Dear President Biden,
Thank you for officially putting us back in the Paris Climate Agreement today and for representing US and democracy at the G-7. I bet there were a lot of people who were very happy to see you and very happy to have us back on track. I also bet there are a lot of people who are wary of getting too cozy with US and of leaning on US for much of anything important given that it’s not outside the realm of possibility that another fascist nightmare could be right around the bend in four short years. Sadly, for the foreseeable future, we are not to be trusted.
To be sure, I’m infinitely more hopeful than if you and Harris hadn’t won. It’s not that you all, personally, aren’t to be trusted, it’s that we still have an awful lot of people with an awful lot of power who’re intent on keeping that power (and wealth) no matter what it takes, no matter what lies need to be told, no matter who needs to be sacrificed, how. So as much as most of us here in the US and, I think, around the world, want to be able to trust that you and Harris and your agenda can prevail over the evil and rot, the evil rot monsters are very, very good at what they do and it’s not a sure thing that goodness will win. So yeah, trust is flagging. Badly.
Part of what is feeling so precarious is that the time it will realistically take to reset our course and then stay steady on it feels like it’s running headlong into the limits of the planet and the limits of people’s abilities to hold on when there’s little to no hope. In other words, we simply do not have the luxury of time and we cannot afford to wait until certain evil rot monsters either die off or have their heads forcibly pulled from their butts by their children or grandchildren. And yet, how do we go around them? I don’t know, but clearly (to me), that’s what we’ve got to do.
Because of the dang pandemic and (thankfully) working from home, I hardly ever drive anymore, but today I needed to run an errand in the car. The trip was quick and uneventful but there were two different times when, in my estimation, the safest thing to do was to speed up to get ahead of drivers rather than break and fall in behind. And yes, such situations arise all the time while driving. The reason for telling you about this is that after the second instance, I got to thinking about how conditioned I am to break, yield, and fall back rather than accelerate and push on ahead. From there, I got to thinking about the Democrats and how historically (as in, during my lifetime) they’ve so often seemed to default to the “oh no, after you…” sort of posture vis a vie the GOP. From there, I realized how grateful I am that you and your people seem to have finally snapped out of that ineffective trance and are starting to put your foot firmly on the dang accelerator.
Please keep it up. Time is short and our window for reversing our crash course is shrinking by the day.
If you can manage it, I’d also really appreciate it if you would please start making concrete suggestions for how we can look out for one another in various ways. It’s super wonderful that so many of us now feel like we have a POTUS who is looking out for us, but we are wherever we are and you are way over there somewhere else, so I think a few simple suggestions or reminders from you about being neighborly or generous (if we can) or simply friendly to one another could help us rekindle a bit of hope.
May we all be safe from storms of all kinds.
May we be willing to take reality-based stock and fix what desperately needs fixing.
May we trust one another enough to put real, strong safety nets in place for when we need them.
May we accept that sometimes we have to accelerate around the evil rot monsters.
Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson
The Biden Letters 