I realized the other day that my preferred candidate for president in 2020 and my preferred president starting in 2021 are two different people. I’ve become increasingly progressive in the last few years, and I’d love to see someone like Elizabeth Warren in the White House because I think she sees clearly the degree to which unrestrained capitalism and rising economic inequality represent a threat to our democracy and our prosperity. (I might have said Bernie Sanders but I think his age could prove to be a real problem.)
On the other hand, getting Donald Trump out of the White House is job one. As much as I believe that the Republican’s agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and empowerment of the wealthy is bad for the country, I see Trump as an even more urgent threat. The big advantage of Joseph Biden as a candidate is that centrist voters, even right-of-center voters, who have soured on Donald Trump may feel comfortable voting for him. Bottom line, Joseph Biden has a better chance of beating Trump than a more progressive candidate would.
So the person I would most like to see take office in January is Elizabeth Warren. But the person I would have chosen as a candidate to run against Trump is the one we’ve got: Joe Biden. I’m still hoping that the American political pendulum that has been swinging to the right for the last forty-plus years will begin swinging back to the left in the years ahead, but it’s not going to happen quickly, and in the meantime we desperately need to get rid of Donald Trump.
I cannot agree more that it appears that Biden was the best candidate to run against Trump even though I was hoping for Elizabeth. However, we will need the ideas and inspiration of Elizabeth Warren to dig out of this gigantic public health and economic mess that Trump continues to exacerbate. Let’s see who Biden surrounds himself with if he wins. Kamala was a good start.