It's a bit over the top, especially the part about Harris. Obviously, he
picked her because she made his candidacy more palatable. But, nevertheless,
many people of said that the reason Sanders didn't fight harder this time,
is that he truly likes Biden.
Miriam
An Open Letter to Joe Biden
By Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page
11 November 20
Dear President-Elect Biden:
First of all, congratulations! YOU did it. WE did it! You stopped the
madness. A grateful nation - and myself - are in a state of joy, hope and
relief. Thank you for that! We are all eager to join with you to repair the
damage done to our country - and to eliminate that about our society and our
politics which gave us Donald Trump in the first place.
Mr. President-Elect, I first met you at the Democratic National Convention
in Boston in 2004. It was clear to me from our talk that day that you were
not the politician I remembered from the 1990s. On that day in Boston, we
were by then over a year into the Iraq War, a war you voted for. My
"Fahrenheit 9/11" had just come out and you wanted to let me know that you
were aware of the folly you had been sucked into. It seemed to me that you
were doing a lot of soul searching and you wanted to hear my thoughts. To be
honest, I was distracted by how perfect your teeth were, and I wondered,
could you really be from the working class? By the end of our talk I was
convinced there was something that was quite real and very good about you,
though perhaps somewhat buried inside. Would it ever come out so the public
could see it? As I reflect today on it - and you - I am sincerely hoping
that you will indeed govern as a president who's from the working class. You
- one of us - in the White House. That's how it should feel. Your actions,
if bold, and brave, will make that true.
You are also our second Catholic president. I believe you are a person of
faith. You and I were taught the same lessons in Catholic school: to love
our neighbor, even our enemy; to create a world where everyone regardless of
status or station has a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the
pie; a world where "the rich man will have a harder time getting into heaven
than a camel will have getting through the eye of the needle." We were
taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Do I
have that right? Are these not the moral, foundational principles of the
coming Biden presidency?
I was so moved by your victory speech Saturday night when you told the
immigrants and the children of immigrants that the Dreamers no longer had to
live in fear. That Muslims were once again welcomed into our country. That
the world could breathe a sigh of relief because we were going to let the
planet Earth itself breathe and have some relief. And you told the teachers
of America that starting January 20th, "one of your own will be living in
the White House." That just felt instantly good.
So if I may, I'd like to suggest a few things that might make your
presidency one of the best this country has ever had. You and I may have our
political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I'd like to ride a bullet
train from New York to LA in 10 hours!), but I know that you and I - and
tens of millions of others - all want and believe in the same basic things:
Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered;
Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate
poverty and rebuild our broken middle class;
The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must
be narrowed - and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should
pay;
Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right
to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.
So here's my two cents:
1. You are right to make containing Covid-19 Job #1. Had Trump won, I'm
guessing up to a million people in the next year or so would have died from
him ignoring this virus. Yesterday you named your Covid task force of
doctors and scientists and you are putting them to work. We don't have a
second to lose. Thank you for this.
2. As soon as you can, please provide much more unemployment relief for the
jobless, stimulus checks for all, help for small businesses, and the
creation of jobs we desperately need.
3. Millions have lost their health insurance because our system ties one's
health coverage to their employer. What happens when the employer, like now,
is suddenly gone, or the boss wakes up one morning and decides these
employees' health benefits are too costly and must be cut? BOOM! Millions of
families suddenly have no health insurance. This is nuts.
You MUST create a health system like every other industrial democracy - one
backed by the government, not by the whims of the boss where you work or the
pandemic that has shut him or her down. This is just plain common sense.
4. I see various people trying to take credit for your victory - and using
their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward
the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is
to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think
because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives
Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism - at a time
when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most
polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day
capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why
they feel this way. They've been saddled with crushing student debt and
we've handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as
their future. You and Barack introduced them to the benefits of democratic
socialism by letting them stay on their parents health insurance until
they're 26! The result: They just set a record by coming out and voting for
you in the largest youth numbers ever.
