The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

After yesterday's White House press briefing, Joe Biden looks pretty damn good!  Little wonder so many persons are endorsing him so far outside the election, including Mitt Romney.  Well, sort of anyway.

Granted, Joe has been known to stick his foot in his mouth, but nothing like we have seen Trump do the past 6 weeks at the press briefings.  Trump has pitched everything from hydroxychloroquine to tanning beds and now disinfectants as a cure for coronavirus.  Mostly, the president is greeted with stunned silence, but more and more doctors are speaking out as to the dangers posed by these crazy suggestions.  A thorough hydroxychloroquine study isn't due out until next week, but initial results of studies conducted in the US show that not only does the anti-malaria drug not cure coronavirus, but it can be very dangerous for anyone with cardiovascular diseases.

Fact is that the vast majority of persons who have died from coronavirus had pre-existing conditions like heart disease and diabetes.  You don't want to be suggesting drugs that only serve to exacerbate these problems.  Yet, this is exactly what Trump is doing.

The basic problem with Trump is he has no filter.  He will say whatever comes to his mind, no matter how daft, in any setting and to hell with the consequences.  I suppose this is why some people like him, but this reckless musing is not something you want to have in a president.  Biden is by no means an ideal candidate, but when confronted with four more years of the current SCROTUS in office, Joe is the only viable alternative we have.

I imagine many Democrats would like to have a do-over, especially after watching Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom adroitly handle press briefings in their states over the past month-and-a-half.  Unfortunately, that is not the case, and we can only hope that Joe makes a sound choice in his VP so that we can all rally behind him and oust this orange cancerous boil from the White House.

In many ways, Joe has been blessed by all this attention given Trump.  He's managed to avoid any close scrutiny as the conservative blogosphere is too busy trying to defend their  Idiot-in-Chief.  No matter what absurd statement he makes, his conservative allies are obliged to defend him.  All though that is becoming increasingly more difficult, especially on Fox, where some of the commentators have voiced their frustrations with Trump.  This means Joe essentially gets a free pass, at least for the time being.

It's also helping his fundraising.  He found himself way behind the president in terms of a "war chest," but more and more people are anteing up, so that Joe has the funds he needs to battle what will undoubtedly be one of the most vicious elections we have ever seen.  There is a lot to exploit in Biden's political record.  You can rest assured Trump's operatives will find every bit of damaging information they can locate to tear apart his character.

That means Joe's best defense will be his offense.  He can't be afraid to go after Trump tooth and nail.  He has to attack the president on every front, so that Trump spends most of the campaign defending himself.  After all, he is the incumbent.  Trump should no longer be allowed to get away playing the outsider.  He now has a presidential record we can all see.

His awful response to coronavirus makes us forget all about Bush's terrible mishandling of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Something Bush was unable to live down, and many felt cost Republicans the House and Senate in 2006.

To date, there have been more than 50,000 deaths due to COVID-19.  A number that is currently soaring, not flattening as many health experts had hoped.  Some doctors thought warmer weather would diminish the spread of the virus, but that's not happening, and it is likely we will see cases continue all through the summer.  Remember this is a president who publicly stated back in January that this virus was "totally under control" and that he had the Chinese president's assurance that it would all be over by April.

The only thing that might save Trump at this point is that COVID-19 forces a national lockdown in November and states are forced to suspend elections.  He's gone out of his way to discredit the mail service and claim that absentee ballots shouldn't count, although he casts them himself.  This would be the only way to safely hold an election if we see the virus in full force again next Fall, since no state as yet recognizes internet voting in national elections.  We have indeed reached uncharted territory, especially with a conservative US Supreme Court that will stop at nothing to protect the conservative majority they have in some states.

This is what happens when you elect an unproven candidate for president, who was able to appoint two Supreme Court justices, simply because many voters were unable to accept the alternative.  Hillary may not have been the best candidate either, but she would not have allowed the country to devolve into the anarchy we see today with gun-laden demonstrators trying to shut down hospitals and government facilities in states like Michigan because they think their constitutional rights have been infringed upon by these lockdowns.  "Give me liberty or give me death," they cry! oblivious to the fact that death is a very real alternative in this case.

Never has so much been at stake in an election.  It is not enough to oust Trump from the White House but we have to flush his Republican blackguards out of Congress and state legislatures.  Only then might we see some degree of normalcy return to political life.

Joe Biden has to rise to the occasion.  He has to present himself in the most honorable way he knows how, reaching out to progressive and moderate Democrats alike and forging a united party like we have never seen before.  It is also incumbent on every Democrat to stand behind him, no matter the personal differences, because we simply cannot afford to lose this election!