After a few long days of waiting for votes to be tabulated and through what looked to be a very tight race, the AP News declared Biden/Harris victorious in their race against Trump for the spot of President and VP respectively. Given the circumstances with COVID-19, a collapsed economy, a divided nation and turmoil surrounding the world, this possibly has been one of the most important elections in our time. Now, that we have the declared victors, the real question is what the road ahead looks like. This is my speculation post.
Will Trump Concede Graciously?
This is one of the biggest concerns going around right now. The media says that insiders believe he will fight until the end. Up until this point, he’s acted like a wild child and few can seemingly control him.
Given that there are numerous allegations during his tenure against him, fighting the decision will most likely just make him look worse and set the dogs upon him once his term officially comes to an end. There are some who say that he may concede only to have Mike Pence pardon him. That would seem very extreme but expose a huge hole in our political system and shake the faith for the Republican party.
My feeling is that this whole situation of him crying is a calculated act to not look weak. He has a lot to lose at this point and his only realistic option is to step down graciously. I feel if he does that, Biden will look at him with kindness and effectively sweep the allegations under the rug. It may seem silly but we’re talking politics here.
COVID-19 Response
This one is more than likely going to be the top of the list for Biden/Harris to tackle. It’s one of those rare opportunities where a perceptibly competent politician will want to tackle because their handling of the situation will be what historians will write about. Plus, the best part is that America can once again go to war but against an enemy that the world can all get behind. It really is a politician’s wet dream in the making in terms of being someone to problem solve while unifying a whole country behind him.
Except that I fear the problem is far more complex than what the American government can tackle. Already, Biden has mentioned in his speech how he plans to speak with each governor about mandating mask policies, something that has caused considerable conflict within the country.
Part of that has been due to the poisonous rhetoric inflicted by the Trump administration in politicizing the efforts of COVID-19. However, that poison has sunk deep into the mindset of many Trump supporters to the point where they believe in a god given right to be able to do anything at will.
That makes the efforts of what I believe will happen by the democratic side very tough. First, I see the democratic side akin to your strict elementary school where they talk down to people and make them feel as though their perceived rights are eroding away. So these mandates I think remind people of those days in school.
But why would people resent such an effort? It’s the same reason why those people had aligned with Trump in the first place. There’s a mentality that the government must understand with the population that I believe stems from an immaturity that has lasted from poor breeding.
What I mean by that is that you have all these failures in life who were rebels that could not be controlled by their parents. Maybe they came up poor and took solace in the notion that being the lowest common denominator was something “cool” (e.g. smoking, getting bad grades, flunking entire grades, etc.)
This behavior is further justified as people grow older because they misinterpret being an American as equal to having unlimited rights. That’s why Trump appealed to them. These people are not smart, cannot critically think and would see a Trump (being famous on TV) as someone like themselves, internally rotten trolls that rebel against a system but somehow made it.
Except that these people never really “made it”. They might think they have made it because they have material things that dictate their social standing and are scared of how these things might be stolen by the big bad democrat socialists (I mean god forbid these people ever wanting to share anything with anyone else).
In short, these people never had any desire to help the public at large because these people on average aren’t really a measurement of virtue. As a result, issuing mandates will only bring greater conflict similar to how the kid who gets detention once, ends up getting more of it over time.
What I’m hoping for is that the response from this government isn’t one of force but allowing the choice to be made. Biden/Harris need to serve as educators or perhaps psychologists to these people. To the person with common sense, of course, the masks help and having a universal vaccine will hopefully restore order in an ideal situation. However, once again the people who they will be fighting against lack common sense and those opposing Biden/Harris within the government will do their part to continue spreading misinformation and encourage these delinquent types to rebel.
The other thing I’m hoping for is that the solution isn’t going to be simply imposing a mandatory, nation-wide lock down in awaiting for a working vaccine. I think that will a horrible disaster. The thing this administration must do is realize that the current infrastructure in place is woefully unprepared and inadequate of handling a pandemic.
We can see that having a thoughtless lock down also affects the economy. And that’s the next topic.
