Examining the issues as President Joe Biden and Democrats seek support while gearing up for 2024 campaign
Joe Biden generally writes to me every day. So do his friends at the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Biden’s messages are generally brief and to the point. After all, he’s a busy man. His main focus is always the same: he needs some money from me to help ensure that Donald Trump does not return to the White House. Even $5, or $3, would really help. Biden (shown above in a 2023 public domain image posted on wikimedia commons), and the DNC, usually communicate with me by email, but sometimes I receive a letter from the president in my mailbox.
The message that I received from the DNC on June 23 was a little different. It was considerably longer and more detailed, and it began with a teaser: “Here are some facts that you won’t see on FOX News.”
Of course, I only watch snippets of FOX News occasionally, taking a brief break from mainstream, liberal news, and I rarely see any “facts” when I do watch Rupert Murdoch’s network.
But let’s focus on the facts that Biden and the DNC want me to consider, as they plead for a financial contribution for the upcoming campaign. First of all, they announce that “(seven) times more jobs have been created during the Biden Administration than in the last three Republican presidents combined. Yes, that’s a fact.”
Ignoring the scrambled syntax of this statement, let’s reflect that the last three Republican presidents were Trump, George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush. We presumably suffered a net loss of jobs under Trump, because of the deep recession caused by the Covid pandemic, which Trump clearly mismanaged.
George W. Bush ended his presidency with the Great Recession, so there was a serious loss of jobs in 2008, as Barack Obama campaigned for the White House. The elder Bush just served for one term, and it’s hard to remember his economic policies 32 to 36 years later.
The next highlighted fact is that “nearly 5 million Americans have had their student debt canceled thanks to President Biden.” Biden has persistently tried to forgive student loans that hamper younger Americans as they struggle to purchase starter homes, start families, and live the proverbial American dream. However, Congress is not on his side on this issue, and it remains to be seen if the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold Biden’s executive orders forgiving student debt.
Then I’m informed that “‘blue states’ have longer life expectancy, higher minimum wages, and lower gun death rates.” Let us reflect that rural areas have moved sharply to the right in recent decades, while conservative urban areas, including wealthy suburbs that always voted Republican, now lean Democratic.
Mississippi consistently has the worst statistics on income and life expectancy, and pays teachers even lower salaries than their counterparts in South Dakota. Mississippi was also solidly Democratic, from the Civil War up through the 1950s. After the civil rights revolution, it became a Republican stronghold. Black voters could eventually make it politically competitive, but it would still have very low wages and a low life expectancy.
South Dakota was competitive as recently as the 1992, 1996 and 2008 presidential elections, but we are a poor, rural state, and our wages and life expectancy will not stack up well alongside California and Connecticut.
The next talking points shouldn’t be too controversial. “President Biden and his administration have granted over 1 million PACT Act claims — expanding the benefits and services for toxic-exposed veterans.”
Furthermore, “insulin is now capped at $35 a month … for seniors on Medicare.”
These are the kind of common-sense, compassionate reforms that Americans have traditionally relied on Democratic presidents — and Congresses — to provide. It is a bit reassuring to note that the system still works as it should, once in a while.
Then the DNC appeal raises an issue which may yet save Joe Biden, and elect a Democratic Congress. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a national abortion ban.”
If you listen to Christian nationalist politicians like House Speaker Mike Johnson, and right-wing attorneys who seek to revive the long-dormant Comstock Act, which could even be used to ban most birth control methods, you get the point. However, one might note that South Dakotans who do not want a national abortion ban should vote for Sheryl Johnson for Congress.
As our first Democratic congressional candidate since 2018, Sheryl Johnson is pointing out that Dusty Johnson (no relation) is hardly the bipartisan problem-solver that he claims to be. Rather, he is the type of politician who will stoop to any depth to appease the extreme right wing and the ascendant Trump faction that controls his party. If Democrats win unexpected seats in Congress, there will be no national abortion ban.
It’s hard to know whether my donation of $3 or $5 would do any good at all. But the Democratic message this year is clearly somewhat complicated, and contains many disparate strands.
Jay Davis is a retired Rapid City attorney who regularly writes for The South Dakota Standard.
