Joe Biden was campaigning in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday. It was the day after Donald Trump left hundreds of supporters literally out in the cold as the buses that were to return them the 3.7 miles to their cars were unable to pick them up. Trump himself was long gone by 9 PM on Air Force One while Nebraska temperatures plunged into freezing territory and local police tried to help MAGA-heads through the dark.
Biden began by making a speech in his home state to illustrate to Americans what someone with even a modicum of decency sounds like when trying to address the country. Biden talked about the COVID-19 crisis, but did so through the lens of our national healthcare issues and the need to strengthen and expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Biden is a measured speaker, and his speech was consistent with this. But he was clear that like most Americans, Joe Biden is fed up with not simply the bluster and sham-bravado of the Donald, he’s ready for our country to begin the process of becoming actually great again. Donald Trump’s campaign, now fully swallowed up by their right-wing fantasyland echo chamber of corruption, has decided to promote the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic—which is actually reaching new tragic peaks across the country—is over, and Donald Trump solved it.
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Biden asked Americans to “just look at what happened last night in Omaha after the Trump rally ended. Hundreds of people, including older Americans and children were stranded in sub-zero, freezing temperatures for hours. Several folks ended up in the hospital. It’s an image that captures Trump’s whole approach to this crisis: He makes a lot of big pronouncements but they don’t hold up. He gets his photo op and then he gets out. He leaves everyone else to suffer his failure to make a responsible plan. It seems like he just doesn’t care much about it. And the longer he’s in charge the more reckless he gets. It’s enough. It’s time to change.”
Biden highlighted the racial disparities being felt by people of color during the pandemic that have resulted in higher mortality rates in Black and brown communities than anywhere else: “One in 1,000 Black Americans have died from this virus. This is a staggering statistic.” He talked about how almost half of all Latino and Black Americans know someone who became very sick with COVID-19 and died. He connected the experience to the tragic loss of his son, Beau Biden, and the unfairness and pain that an untimely death can visit on you. All things that could have been and should have been mitigated by our government. All things that could still be mitigated by responsible leadership.
He pivoted to the real future of our country, one with a Supreme Court that has been bought and paid for and stolen by the Republican Party and their special minority interests. Biden once again laid out the very real threat that the ACA would be entirely repealed, preexisting protections nullified, and tens of millions of Americans instantly without insurance and unable to get anything that could be called affordable in regards to health care, calling the Republican Party’s officials and Trump guilty of “craven abuse of political power.”
Biden then moved on to his ACA plans, pointing to the public option as a way of creating the competition that would help bring down premiums. He also made the very important statement—one that Trump and friends cannot make—that he would make the COVID-19 vaccine, if and when it’s available, free to every American. “This isn’t beyond our capacity.”
Finally, he told the audience that after this speech he would go vote, and not simply because the presidency is on the line and he is the candidate for the Democratic Party, but because the downballot votes are as important, if not more important, to make a choice on.
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The whole speech can be seen here.