The Economy Infrastructure
The close second major issue that should be in Biden/Harris’ targets once they get into office is taking a serious look at revitalizing the economy as well as the supporting infrastructure. The Trump administration solution has been to simply throw money at people because that solves everything apparently.
Well, it doesn’t. The economy is far too complex for a solution to just hurl money to believe it can be resolved. It’s so interdependent that the domino effect had occurred rapidly once the lock down started. If Biden/Harris gets medical experts on the COVID-19 aspect, they equally require social scientists and economists to take a serious study of how this pandemic effectively destroyed a nation.
My idea is that the lock down could have occurred if people felt secure. Meaning that the fact that we had bills and deal with the horrible cost of health insurance while feeling scared about going to the market, feeling isolation hysteria, having overcrowded and understaffed hospitals, etc. demonstrate just a tiny fragment of the problems at large.
To make people feel secure, they need to feel that they can survive this situation with a great deal of confidence. For instance, to prevent the supply issues at markets and to allow those who are hit by job loss, the government should have issued out meal tickets to give people, regardless of income, a way to feed themselves. These meal tickets might come in the form of guaranteed supply bags where we could create a pandemic type of supply chain that ships directly to households. Households in the vicinity of COVID-19 hot spots could have better access to these types of services.
Next, kill rent. Basically, kill the idea of property tax and whatever incentive for property owners with tenants to charge while a person remains jobless or has been affected inadvertently by COVID-19. Create an IOU type of situation where overtime, the owners can be reimbursed somehow, perhaps through lowering property tax to nothing or some means of giving them money back for their cooperation. And prevent real estate from being able to raise prices during these times and encourage the lowering of it.
For home owners, create a similar situation with the banks to prevent banks from collecting on mortgages from those who are affected by layoffs, etc. Heck, I would go one step further and just shut banks down to make it a real lock down.
I mean, these are just some simple ideas I came up with that I don’t think require any sophisticated technology or know how. Yes, various greedy people will be upset. But I believe surviving a pandemic is far more important than an individual’s coffers.
Healthcare
This one is the real sore spot for me. I read that Biden wants to resurrect Obamacare. I do think that part of his vision is to make Obamacare elective. I think that’s the way to go because the former format of Obamacare was too costly for individuals who did not have access to health insurance and the penalty was ridiculous.
But here’s the thing: health insurance !== health care. Health care to me is a universal system that allows people access to hospitals, medicine, etc. without an unrealistic price tag associated to it. Health insurance is a system of gambling betting that someone will likely get sick, injured, etc.
Obamacare was too tightly coupled to the crooked insurance companies that got bailed out. Rather than correcting the problems with health insurance, Obama, I feel, got his own set of supporters to get a bunch of rich cocksuckers agenda through the mail.
Going back to Biden’s version of Obamacare being elective, it sounds great on paper if it means that a person who opts-out of getting insurance does not get financially penalized. This is the part of “freedom of choice” that people want. Unfortunately, the question is how will this version be paid?
My guess was that the more oppressive Obamacare was paid through those being penalized. That’s just fucked up. If a person wants to get sick, let them as long as they’re not harming others. And while I know a group of people will go, “well, that means COVID-19!” my response is, “Well, that’s why I said that conditionally.” Also, some people just might not want it because they’d prefer to spend their money otherwise and feel that they should be allowed to choose their own destiny. I think if Biden/Harris respects that aspect, they will find more support.
Divided Nation
This is going to be the underlying thing since up until Biden’s election, the nation wasn’t really America anymore. We had a civil war going on that was fanned by Trump and his sycophants. Biden did well to address the African American community in particular as the key to his victory during his speech. That was massively important and showed to me that he is a solid politician in giving this recognition out.
However, if healing is on the agenda, there’s going to be massive reform needed. Even with Obama as president, we had seen similar actions by police and protests. The difference is that Obama had rhetorically tried to be the peacekeeper on both sides. Biden does have Harris in his corner so he’s going to have a lot of support there. But many of the Trump supporters still will fight just because their mind has been made up.
The thing is that words aren’t going to be good enough this time around. If you’ve listened to any of the marches, you’ll know that the reason why these people continue to protests is that they have lost faith in the government at large.
