Americans are most fortunate that this middle-of-the-road, non-threatening, quiet and thoughtful, traditional family man, is just the right man for the presidency at this momentous and critical time in America.
Joe Biden won the election with a projected 306 Electoral College votes and a commanding lead of over 7 million popular votes. While the country is greatly divided, these numbers show wide and strong support.
Certainly, Joe didn’t win this on Democratic votes alone. Substantial numbers of Republicans flipped the tops of their ballots for Joe while continuing to vote Republican down-ballot.
These Republicans of good conscience couldn’t bear another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic destruction. Trump has only himself to blame, with his deadly pandemic response and all his vitriol, noise and corruption. Principled conservatives choked on Trump and spit him out.
So, as a side note: Election deniers: Please face it, Trump remains deeply unpopular with the majority of Americans and thus, Joe Biden won.
The people of the United States overwhelmingly voted Joe Biden to stop Trump’s madness. To stop the pilfering. To end the endless stream of criminal indictments of shady presidential associates. To stop the hate speech. To end the endless inflammatory tweets. To return back to science over conspiracy theories and magical thinking. To end blatant cronyism and worse, nepotism in our highest offices.
Americans picked Joe Biden to end the meanness. To halt the mockery of those with disabilities, or those captured at war, or who hail from poor countries. We picked Joe because we have a pandemic so badly mismanaged that today, we’re at 280,000 Americans dead, with the equivalent of nearly one “9-11” full of deaths occurring every single day.
Shockingly, Trump himself has been a mega-spreader, both personally with his rallies and by his reckless disregard of science and promotion of “anti-masking.” We voted for Joe because Joe believes in science over showmanship.
All this may sound like we voted for Joe because he’s “not Trump.” Not really. We support Joe for the express reason that Joe’s persona, character and intellect itself ends all these Trump negatives listed above.
We picked Joe because he’s decent. Reasonable. He knows the law and follows it. He’s a guy who started out as an “everyman” and served the public for decades. He’s had too many human losses for any one father and husband and in enduring and overcoming it, Joe’s developed tremendous human empathy.
Joe is well educated. He knows the workings, the procedures, the traditions and norms of our national government. Importantly, he supports and abides by them.
We picked Joe because he’s a traditionalist and will return normalcy and dignity to the presidential office. Joe won’t seek to undermine the Constitution for personal gain or wins or ego. He won’t seek to illegally overturn fair elections. Joe will be faced with a Trumpian-whipped-up distrust of government and elections — and we picked Joe because he’s a stable enough and fair and reasonable enough figure to heal these Trump-inflicted wounds. Joe will have to calm the nation. We’re all fired up and some are even marching around public servants’ homes with guns… Joe’s the perfect pick to calm things down, to turn the temperature back to a simmer from overheating.
We picked Joe Biden because he’s respected internationally. He supports our allies, and they support him. Trump became an international mockery, and even ignored by important international leaders. That changes Jan. 20, when diplomacy and thoughtfulness again return to the White House.
International respect and dignity are an important soft power that’s contributed to America’s moral and real leadership in the world. This has been squandered, ever ruined, for four years. With focus, Joe Biden will pick up the pieces and restore America to the promise of our Statue of Liberty and our past examples of liberty, law, dignity, and… hope.
And we overwhelmingly voted in Joe because he respects competency. Expertise. Experience. Capability. We’ve seen all these traits tossed to the wind in favor of blind loyalty to the wannabe outside-the-law authoritarian. No more. Joe Biden’s already selected much of his cabinet, and expertise, knowledge and experience, not yes-men loyalty, are they keynote traits.
And above all, we picked Joe because for Joe, the presidency isn’t some twisted reality show about himself. Rather, for Joe Biden, the Office of the Presidency is about correctly and astutely managing the business of the people of the United States of America. For all of us. As united a group of states as we can be.
We voted for Joe Biden for all of his good traits and skills to move us progressively and functionally forward. And, noted, we voted for Joe to eliminate all the bad residue from Trump’s destructive wake.
We chose Joe Biden because he’s the ideal individual to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.”
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
