Opinion: Biden's DNC speech well-delivered

When Joe Biden began to lay out, in his Democratic remote convention acceptance speech, the “four historic crises” America is now facing, my first thought was that “Donald Trump” would be one of the four.

But he wasn’t. Instead, Biden named the pandemic, the economic crisis, our great national reckoning on racism, and climate change. Trump, I suppose, is just a side show.

If you missed Biden’s speech, it was either fake or great, depending on your partisan preferences. I thought it was an excellent speech, substantive and well-delivered. He actually spoke the truth about that which we are facing, and offered a ray of light during a dark time indeed.

But I don’t want to sing his praises too much, lest my friendly and less-than-friendly detractors will just become all the more entrenched in their belief that Trump sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Instead, let’s just let them wallow in their own illusions and, instead, delve into the four crises to which Biden spoke.

COVID-19 doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon, though the fact that most people are now masking up is encouraging. Plus, there’s talk of a vaccine possibly as early as the end of this year — another encouraging sign, although how many people will be willing to get the vaccine or how fast and effectively it will work remains to be seen. Safe to say this health crisis will continue into 2021 — a year that will be here sooner than we think but still seems so very far away.

Biden’s expressed approach to combating this outbreak sounded a whole lot more like a national response than a deferment to the states. I wonder what kind of shape we’d be in right now if Biden had been in charge when the virus first surfaced. At the very least, he would have taken it seriously.

Then there’s the pandemic-induced economic crisis. Biden’s economic plan, dubbed “Build Back Better,” incorporates into it a response to the other crises — with an emphasis on American-made manufacturing and innovation; the building of a modern-day infrastructure that doesn’t just mean roads and bridges but internet connectivity and clean grids, all with an “equitable, clean energy future” in mind; and a new approach to caregiving and education that supports rather than burdens struggling families.

His economic revitalization plan is highly ambitious, maybe even pie-in-the-sky, but it’s a good starting point — and it’s a heckuva lot better than the Republican rich-get-richer approach to economic development.

A month or so back, however, before Biden’s acceptance speech, here’s what he said that was and still is music to my ears: “When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax.’ When I think about climate change, the word I think of is ‘jobs.’”

Amen and amen. That’s how we can save the world, by investing in clean energy jobs, all the way down the line.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

[email protected]