An Open Letter to President Biden: Go Bold Before It Is Too Late

Dear President Biden,

History will say that you have done more for working people than perhaps any president since FDR. You steered us through the pandemic, mitigating the economic disruption and we appear to be reaching the mythical “soft landing” in dealing with inflation. You have presided over a substantial restoration of many worker rights that had been lost or diluted through 40 years of neoliberalism. All this in the face of a hostile Congress and an indifferent Senate.

You are running against someone who, by all objective criteria, should not even be a candidate. He has perpetuated his own lie about the 2020 election results. He has fomented insurrection and should not be allowed to run. He has neither the intellect nor the temperament to be chief executive of the United States

Yet the Washington Post reports that despite the relatively good economic news, voters, including Democratic voters, don’t feel it. As one NPR correspondent recently stated, “Increasingly, reality doesn’t matter.”

Let’s face it, your campaign is in trouble. The polls tell us that. At best, it is a toss-up, and worst case, you could lose in key swing states. Even your former running mate, President Obama, seems to be worried.

This simply should not be. There is too much at stake.

While your presidency embraced a number of bold initiatives that would make life better for working-class Americans, your election strategy is not that different from your opponent’s—fear the other guy. Fear what he will do to our democracy, fear what he will do for what’s left of abortion rights. That is not a guaranteed winning strategy. Most of my adult voting life I seem to be voting for the “lesser of two evils” and look where it has landed our country.

This is not the game plan likely to inspire the passion and intensity needed to overcome the cynicism and indifference that seems to have infected vast swaths of the electorate. Young people, in particular, are not motivated to vote for a continued Biden presidency that speaks out of both sides of its policy mouth on existential issues like climate change. Recently, the Washington Post reported that almost half of Americans are dissatisfied with the likelihood of Biden-Trump choice. You certainly don’t need any openings for a third-party spoiler.

Most of my adult voting life I seem to be voting for the “lesser of two evils” and look where it has landed our country.

And then there is October 7th and its aftermath in Gaza. Your reluctance to speak out against the Netanyahu government’s brutal reprisals is a matter of deep concern among significant Democratic constituencies who need to be there for you on election day.

The time has come to go big and go bold and speak to the felt concerns of people who might actually vote for you. The Democratic presidential candidate needs to offer voters something to vote for. We are weary of fear-mongering.

You need to endorse Medicare for All.

Your base is already solidly in support of Medicare for All. By endorsing Medicare for All you will be delivering a message of hope, of aspiration.

I have spent my career working with union-management health care funds, both public sector and Taft-Hartley funds. After almost 50 years I can say emphatically that the system does not work. If the pandemic proved nothing else, it demonstrated the idiocy of a healthcare system that bases entry into that system on employment. Endorsing Medicare for All would energize union support for your candidacy.

I shouldn’t need to cite the well documented evidence that a single payer, Medicare for All system is both superior and more popular. Rather, in the spirit of the John Lennon song, Imagine, I challenge you to imagine a different world.

Imagine a world where we can take health care for granted, where health care is not part of decisions about where to work, how long to work, how many hours to work, or when to retire, or even who to stay married to. Imagine a world where small employers are not at a competitive disadvantage in the hiring marketplace by health care costs. Imagine a world where something as basic as health care is not subject to collective bargaining and is not a significant cause of strikes. Imagine a world where we only enroll in health care once and are not bombarded by confusing “choices”. Imagine a world where those paying for a health care and providing health care can take a lifetime perspective, instead of the current insurance contract year. Imagine a Medicare system that is comprehensive rather than being divided into “Parts.”

If the pandemic proved nothing else, it demonstrated the idiocy of a healthcare system that bases entry into that system on employment. Endorsing Medicare for All would energize union support for your candidacy.

To bring it down to a more practical level, imagine an election cycle where voters are genuinely motivated to vote FOR you and not just against your opponent. Bernie Sanders proved the appeal of the Medicare for All message, especially among young people.

Medicare for All is the message you need to bring voters to the election booth. It will penetrate the gloom and doom that permeates American politics, what the New York Times referred to as the “existential dread of American politics” and energize the electorate. It will pit a positive message against a negative one.

It’s time to move past the politics of fear and to imagine the politics of hope.

It’s time for Medicare for All.