It Is January 2021: Time to Get to Work

This is how to ensure we get the changes we voted to get

On November 5, 2020 and again on January 5, 2021, more than eighty-million voters chose progress, chose the candidate who will not stumbling block for progressive policies, will welcome new ideas.

Others voted Biden/Harris simply because they were the not-Trump candidates.

Either way, progress won. Despite long-standing disagreements, Progressives, Democrats, Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Independents, Unaffiliated… everyone progressive voted Biden/Harris, no matter what they labeled themselves.

Everyone had same goal.

So, despite Republicans failed legal attacks and two attempted coups, we have a Democratic Administration in the White House and with Vice-President Harris as Senate President, gained a razor-thin Senate majority and kept House control but with a smaller margin.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris have taken on an overwhelming task of healing a deeply broken America.

A global pandemic that is killing an American every second (and probably faster when you read this), a shattered economy, worse than even the Great Recession, hate groups running wild and free, encouraged by our former President.

An attempted coup when a mob of Trump supporting insurrectionists broke into the Capitol building, while Congress was in session.

And Republicans who now claim-again- that the election was rigged and the mob that attacked the Capitol building was Antifa in disguise to make the real “Patriots” look bad.

It is good that many of those self-styled “Patriots” who were stupid enough to follow Trump’s encouragement and become traitors to the Union, the United States government, were also stupid enough to live stream and post selfies.

There is nothing like live streaming the felony you’re committing, with the tag line “Just stormed the Capitol” to you get arrested by the FBI.

We supported and voted for Democratic candidates, many of whom could not have imagined how twisted and absurd 2020 and January 2021 would get. Could anyone?

Against the odds, we elected our new Representatives in Washington and, considering all the blowback and bluster they will get from the other side, we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to stay involved.

Every person who values a better society should do what we can to help our new President, Vice-President, and Congress get the progressive changes we voted for accomplished.

Yes, they wanted the job, but the world when they began their campaigns is a world of the past, an America never to be seen again. Now, we can help rebuild a better America.

We cannot expect them to do it all themselves.

We voted them in, a seemingly impossible task against enormous, nationwide attempts by the Republican Party at massive voter suppression, but we accomplished it.

And we need that same coalition of Progressives, Independents, Democrats, Socialist Democrats, crossover Republicans, POC, with a special shout out to Black women who clinched the elections, especially in Georgia and those two critical Senate seats, to get behind accomplishing the goals we have set.

We must again set aside our differences, ignore the labels that divide us and recognize that building a better America, establishing a new “norm” will require all of us to, as during the elections, put differences aside and help our new leaders in Washington.

And do the same in every state, city, town, and rural locality, create that new norm.

And that America, the new, better America we want to build faces more challenges than ever before in American history.

First, the COVID pandemic must be brought under control. That is critical to getting anything else done. And the list of changes needed is long.

The existential threat of climate change, which is considered by the Pentagon the biggest national threat to our security, among many other dire needs this nation, and the world now face.

And most needed changes somehow weave through others in one way or another, into most of the other needed changes.

Massive vaccination, masks and social distancing can get us through the pandemic and that includes convincing anti-vaxxers to get the vaccine as well. That is a matter of public health and if shaming those who claim they have the right to refuse the vaccine is what it takes, then so be it, but it must be brought under control for the good of us all.

Systemic racism, on display now more than ever, must be addressed and “Jim Crow”-style laws removed wherever they are found.

Affordable or free universal healthcare should be seen a right, not a privilege for the few.

Economic inequality, White supremacism, education- including free two-year colleges and trade schools are priorities.

Joblessness is at a high rate, infrastructure and clean energy programs can provide more jobs and with more people able to work and live without fear of losing their home or going hungry would simply be the right thing to do in the new America we want.

Solving the issue of centuries old systemic racism can begin with the reorganization of Police departments, not “Defund the Police”, a phrase that frightens people, and addressing Police brutality, and the Court systems, although it does not end there.

There is no reason that POC should be treated differently than White people, arrested at higher rates or receive harsher sentences for identical crimes.

Every person is of equal worth and should be policed and judged the same as every other person.

White supremacists should be weeded out of police departments and background checks must be instituted on any person who would be given a gun and badge and the literal “right to kill.”

Judges, whether local, state, or Federal, should be held to a higher standard than the public at large, along with being given more freedom in sentencing. They are, after all, “judges” and their hands should not be tied by one size fits all punishments.

Sometimes, a judge should have more freedom in their sentencing decisions. And those who abuse their positions must be held accountable for their actions.

And no person should be above the law, no matter their social status, personal wealth, or “connections” and that must apply to politicians, as well.

Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and is critical to our nations health and can create millions of new, well-paying jobs.

Investments into clean energy can create million of well-paying jobs while also addressing climate change. The fossil fuel industry should no longer be subsidized with taxpayer money.

Fossil fuel companies receive more in taxpayer subsidies than does the Pentagon’s budget. And the U.S. Military has a larger budget than the next seven largest militaries in the world, combined.