But you know all this. And you also know how you won these razor-thin
victories in the final five states as we nervously watched the final ballots
come in from Black Philly, Black Detroit, Black Atlanta, Black Flint. Out
west, it was Latinx and Navajo voters who delivered Nevada and Arizona to
you. In your speech on Saturday you acknowledged it. And never in our
history have I heard a President-elect single out the Black community and
thank them "for having my back. And I promise you, I will have your back!"
Black and brown and indigenous peoples, plus a landslide of women and young
adult voters made this happen. Wow. I absolutely know you'll keep that
promise.
5. Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President
Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was
willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already
decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that's
exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a
ruthlessness we should probably envy.
Don't let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on
steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive
orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG!
Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE!
Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed!
DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned
water pipes! DONE!!
And none of the above needs a single vote of the United States Senate! In
fact, this past summer, your "Biden-Bernie" unity joint task force
identified a whopping 277 policies and decisions of Trump's that you have
the legal authority to immediately reverse by executive order or
presidential policy decision
https://prospect.org/./277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-per./. Find that big
fat black marker of his and do it!
But, yes, we also desperately need those two Georgia Senate seats to get the
Biden/Harris years off to a blazing start. So let's make that happen! All
hands on deck between now and January 5th!! We will all do whatever is
needed.
Friends of mine on the Left who are more cynical than I am are probably
wondering why I'm sending you this letter. Haha! Well, because I saw you
kiss the head of that young grieving man at the Parkland, Florida memorial
for the shooting victims of Stoneman Douglas High School.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMa96yOel0
And because I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working
for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless
five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle
down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. "Hey buddy," you said in a kind but
parental way, "if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit,
I'll buy ya an ice cream!" The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and
afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five
bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought
to myself, this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen - and then I started to
cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back - goofy,
kind, and focusing on what's truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!
I think that's why you won. People saw what I saw with you there in New
Hampshire and back in Boston on that day 16 years ago - they knew that
maybe, just maybe, their lives might just get a bit better - hopefully a LOT
better - with you in the White House. Maybe less of them will die from the
virus, this preventable horror. Trump, of whom we knew many despicable
things and thought we'd already seen how low the bar could possibly go for
one human being - but we never considered him under the moniker of mass
killer, terrorist or superspreader. Then you, Joe, came along and offered us
a respite, a break from the insanity - "Mr. Biden, we'll be happy if you
just give us four years of 'Not Trump!'"
But I think you can give us much more than that. What could our lives be
like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How
'bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How 'bout no
one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs?
How 'bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood
has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How 'bout paid family
medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your
job? How 'bout my bullet train! You and we can make all this happen. It's
not rocket science. 30+ other countries already do it.
(https://www.amazon.com/Where-Invade-Next-Micha././B01EGW9EOU) They're
happier. Why not us? Our founders promised it to us in their second
sentence: "the pursuit of Happiness." They said that's what America would be
- and it's been a rare day when we've actually had a glimpse of it.
Joe, you're the guy to fulfill the promise. I'll help. So will my neighbors
on the floor where I live. As will the woman who delivers my mail, the
workers who stock the shelves of my neighborhood market, the nurse who just
wrote me in tears because yesterday she watched her 22nd patient die, alone,
no family allowed, from Covid. Not to mention the millions upon millions of
Americans who are ready to be foot soldiers in your army of justice,
equality and love. We're all in! We don't want to go back to the old
"normal." We want a new normal!
We want ice cream.
All my best,
Michael Moore
P.S. You know why I think you can and will do this? You picked Kamala Harris
to run with you! Ranked as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. A
woman. A Black woman! I saw the first debate, the one where she challenged
you and threw shade on your younger self. Most people (including me), if
that had happened to us, we probably wouldn't have gotten over it. You did.
I'm guessing your conscience whispered to you, "well, dang, maybe she has a
point." You hold no grudges. You are a forgiving soul. But then you didn't
just forgive her - you put her on the Big Ticket! Who would do that? You
did! That's why my cautious, hopeful bet is on the good hands we're now in -
both your hands, Kamala's hands, and the hands of the mass millions who
voted for you and will continue to rise up and fight for this new, better,
post-Trump, post-pandemic America.
