During the summer of 2020, candidate Joe Biden was not the first choice of many liberals, or even the second or third choice. He was too old, too establishment, too moderate, too inarticulate or too gaffe-prone. He looked more like the Democratic Party’s past than its future.
But whether he was the only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump or not, he was the one who did. And for that everyone should be grateful. If our republic survives, history will regard the election of 2020 as the point of crisis that saved democracy in America and, perhaps, in the world.
I realize that more than 70 million citizens do not share this sentiment. At present, the price of admission into the good graces of one of our major political parties is the denial of the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency. To be a good Republican these days requires accepting the lie that drives the party’s leader: the 2020 election was a fraud and Donald Trump must be reinstated in 2024.
But most of the citizens who accept this lie have already stopped reading this column, if they ever began. A few of them may be swayed by the near-daily revelations of the Trump campaign’s treasonous efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. Last week, for example, we learned a lot more about a systematic attempt — coordinated by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani — to submit fraudulent electors in at least seven states in order to give Vice President Mike Pence enough cover to throw the election into doubt and provide, perhaps, a good outcome for Trump.
It’s hard to grasp just how bad this is. In fact, because stories like these are not covered reliably on outlets such as Fox News and One America News, many Americans are either insufficiently informed about our democracy’s close call or they simply refuse to accept it.
And that’s why the rest of us — liberals, conservatives and moderates who are thinking rationally about our politics — must do a better job, no matter what we think of Biden’s presidency, of recognizing that it is the thin thread that keeps us from lapsing into a very un-American version of governance.
It was disconcerting to see several voting rights groups boycotting President Biden’s trip to Georgia on Jan. 11 because, they said: “We don’t need even more photo ops. We need action.” Some said that unless Biden has a clear plan to advance voting rights legislation, he shouldn’t even bother to come to Georgia. Even Stacey Abrams didn’t show up for his speech.
It was equally disconcerting last Friday to hear comedian Bill Maher — ordinarily at the liberal end of the political spectrum — carping about masks and mask mandates and generally ridiculing the Biden administration’s handling of a pandemic that’s closing in on killing a million Americans.
These attitudes imply a fatal misunderstanding and too-casual dismissal of the obstacles that Biden faces. Grappling with a persistent pandemic would be hard enough in a society made up of citizens who are willing to cooperate in service of the common good. Unfortunately, we live in a country that has been conditioned by nearly six years of Trump to accept and encourage tribalism, resistance, skepticism, cynicism, gullibility and just plain crankiness.
And, thus, out of 50 Republican senators, Biden cannot find one or two willing to support legislation that would make it easier to vote. The last thing he needs is carping from people with whom he shares the same goals.
No administration should be above criticism. But Biden is struggling against enormous challenges at a time of very high political stakes. His press conference of Jan. 19 indicated clearly how difficult the next three years are going to be. Every citizen — liberal, conservative or moderate — who still believes in democracy needs to recognize that any particular thing that the Biden administration does is not as important as its ultimate success.
The alternative is an undemocratic abyss from which we are unlikely to ever extract ourselves. And that will be the end of our fine republic.
