Editor’s Note: The U. S. presidential election on Nov. 3, 2020, is not only important for America, but also for Ukraine and the rest of the world. The Kyiv Post will offer coverage and commentary over the next four months. This op-ed is from a Democrat promoting the candidacy ex-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. The newspaper welcomes a rebuttal op-ed from a Republican who supports U. S. President Donald J. Trump’s re-election. Send submission to [email protected]
Recently, in a conversation with one of my best friends and closest advisers, discussing the reelection of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., she said to me, “at this point, I’d vote for a ham sandwich.”
It would be easy to spend the rest of this op-ed highlighting all the reasons why we shouldn’t reelect Donald Trump as president of the United States. The list is long.
I very much opposed his election in 2016 primarily because he is patently unfit for office. I argued then, and it is painfully obvious now, that Trump is a cold-hearted racist; so deeply racist that he can’t even conceive of what that means in the year 2020. Indeed, Trump’s racial animus is so profoundly rooted in his soul that it would have been more expected in the first two decades of the last century than in the 21st.
We could look at leadership and leadership qualities in general.
I didn’t fault Trump for the arrival of COVID-19 on our shores. But I do hold him responsible for our national response, or lack thereof, to the pandemic. In fact, I now hold him directly responsible for the hundreds of new American deaths every day because of his lies and deliberate irresponsible directives to the country on mask-wearing, taking of disinfectants, and the “harmless” nature of coronavirus. The failure of the U.S. to contain the virus is as colossal a failure of presidential leadership as we have ever seen.
We could go on and on — including Trump’s moral perfidy — where letting your children watch the president speak could be an unsafe instance of hate speech and bad example.
The Washington Post has been tracking the lies and false statements Trump has made in the last 1,200+ days, and that number is now close to 20,000. In many cases, it would have been easier to tell the truth, but he just can’t do it.
Why Joe Biden?
But what is the case for electing the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, former U. S. Vice President Joe Biden? First, Joe Biden is a good and decent man. As he has said many times in deprecating reference to his years of public service, the good news is that “the people know me, and the bad news is that they know me.”
Biden has been around the block more than a few times. In his long career, he has made mistakes, as we all do. However, he has been a great Democrat, a genuine leader for working people and the issues important to them, and he was a terrific vice president for President Barack Obama’s two terms.
He has been there, been in the fight, won more than lost, and always had his north star pointing to the issues and concerns of average Americans.
Character matters
Joe has had some tough times. Times that test a man’s soul, and render them distilled for good or evil. He lost his first wife and daughter in a tragic auto accident as he was preparing to take office as a U. S. senator. He was able to put his life back together, remarried later to a great educator, Jill Biden, who will be an exemplary first lady.
And in 2015 lost his first son, Beau, a military veteran who passed too soon from brain cancer. Joe was deeply hurt. However, he has found solace in his work on behalf of the American people.
Part of the work that the next president of the United States has to prioritize is to restore (before it’s too late) the international leadership of the United States, the Euro-Atlantic partnership, the NATO alliance, and the principles and values for which the United States stood as the great refuge of decency, prosperity, and democracy.
Foreign policy expertise
In his recent book, John Bolton, who served as Trump’s fourth national security adviser (in three years) noted that the country could survive one term of this national disaster, but that a second term poses a “danger for the republic.”
Trump promised America that he would build a wall. Well, he actually built two!
The first is a cordon around the White House — protection least the people might get in. The second is the wall built around America by the European Union, where Americans cannot travel because we can’t control the virus as well as Rwanda or Uruguay.
Joe Biden is the anecdote for this disease.
He has a lifetime of foreign policy experience.
Best for Ukraine
I can’t let this go without a few words about Ukraine. Bolton’s commentary confirms what the House impeachment managers proved in the Senate trial. That Trump used the power of his office to extort the new president of Ukraine to directly interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
The evidence submitted by the House managers and in live testimony to the House was more than enough to connect the dots. Bolton makes it clear that Trump has no real regard for Ukraine, Ukraine’s geopolitical problems, nor any positive feeling toward the Ukrainian people.
Ironically, being impeached exclusively for what he did to Ukraine has in effect frozen Trump’s hand, and he has had to accept providing even more bipartisan assistance to Ukraine than he planned in the first place. Obama’s point man In contrast, Biden was Obama’s point man on Ukraine.
And, despite the usual Trump-Giuliani smear campaign, Biden was there for reform in Ukraine.
Trump stress
As for the homeland, we are very stressed, to say the least. Trump has exacerbated, for his own political gain, the racism, xenophobia, and resentment that lies just under the surface of the American psyche.
Biden has spent a lifetime working on bringing people together, to seek their common ground, to resolve racial, ethnic, and sexual divides.
To help us form a “more perfect union.”
We have a lot of real work to do to restore the American Dream. From health care to infrastructure, the pandemic, workers’ rights, universal education, environmental conservation, the to-do list is long.
Biden, a good man, a good father, a good soul, a union man, a tough fighter for working men and women.
Biden is the man of the hour!
The hour that is seeking the best of us to save the republic.
That hour has found the man — and his name is Joe Biden.
Reno Domenico is vice chairman of Democrats Abroad Ukraine, and has served three terms as its chairman. He is also president of Sterling Business School in Kyiv and can be reached at www.sbs-ua.com
