There’s an old adage: Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.
So it is with all those who fervently hoped Joe Biden would win the 2020 US presidential election. Although Trump is still contesting the result, it’s clear that Biden is now president-elect. It’s possible that Trump and the Republican Party are dragging their feet over conceding the election because contractual debts to their hired media outlets will be lower if they can hold out until January 1, 2021. Otherwise, the debt-ridden Republican Party will have to shell out over $100 million it owes.
As I pointed out as the election results began to come in, Trump set the bar so low, and yet Biden failed to clear it easily. Says it all. Even a record high voter turnout failed to produce the clear winner people expected. Nobody except his ardent fans could get excited about the so-called Democrats’ latest nominee. The man who said "Nothing fundamentally would change," to a bunch of wealthy donors and offered nothing but the qualification that he’s "not Trump" doesn’t exactly set the world alight with his dynamism. And yet those who had such a dreadful fear of Trump can’t intuit that his replacement isn’t someone who’ll care much more about them, either.
(But of course, the Dems squeal like a stuck pig if anyone dares to criticize Harris because, "She’s a woman and a person of color!" Seemingly the act of being female and non-white automatically nominates you to sainthood in the DNC. And yet, when Tara Reade accused Harris' running mate of sexual assault, the neolib #MeToo crowd becomes sadly silent or rudely declares, "She's making it all up. Joe wouldn't touch any woman against her will." A sexual assault charge obviously doesn't deny male Dems a sainthood.)
Biden’s transition team is already loaded with people who shouldn’t be trusted anywhere near public office, including a raft of lobbyists. He has spoken openly of choosing Republicans for his cabinet. (Remember Republican John Kasich at the Dems' convention?) What more proof does anyone need to show that the duopoly is nothing more than two wings of the same bird?
This so-called "democratic" party still feels it’s entitled to every vote from anyone with any shade of left-leaning politics, yet the party itself occupies the same political territory the Republicans held in the 1950s. It may make nice by throwing a few crumbs to its supporters, such as forgiving a few thousand dollars’ worth of student debt and making the ACA more palatable, but expect any such concessions to be abandoned or clawed back in short order at the request of big moneyed donors.
Remember, Mitch McConnell is still squatting in the Senate like a poisonous toad, ready to negate any attempts the Biden administration makes to pass legislation. This is because although the parties are a cigarette paper’s thickness apart when it comes to ideology, and the Republican faction really doesn’t care about public opinion. Perhaps being obnoxious in this way is their true function within the larger duopoly? They're the convenient excuse Biden will give when nothing his faction has promised happens.
It’s a common perception that this is a term when the so-called Democrats have to get things right, to show that they do care about ordinary Americans, or they might as well abandon any pretense and officially merge with the Republican Party. At that time, when all the wished-for Biden administration’s grand schemes fall apart, I shall tell all who wept with relief at Biden's election, "Only a fool believes everything coming out of the mouths of the Democrats. It's time to stop fooling yourself."
As Nick Brana from the Movement for a People's Party says:
It's only been a week and a half since Joe Biden was declared the winner and he has already packed his transition team with more than 40 current or former lobbyists. His chief of staff, Ron Klain, is a former asbestos industry lobbyist. His leading cabinet picks include fossil fuel lobbyist Ernie Moniz as Energy Secretary, Booz Allen Hamilton board member Michele Flournoy as Secretary of Defense, and Republican venture capitalist Mitt Romney for Health and Human Services Secretary. Biden hasn't even been sworn in and Wall Street already runs his administration.
Democrats re-elected Chuck Schumer as Senate Minority Leader. Nancy Pelosi is poised to become Speaker of the House again. Biden's likely pick for DNC Chair is former Podesta Group lobbyist Jamie Harrison. It’s clear that Biden and the Democratic Party have learned nothing from this election, just like they learned nothing from 2016, and that working people are in for four more years of the same heartless neoliberalism that gave us Trump in the first place. Except this time it's happening in the middle of a pandemic and the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Even with this mounting evidence, some will still claim that the Democrats are our "friends"? I say with friends like these who needs enemies? Only a fool denies the reality of the evidence. Big Business lobbyists are considered friends to the Biden administration--and he's not denying this to be the case (more examples in the links below).Â
True progressives know who their real enemies are and wisely learn to trust themselves above all others.
BIO: Coast Watcher sees the writing on the wall. It ain't pretty. Lots of folks are going to be disappointed in Biden, but a whole lot more people are going to be hurt by his neoliberal austerity policies and coddling of the fossil fuel industry. The "Not-Trump" option forced upon the voters this past election isn't going to pay off for anyone but the billionaires, so it's time for all good patriots to sharpen their pitchforks and get ready to march in the streets until things turn in our favor.
Lee asks Biden simple questions like, "We're in a pandemic, so what about Medicare for All?" and "Why not stop fracking, Joe?" and "Aren't you for the Green New Deal?" and gives us the answers straight from the horse's (or is it donkey's?) mouth.
Related links:Â
Biden's Pick for Secretary of State (Tony Blinken, a conservative warhawk who supposedly influenced Biden to support the Iraq War.)Â
Billionaire Charles Koch Congratulates Biden And Says He Wants To Work Together "On As Many Issues As Possible"
 "What Was Your Normal?": Black Activist Goes Viral After Rejecting CNN Commentator's Claim That Things Will Go Back To "Normal" Because Biden Won The ElectionÂ
