A Window of Opportunity

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

Some of our greatest leaders have found themselves occupying the Oval Office during our most desperate times. Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president during the worst Depression in our nation’s history. Abraham Lincoln was elected to a polarized country on the brink of what turned out to be one of the bloodiest civil wars in world history. Theodore Roosevelt came into the office at a time when massive corporate trusts were controlling the markets and threatening to tighten their strangleholds on our democracy. Yet, when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, these presidents managed to implement their agendas and change the direction of the American experience completely. 

With a single-minded determination, Lincoln not only won the Civil War, but by engineering the passage of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, ensured the end of slavery in America. He could have easily ended the war without addressing this issue, but he chose—at great political expense—to end the scourge of slavery once and for all. Had his unrealized vision of Reconstruction been fulfilled, we very well might have avoided much of the racism still plaguing us today. 

FDR mounted the New Deal, a huge government program that put people to work while improving the nation’s infrastructure and simultaneously jump-starting the economy. Because of his work, Social Security and Medicare have endured to this day, ensuring that the elderly and infirm do not fall between the cracks. Roosevelt, recognizing the threat of world fascism, also eased the United States in World War II, helping to preserve peace and democracy in the free world. 

Teddy Roosevelt busted business trusts, jammed reform through Congress, and helped establish the National Park system. He became a champion of the progressive movement, ultimately supporting labor unions, installing government regulations for the food industry, and ensuring that every citizen got a “square deal”.

These were intelligent, educated, sensible, and moral men who all deserved to be elected to the Office of President of the United States. But, had they been elected in a different era, in a more tranquil or prosperous time, would their presidencies be so marked with greatness? In other words, did the times make the man? 

We are presently living in one of the darkest periods in our history. We have lost more of our citizens to COVID than to World War II, The Korean War, and Vietnam—combined. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. People are starving in the streets. The last administration failed woefully in its efforts to control the pandemic—or to even recognize its severity, compounding the problem.

Last November, to the chagrin of many members of the Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus, Joe Biden, a conservative Democrat who had once eulogized ultra-conservative Strom Thurmond, voted for the Iraq War, and has always seemed eager to placate his wealthiest donors was elected the forty-sixth POTUS. Biden is a career politician—a Washington insider—who spent years in the Senate. He was endorsed by the party machine over progressive favorite Bernie Sanders, whose followers threatened to bolt from the party. 

At times during the campaign, Mr. Biden seemed to be frail, almost fragile. Detractors and his opponent loved reminding voters that he was seventy-eight years old, but he campaigned well and won the election handily. Before he could take office, a mob of insurrectionists—terrorists—attacked the Capitol Building, disrupting the certification of the presidential election, and coming within a hairsbreadth of harming our congressional representatives and possibly destroying our democracy.

On his first day in office, President Biden vowed—and delivered on his promise—to get 100 million doses to citizens in his first one hundred days in office. To the surprise of many, he pushed a comprehensive COVID relief bill that Bernie Sanders called, “the single most significant piece of legislation for working-class people that has been passed since the 1960s.” (Ezra Klein Show, MSNBC TV, March 23, 2021). For the first time in decades, a federal bill contained provisions addressing issues of chronic poverty. 

Biden followed up with another far-reaching bill designed to help refurbish and redesign the country’s infrastructure while simultaneously focusing on growing green energy and combatting climate change. Progressives in Congress were surprised—and pleased—to see so many of their proposals being taken seriously by the new Administration. 

Next on the docket is “The For the People Act”, legislation supported by the White House which seeks to guarantee fair and equitable voting rights for every American, regardless of color, gender, or opportunity.

Biden is a career politician. He’s an opportunist. He’s also, by all metrics, a very decent human being who genuinely cares about his constituents. The President is now leading a country with a devastated economy, a profoundly inequitable income structure, and rampant gun violence. He is also seeing polls that show a vast majority of Americans want changes in gun law, taxation, climate change policy, and health care. People want change. 

Albert Einstein once said, “in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.” President Biden has recognized the moment and is using it. What has so far separated him from other public servants has been his willingness to use this opportunity to implement profound change in the country. He piggybacked poverty reform onto the relief bill. He’s attached climate reform and clean energy policy to the infrastructure bill. 

The pandemic has exposed gaping holes in the fabric of our society. Biden is using this crisis opportunity, this window into history, to push through long-lasting and impactful legislation that could turn our country back on the course to greatness. Much as FDR used the Depression to launch Social Security, the NRA, and the CCC, to provide jobs and security for his constituents, Biden has been using the pandemic to combat poverty, create equity, ensure our safety, and to preserve the planet. 

Would he have been able to do it without COVID? Probably not. Would he have been able to do had the Progressive Caucus not given him the political traction to push these ideas through? Probably not. Will he succeed in rebuilding our roads, our economy, and our reputation? 

Let’s hope so.