Imagine if half or even one-third of that money had been put toward clean energy research.

If fossil fuel companies cannot be profitable without more than a half-trillion taxpayer dollars, then they should suffer the same fate as small businesses that are not profitable; they go out of business.

That alone would dramatically address global warming, itself both an effect and a driver of a multitude of dangers in the overall climate.

There are a lot of dissatisfied, financially distressed people in this country and creating new jobs with better incomes would go a long way toward addressing their legitimate concerns.

And could possibly change the voting habits of many of them. Well, some of them.

We should welcome those people into our cause, not belittle them for whom they supported in the past.

We want a new, better America and everyone should be welcome to participate.

The convoluted tax system used should be revamped and the loopholes removed so that the wealthiest among society pay their fair share of taxes.

When the rich are forced to pay higher taxes they often invest it in businesses rather than pay it in taxes and that creates more jobs and the money is spent by the employees, creating more wealth for the investor.

And that is a good thing for the everyone in our society.

Hugely profitable big businesses and corporations should never be allowed to pay little or no tax, let alone get multi-million and sometimes multi-billion-dollar refunds on taxes they never paid in the first place.

We need a new philosophy for this new America we want to build, a philosophy that includes every person working toward the greater good of the nation and by extension, every other person.

But that will not, cannot, happen unless each of us is willing to do our part.

That means less infighting and more cooperation, just the way the election was won.

All voters who, regardless of “faction”, wanted a more progressive direction, had the same goal: a better America, one with a new “norm”. And that cooperation will be needed again.

We must all work together to build our new, better America, our new norm. We came together November 5th and in Georgia on January 5th and now we need to back our vote with action.

I have often wondered that if, when President Obama was elected, both the first and second time, more could have been accomplished if his voters had stayed engaged rather than “rested on our laurels”, content that the Democratic President and Congress would do our work, would Congress had “flipped” Red?

We have a moral obligation to not leave the new Democratic majority we elected in the same position.

We cannot expect them to do everything that is needed. Our job is not done. The people we put in Office must have the support of the Public to accomplish the tasks for which we elected them.

We cannot expect our President, Vice President and Congress to do it all for us. If we take that route, Republicans may well flip Congress in 2022.

Historically, it has been the case that the Party in the White House has lost the House or Senate, or both, in the mid-term elections.

We can break that pattern by creating new jobs, improving healthcare, tackling systemic racism, police brutality, relations with foreign nations, allies, and trading partners.

The removal or replacement of unqualified new and existing judges along with those who are racist or crooked is a part of criminal justice reform.

So, we must get a great deal accomplished, with more well on its way before the mid-term elections in 2022.

We can break the historic pattern of an expected Congressional flip, and possibly turn Congress and states even bluer.

If 2020 voters were serious about change, the work must continue. Why go through the effort of winning in 2020 only to toss out the chance earned only two years later?

Progress requires work to keep, a new America to shape. And then maintain it, adjusting as needed. And then vote again in 2022.

With enough accomplished, such as more people employed, at better pay, a lot of Trump’s base will turn against him and other right-wing Republicans.

The increased taxes collected make it easier to fund programs for fee college, student debt loan forgiveness, universal healthcare, SNAP and children benefits, among others.

It is said that “all politics is local” and that is true in that your political representation begins in your city, your town, or your county, so be involved in local and state elections.

Learn about your local and state candidates, determine which one seems to be on the side of progress toward building our new norm a new and better America rather than the straight Party vote you usually make.

But keep in mind, only two political party’s control our governments, state and national.

One allows for progressive growth while the other remains obstinate, dangerous, a threat to any change to the status quo.

And it is change that is needed. Changes are needed in most of the institutions in America and we stand on a razor’s edge, the crux wherein change can go either way.

We must move toward our better America or the forces of the old norm will drag us back to the old norm, toward autocracy.

In the tradition of my late grandfather, I am liberal to the core, but I did once vote for a Republican for state Senator.

I had watched him vote against his own Party in ways that even my grandfather would have approved, and I believed he would continue to vote in ways that helped the “liberal” cause, without having to say it publicly, more than would his Democratic rival.

Labels divide. We must work as one united body, all of us together regardless of our “label”, or that bold new America of which we dream will fail to come about.

We have our chance, now, and may not get another so we must work, support the agenda’s we supported with our votes.

And the men and women we chose to lead us if we are to continue our quest for a better, fairer, more equal life for us all.

It is time we make “We the People” truly mean something, that we are all equal under the law and treated as such in society.

It is time for America to come back, to emerge from these pandemics, COVID and political and racial violence, stronger, better than before.

We can make America the “shining city on a hill” that it has never quite attained, a light for the world that will not be extinguished by foreign attack.

Or attacks from within.

And now is the time to act. Not tomorrow, not just in the next election.

Now.

I have written more on these subjects and though the stories are from last year, they remain relevant:

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