Tomyamaguchi’s Weblog

I continue to support President Biden.

I haven’t blogged in ages and have been mostly absent from social media, especially Twitter or what used to be called Twitter. As far as I am concerned, X is the name you give the person you are no longer married to. I used to promote my occasion blog posts to Twitter, so, for now, I will be mostly using Facebook. I am keeping my Twitter account open with hope that Elon Musk gives up on it and turns it over to people who know what they’re doing.

I am blogging now out of a sense of urgency. I don’t know what else to do. During the summer of 2016, I frantically blogged about the dangers of Donald Trump and why we needed to keep him from being elected president. Sadly, all of my fears came true. The Trump years were the disaster I was dreading. So now, I come back to warn why we need to stand with Joe Biden as he runs for a second term in the White House.

Let us start with that debate. Since I don’t have cable TV, I listened to the CNN channel on my SiriusXM account. I missed seeing how bad Biden looked, but I could hear how terrible he sounded. More frustrating was how Trump was allowed to avoid answering questions and allowed to spew his “alternate facts” as if they are actual truths. The man has a great memory for events that never happened.

The biggest letdown was Trump’s avoidance of the issue of climate change. For years, we had been demanding that questions on climate be included in presidential debates. For most of those years, the moderators of those debates ignored our demands. Now, when the question is finally asked, Trump was allowed to do what he has always done. He diverted. After talking about his desire for clean air and water, he said nothing about carbon emissions. Instead, he doubled down on more gas and oil drilling. If I had gotten the chance, I would have said to Trump, “Yes, Donald tell us in the Bay Area about that pristine air you wanted to give us, like in the summer of 2016 when the sky was an unearthly orange and the air quality was the worst in the world; air filled with smoke from forest fires; fires fueled by a warming planet resulting from climate change.”

Neither CNN or President Biden were able to hold Trump’s feet to the fire on his climate denialism. This is the man who told oil company executives at a private fundraiser that if they gave him a billion dollars he would end all of Biden’s climate policies. This is the man who, when boasting his dictatorship would just be for Day One, said he would use those dictatorial powers to “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Do we really believe the dictatorship and drilling would end on Day Two? Or that millions of immigrants would be successfully rounded up and deported before Day Two?

Since the debate, the news has been constant. Biden needs to drop out. That is why I feel urgently called to speak up with my opposing view. To quote Justice Sotomayor, “With fear for my democracy, I dissent.” I may be too late and my voice too small to make a difference. However, I am called to do what I can do to prevent the Democratic Party from making a huge mistake.

You have probably heard of the recent interview on CNN with Dr. Allan Lichtman, the American University professor who has been correctly predicting the outcome of presidential elections with a model he calls the 13 Keys. During the interview he said, “Republicans have no principles. Democrats have no spine.” I agree with Dr. Lichtman. If anybody needs to drop out of the presidential race, it is the convicted felon who is a security risk for his mishandling of classified documents. This is the man who mishandled a pandemic that allowed Americans to die while he promoted phony cures that did more harm than good. It is time to insist Trump drop out. We need to develop a spine.

Now, he is allowed to skate from the law because he bought himself three Supreme Court justices. John Dean is right. If Richard Nixon had today’s Supreme Court, he would have gotten away with his crimes. His conversation in the Oval Office of paying bribes to the Watergate burglars in exchange for their silence would have been considered official presidential business. The tape recording itself would be inadmissible as evidence. I wonder, as well, if that immunity would apply to the Vice President. Agnew would never had to resign or plead solo contendere for accepting bribe money that continued to flow from his days as an elected official in Maryland.

If you still don’t believe our democracy is at great risk, read Project 2025. It is free and downloadable from the Heritage Foundation web site. I am in the process of reading it now. I will probably blog about that when I’m finished. For now, I am just amazed how open they are with their plans to replace democracy with white supremacist, “Christian” nationalist, authoritarianism. I put Christian in quotes because what they believe has nothing to do with what Jesus taught; to welcome the stranger, care for the poor, etc.

Our democracy is too valuable to risk throwing out the President who rebuilt an economy destroyed by his predecessor. Biden has gotten us back on track to tackle climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act is the most important climate legislation ever passed by Congress. Biden is the most pro union President we have ever elected. Unions need to stick by the President who stuck by us.

Of course, the decision to continue to run rests with Joe Biden alone, and if he decides not to run there should be no question of what happens next. We have a capable Vice President to step in and run for President in his place. To deny Kamala Harris the place at the top of the ticket would be a disaster. What would that say about Biden’s decision making ability—that the person he selected as his running mate is unqualified to be President, herself? And stop talking about Governor Newsom. He knows what a disaster that decision would be. He’s not running.

I will finish with a conversation I had with some friends after the 2016 election. One of these friends admitted quite openly, “I wish I had done more than just vote.” Looking back at 2016, I know I could have done more to elect Hillary Clinton. At least I did more than just vote. I made calls to Arizona and Nevada. I gave money to the campaign. While others complained about needing to hold their noses to vote for Clinton, I knew she would have made a very good President. She would have picked Supreme Court justices that would uphold Roe vs. Wade. She would have kept us in the Paris climate agreement. She would have continued to work with Iran to end its nuclear weapons program. And, most important, she would not have been a threat to democracy.

Biden is not perfect either, but he has been much better than I expected. I continue to support him. If these words, make any sense to you, feel free to share them.

July 8, 2024 - Posted by tomyamaguchi | Uncategorized