Better Off Now

It's a question that comes up every Presidential election cycle whenever there's an incumbent running for a second term: "Are you better off now than four years ago?"

The party in opposition tends to ask that question to highlight how "terrible" the current President is, while the incumbent party asks it while pointing to any signs of economic, social, or international standing improvements.

It's a question we're getting now, as it becomes official that Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate and donald trump - who was President Loser of the Popular Vote four years ago - is the challenger looking to unseat Biden by claiming we are worse off today.

It's not a smart move by trump or his Republican allies to ask, however: Exactly four years ago the entire planet was in a terrible crisis with a global COVID-19 pandemic crashing into everything - the economy, our society, our health care system, our schools, our families - and leaving us scrambling for basic necessities like toilet paper.

And it was exactly four years ago this March 13th when donald trump went before the national media and declared he "wasn't responsible for anything at all."

#FourYearsAgoToday https://t.co/zyP3iW6bNv

— Emily L. Hauser @emilylhauser.bsky.social 🟣 (@emilylhauser) March 14, 2024

What I wrote back in March 2020 right after that press conference:

So for this Friday, in order to present himself as in charge and in control, trump scheduled a big televised press conference, timed exactly just as the stock markets were closing... just so he could end up showing how little control he had and even worse openly admit he was in charge of nothing...

"I'm not taking any responsibility at all." Doesn't matter what he's avoiding responsibility for, the fact that he's AVOIDING responsibility ought to anger every American living and past...

So here comes trump, facing a global pandemic health care crisis that requires bold thinking, getting out ahead of the problem, staying in touch with all players to make sure things get done properly and to the good of all.

Unfortunately, trump's spent the last three years dismantling the government systems, understaffing agencies if not outright sabotaging them. Redirecting efforts towards projects that won't help in this crisis or any other. He oversaw the dismantling of a National Security panel tasked with coordinating pandemic responses, which left much of the federal and state agencies in the dark on who was in charge during the first months of this crisis (starting back in December 2019).

trump's response to all of this? Shifting blame on Obama instead of admitting his own involvement. Arguing that it's Obama's fault there's not enough test kits for this crisis when it should have been something trump's administration ordered done the minute it became clear - mid-January - that the coronavirus was going global. Like Obama would have known back in 2016 this particular virus was going to erupt three years after he left office.

"I'm not taking any responsibility at all."

THIS was where our nation was at four years ago. Four long stressful years ago, when the months of March and April felt like years themselves.

A President takes an oath of office "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States;" and yet four years ago there was trump refusing to faithfully execute his duties, refusing to take charge of a national emergency requiring leadership. Not doing his best at all except shift the blame on everybody else.

And now here's trump back again, running again for a job he didn't do right the first time around, trying to gaslight and bully and steal his way back into the White House. Not because he wants the responsibility - he never wants that - but because he needs that office's legal immunity to keep his ass out of prison.

So are we better off now, four years later?

Four years later, we have a President in Joe Biden who's doing his best to oversee an ongoing struggle with COVID's continued presence, to where the pandemic shifted into a shamefully tolerable endemic to where most Americans try to keep up with vaccines and ignore the relatively high annual death count we've come to accept as normal.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who undid most of the damage of trump's tariff wars with our global trading partners: A tariff fight that negatively affected our own economy and one that trump will insist on restarting should he regain the Presidency.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who restored America's international standing with our allies, who is trying to support Ukraine's fight against an invading Russian force - something a majority of Americans support - while trying to manage the bloodshed of the Israeli/Hamas war that's disrupting the Middle East. All of which trump would undo in a reckless raging heartbeat.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who's presiding over one of our nation's greatest financial recoveries; with a thriving economy where employment rates are at their best, wages for lower- and middle-income workers are going up, where inflation is currently at an ebb, and a lot of it tied into Biden's signature infrastructure bill.

Four years later, we have a President Joe Biden who will not avoid or ignore the responsibilities of the office the way donald trump did.

How's that answer, Republicans?

Vote four more years of Joe Biden, thank you.