Biden: this is not the hero you're looking for.
I need a lot social and political issues to be resolved in 2020. One of those is Americans holding out for a hero in office. You know, those elected officials which govern and legislate and cause power to scale for generations through law.
In my opinion, recent American history has illuminated a country with a mythology of looking to its national representatives for a fix-it-person, a status or identity symbol, to embody a series of beliefs, to project ideals of the pristine* US Constitution forward into the present. I believe that kind of political idolitry, bolstered by party fealty, is dangerous. Gravely. Particularly when projected onto the highest office of your country — in our case the Presidency — because produces a series of mishaphen figureheads. I don't want a hero, I want (for lack of a better term) a workhorse in office.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is neither of those things but unfortunately the election arena is projecting the hero status onto him via a jumbotron, which he embraces with rhetoric like "we're in a battle for the soul of the nation". Biden will very likely be heralded as a savior, a beacon of hope and sanity and normalcy, etc, for absolutely nothing except his preseason tryout.
But while he may become the next United States President — presuming he can beat Donald Trump, who is only doing one thing "best" right now and that is handing over the presidency through a series of fumbles to whoever can reach for it — Biden is once again on the wrong side of history regarding law enforcement officers as with universal health care. He is not the leader for our time, we missed that shot. Biden was a driving force behind the '94 crime bill, and to this day Biden's statement / his "plan" for moving forward with police reform, is not to defund the force, but rather to both increase police budget and increase community program funding, further cementing his colloquial title as Status Quo, nothing will fundamentally change, Joe.
A Biden spokesperson says he feels the police need more money and more overreach / responsibility, despite nationwide debate with growing support for defunding and in some instances dissolving local police: "$300 million more in funding for community-oriented policing services program allowing more officers to be hired and paid for training on community policing (integration) approaches." If you grew up during a certain time, in public schools, do you remember police liaison officers, and DARE? I don't think we need more of that integration, when the systemic problem is the police force being a hammer turning those which it comes into contact into nails. As such, the police force is fundamentally faulty / not the best ones equipped when handling some of these social responsibilities: police in schools, mental health communities and among the homeless, wellness checks, etc. When your trade is hammer-like force, in these conditions, you're only shattering the social contract between us that forms the bedrock of communities.
Joe Biden either doesn't understand this corruption because he is out of touch and out of step, or he simply does not care.
It is time for the Americans to realize that the only one we should paint heroically in the political landscape is ourselves when we put feet to the ground, action in our steps, demands in our message, and reject the framing of our political representatives statements "this or that, Republican or Democrat, fund the PD and the exploited community" when they aren't in our best interest. The only way Biden is going to be our workhorse is if we drag him through hurdles, and assuming he wins the national election in November, I hope we do less celebratory congratulating and more scrutinizing from every day forward.
Erase a mythical narrative. Biden is NOT OUR CHAMPION in this moment. Only we can be. #DefundthePD