden.
Biden’s moderate stances on virtually everything won’t please progressives and anything to the left of Trumpism enrages Trump’s base, but for the rest of us, Biden brings a promise of steps forward instead of leaps back. Biden will not bring us a revolution, but his presidency will be a restoration after the last four years, and we are ready for it.
