Opinion by Eugene Robinson – Columnist – August 12, 2021
“It’s time to entertain the possibility that President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually know what they’re doing and are really good at their jobs.”
Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post never gilds the lily. If you are feeling deflated as this new strain of the Delta Variant surges and our kids and grand-kids prepare to return to school without yet being vaccinated, or if you are shaking your head in exasperation at the posturing and political pressures being exerted by both the moderates in the Democratic Party and Progressive Democrats, or wondering how a $3.5 trillion package (or even a reduced compromise package) is going to gain 50 Democratic votes in the Senate in a reconciliation bill and then pass in the House with only a few more Dems than Republicans, or fearful of the increasingly destructive capability of the climate crisis everywhere, or furious about the refusal of some Democrats to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate, or feeling worried that the country is being thrust backwards into the era of Jim Crow, or feeling powerless in the face of the other maladies facing America and the world – some perspective that Eugene Robinson offers is a welcome respite.
One other thing I would add to Robinson’s applause lines for Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi is that they seem strategically to be tackling one huge matter at a time but working on all of them simultaneously. Word is, for example, that Schumer has a committee working on a new voting rights package that can gain 100% of the Senate Democrats and that there may be a way that the most conservative Democrats will agree to side-step the filibuster on matters that deal specifically with the threat to American democracy that voter suppression poses in federal elections.
Weariness affects us all, and after five years of dealing daily with Trump’s malignant narcissism and right-wing irrationality, the January 6 insurrection, and that forty to fifty million Americans may well accept a fascistic coup against American democracy, it’s understandable that so many of us may feel deflated, exhausted, and desirous of turning away from active political engagement. Thankfully, the Democratic leadership is working hard and I, for one, trust them as I do so many people working at the state and local level to preserve the best of America.
The $3.5 trillion package really is too big to fail as is the Infrastructure Bill that just passed the Senate, and the free unencumbered right to vote is far too important not to take decisive action.
That said – read what Eugene Robinson writes.
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