In 1974, with court-ordered school desegregation, south Boston took on a war-zone look. Mandated busing created ideal conditions for Beantown bigots to request the south’s worst hold their beers while they lived down to everybody’s lowest expectations. It didn’t matter that, as one black mother in Roxbury put it, all her community wanted “was to get their children to schools where there were the best resources for educational growth—smaller class sizes, up-to-date-books,” “southie” whites had no interest in busing their kids to help solve the problem, and instead viewed the edict as an existential government intrusion. Racists were glad to ride that wave of visceral resentment all the way in to the beach.
Several hours drive down I-95 in Delaware a Democratic political prodigy was on the rise, having won a US Senate seat two years earlier at the preposterous age of 29. Handsome and toothy, with charisma to match, Joe Biden was making all the right moves his gifted skill set afforded him, but Wilmington, Delaware, like Boston, was also convulsed by school busing. While the level of tumult was not as pronounced as the chaos up north, swimming upstream on the opposite side of white grievance required a level of conviction that superseded political ambition and accepted electoral defeat for the sake of principle. Joe Biden didn’t have that in 1974. In fact, after facing white backlash for early, very tentative support of court-ordered busing, Biden did more than a 180 and led the charge against it. If “shameful pandering” is too strong a modifier, it’s still uncomfortably close to the mark.
Near five decades later, on a Democratic Presidential primary debate stage, what goes around came around and Biden was taken to task for his expedience. It was a powerful moment as one of his opponents used a personal narrative to illustrate real-life consequences that flow from the countless political footballs tossed to and fro inside the beltway. Kamala Harris made him pay a price, mostly to enhance her own profile within that same power structure, scoring relevance at Biden’s expense, reminding him the hard way there exists no statute of limitations on past mistakes in Presidential politics. He appeared genuinely hurt as Harris skewered him, perhaps figuring her past close relationship with his late son, Beau would have earned him a pass; sorry Joe, nothing personal, this is business. Indeed.
Now the two are a team, with the survival of America as a going democratic concern squarely on their shoulders. That Biden selected Harris speaks to the thick skin temperament we once expected from a POTUS. In fact, at its essence the union reflects everything near four years of MAGA governance has assaulted, and anything past next January will surely destroy. Wherever they’ve been, however they’ve gotten here doesn’t much matter to most as long as they get us out of what we’re stuck in.
Yet and still, the Biden-Harris ticket is more than simply a vehicle for ridding us of pestilence; it is redemption, a vital sign that Trump was nothing more than backlash run amok, which we are capable of banding together to sweep back into the footnotes of America’s story, the three steps back we endured and then left behind. But make no mistake, what that course correction will look like is dangerously unclear, with the worst still ahead.
The career evolutions of Biden and Harris encapsulate both the imperfections and promises of Western liberal democracy. In pursuit of personal ambition, pluralist politicians confront, massage, spin and ultimately grow from issues of the day. Sometimes, maybe too often, it’s uglier than we’d like it to be, but Winston Churchill’s observation is always prescient… it’s the worst system there is except for all the others. Before January of 2017 we had not experienced any of the others, now we have. Biden and Harris represent resetting to the messy good faith democracy we were before our civic catastrophe. Whatever the peccadilloes each suffers, combined together they don’t add up to one Trump news cycle.
Trump surprised nobody and immediately did what he does best: embarrass himself and further stain our once vibrant electoral tradition by hissing insults at both candidates. “Nasty” is his go-to for together women, who have always unnerved him; Harris fits that bill to a tee. Anyone familiar and attentive to Fox/AM standard operating procedure knows what the ceaseless talk track coming our way is going to sound like. Progress is a dirty word in Hannityland; the beginning, middle and ending premise will be apocalyptic change a Biden victory will unleash. That’s the broad strokes. The details will be hourly lies and distortions, peppered with constant dog whistles toward Harris, as the parade of Trump’s servile “personalities,” from Levin to Limbaugh, Ingraham to Carlson, compete to sink lowest.
Fear and loathing will be served in equal measure for no other purpose than to reinforce the notion anything but a glorious Trump triumph equals the end of days. The supposition that our current nadir is a sweet spot to be zealously maintained can only be embraced by those who fear losing the entitlement rush MAGA exclusion provides. The Trump GOP now fully disdains governance geared to anything but slavish guardianship of the upper brackets’ bottom line and stomping on ethnic groups supposedly prospering at “hard working America’s” expense. It is a zero-sum formula they will trumpet at all hours.
More than two centuries ago de Tocqueville observed that men “will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends.” We now suffer a friendless wretch of a President, fully supported by one of our two major political parties and a multi-billion dollar propaganda delivery system, who lies as he breathes and only lives to create enemies for his core of supporters to distrust. If that’s not a definition of despotism, it ought to be. MAGA’s enemies list is near everybody and truth is the last thing their “friends” are interested in providing. The fate of our democracy has become barely an even-money proposition.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are a couple of very able and decent politicians, who have never provided anyone enough reason to question their honor and good faith. As to greatness? Our times will determine that. The depths of the current crisis we now depend on them to lead us out of will provide more than enough tribulation for each to earn such acclaim. Pray every night they do! Stand by their side! BC