While COVID-19, isolation, cabin fever, etc. all probably have played a major part in continuing the momentum beyond the racial injustices, the reality is that these people are going after democrats as well. And in all honesty, Biden, to a lot of people, wasn’t their real choice as the presidential candidate, but just someone strong enough to knock Trump out of office. More than that, he’s still an old white dude and he will have to do more than talk in terms of making the reparations that these protestors truly want.
I think part of what this administration needs to do is cool both sides down. First, they have to de-militarize the police. Trump lost a good part of the nation because civilians had been fired upon while police with military grade equipment stood like automatons at the wills of the elite. None of that was necessary and just created a bigger barrier between the public and the police at large.
One of the most interesting things I came across during all of this was a write up describing the inefficiencies and need of restructuring the police. The police have become this be-all, end-all response entity with powerful unions backing them. However, the amount of required training for what they’re used for is outrageous. Like protests where you probably just need someone who understands diffusing situations.
And while systemic racism may exist within the ranks of the police, just telling people to not be racists won’t work. You have to realize that certain people won’t change under any circumstances. But if you continue to allow these types of people the same access to power, you’re simply enabling what they can do.
So a declassification of police into separate specialized entities might be part of the solution along with a deep look into the efficacy of their unions. Purely defunding the police isn’t a great solution because it will allow unfettered crime. But allowing their existing form is part of the weakness in our fragile economic infrastructure that has failed during the pandemic.
International Relations
This one is going to be really interesting. I think in general most of the world leaders are going to welcome Biden, but only because he’s not some crazy, reality TV host. I think for certain countries like Japan, Canada, Australia, the UK and many parts of Europe, Biden will be a very welcome sight.
Now, the real problems are going to be China and Russia. China’s situation is going to be one of the biggest contentions Biden will have to deal with. I think he needs to be very strong against China and continue to have US companies pull out as long as their current regime continues to behave in that manner.
If there’s one take away that Biden can get from Trump’s original campaign, it was to bring jobs back home. With the economy in shambles here, I’m hoping that more jobs will be onshored and that penalties for offshoring manufacturing jobs to China will be encouraged.
Also, China must allow the world to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic or be pushed out as a trade partner. I mean how this whole shit got started at this point can only be pinpointed to China. So if they want to be exonerated, they need to open up and either accept responsibility or face increased isolation. Perhaps, part of that responsibility might be cutting off the allowed ownership of American land to the Chinese and having that land redistributed to Americans here (meaning give that land to the owners of property to make up for the potential of not seeking rent, etc.)
What about Russia? Russia has become one of the most devious spots in the world with the rise of Putin. Take for example the recent assassination attempt against one of his critics. I think first thing that needs to happen is an investigation to see if Trump and others in the government had been compromised or corrupted.
Next is to isolate Putin and Russia. For instance, the American government needs to support the Belarusian people by condemning Lukashenko and providing aid for Tsikhanouskaya. Already parts of Europe have imposed trade restrictions against Lukashenko so the government needs to continue adding pressure to force him to relinquish his spot.
I think unlike China, Russia is another major wild card. And they don’t play clean. So we need to be extra careful with them.
Climate Change
So this climate change thing seems great on paper but I really hope it doesn’t amount to people not using plastic bags and being forced to drive low emission vehicles. I have a feeling that rather than having a grand task force to truly counter climate change, it’s going to be lame.
What I really hope to see is a solar power revolution on top of fuel efficient vehicles. With solar power, it would be great to see more grids of solar power or mass tax breaks on purchasing solar power equipment as well as more funding towards energy research.
For fuel efficient cars, I don’t want to see a mandate but more of a move to get away from gas and make battery operated vehicles very affordable with high tax incentives.
Along those lines, I would like to see more public transportation projects completed at higher rates and better work from home accommodations moving forward to get away from the need to commute. COVID-19 proved that work from home is very possible and can help the environment but there needs to be more encouragement for it.
Imagine freeing up office space and roads by eliminating most offices. That’s like a freebie for the environment.
At any rate, I really want the upcoming change in government not to be just another 4 years of the same old same old. I want real plans with actions that can be executed. No more talk. I think most people are tired of the same rhetoric.