Why Women Should Take A Chance On Biden? His Legacy Could Be Female President & Female Vice President. Regardless, A Woman Will Be In The White House On 20 January 2025
Why Women Should Take A Chance On Biden? His Legacy Could Be Female President & Female Vice President
Biden Will Only Serve One Term- He Should Say So; Could He Depart Earlier?
President Biden Will Need To Continue Some Important Trump Administration Initiatives
Regardless Of Which Party Wins, There Will Be A Woman In The White House On 20 January 2025
To begin, a check on political realities: Female voters, particularly those registered in the Democratic Party, and those too young to vote are probably enamored with fifty-five-year-old Mrs. Kamala Harris, who will be fifty-six years old on Inauguration Day, more for being a woman, presenting herself in a non-threatening manner, and being relatable than with appreciating the totality of her political history in the State of California.
The sizzle engulfing Mrs. Harris, however, includes subliminal thinking about the “oldness” of her seventy-seven-year-old running mate and opportunity for her to assume the presidency, elected or otherwise. The following is about the otherwise.
A President Joseph Biden, seventy-eight years old on Inauguration Day, will serve one term, regardless of what he is prepared to do. His advanced age will serve as a come-to-terms-moment for the Democratic Party (its current leadership in the House of Representatives are ages 81, 80 and 80 and in the United States Senate a relatively youthful 69 and 75). His advanced age, how he shows that advanced age, and how that advanced age impacts his performance will serve as a political battle-cry for the Republican Party. These dynamics will make challenging for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to be re-elected.
Mr. Biden looks quite different today in his aviator sunglasses and flight jacket than he did in 2009 when he began his first term as vice president.
President Biden would be eighty-two years old beginning his second term and eighty-six years old at its end. A slow-walking, slow-responding, glassy-eyed septuagenarian would rather than inspire confidence invoke the imagery of aging dictators, authoritarians and royals in the Middle East, on the African continent and in Asia. The term “bold and dynamic leadership” would not come to mind. A note of caution- Mr. Biden’s mother lived to 92 and his father lived to 86- for those believing he may be predisposed to passing while in office.
If a voter desires in the Oval Office in the West Wing at The White House a woman who answers to “Madam President” and a man who answers to “First Gentleman” then the vote on 3 November 2020 need be for Mr. Joseph Biden, former Vice President of the United States (2009-2017) and former member of the United States Senate (1973-2009) and Ms. Kamala Harris, a member of the United States Senate (2017- Present) and former Attorney General of the State of California (2011-2017).
Better for Mr. Biden prior to 3 November 2020 or immediately following his inauguration as 46th President of the United States on 20 January 2021 to confirm he will only serve one term- with a singular goal to clean-up what he believes the Trump Administration left from its four-year experiment…. And then pass (transition) the political torch to a newer generation and, for the first time, a new gender.
Here is the surprise: By resigning mid-way through his first term, President Biden would have had two years to accomplish his most important objectives. He would then solidify his legacy by being the man who makes way for not only the first woman as president, but the first woman as vice president; and he then can bask during his retirement years as the man who single-handedly shattered the highest political “glass ceiling.” Indeed, a female Romanus Pontifex (Bishop of Rome) would too be quite a moment for the religious “glass ceiling.”
How the post-inaugural scenario would play out: President Biden would resign on 20 January 2023 following the 8 November 2022 mid-term elections. Vice President Kamala Harris would become the 47th President of the United States and have two full years in office prior to the next election.
President Harris would nominate a woman as vice president, subject to the 25th Amendment confirmation process by the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.
The most recent individual nominated for vice president and then confirmed was Mr. Nelson Rockefeller, the 49th Governor of New York State (1959-1973), to serve as vice president to President Gerald Ford (1974-1977) who became president after the resignation of President Richard Nixon (1969-1974). Mr. Gerald Ford, a member of the United States House of Representatives (1949-1973) was nominated by President Nixon for the vice presidency after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew (1969-1973), a former governor of Maryland (1967-1969).
Once the new vice president was confirmed and sworn-in, the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States would be female; and the 2024 Democratic Party would have a re-election ticket consisting of two women incumbents.
The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump (2017-Present) would not be necessarily enamored with two women (or one woman) or a member of the Republican Party succeeding him in 2024 as any succession could create a negative narrative for comparison with his four-year term. In some respects, being the last Republican Party member to occupy The White House for quite a while would enable him to embrace the “you should have listened to me; you didn’t; now look what happened to the country” thematic. Most concerning to him would be how or if a Republican Party successor would continue his policies and his regulations and his behavior.
His preferred pairing today for 2024 would be current United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, a former Director of Central Intelligence (2017-2018) and former member of the United States House of Representatives (2011-2017) from Kansas, with Mrs. Nikki Haley, a former Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations (2017-2018) and former governor of the state of South Carolina (2011-2017). President Trump aligns that Mr. Pompeo shares the presidential excessive body/mass index and is devoid of appreciating barriers between official acts and personal benefits.
However, President Trump’s dream ticket for 2024 would be paring his daughter, Mrs. Ivanka Trump Kushner and her husband, Mr. Jared Kushner, who each have unpaid, yet highly influential official roles at The White House. Qualifications matter little to the 45th President, optics, presentation and loyalty matter most. He would expect they would continue his transactional presidency- operating the United States government as his privately-held The Trump Organization were he dispenses gratuities, contracts and favors to those whom please him, recognize his generosity, confirm their fidelity to him- and who can be fired by him. His preference for individuals in an acting capacity reinforces his lack of comfort with continuity and independence and accountability.
For President Trump, the Pompeo/Haley ticket would meet his “central casting” preference for determining qualifications.
Unfortunately for the current occupant of a residence at the Naval Observatory, Vice President Michael “I bring greetings from the 45th… “ Pence (2017-Present), a former governor of the state of Indiana (2013-2017) and former member of the United States House of Representatives (2001-2013), President Trump views him as vice presidential, rather than presidential. President Trump has never viewed Vice President Pence as a peer or successor; he has always been viewed as an employee who was hired for a specific task and who can be fired.
One certainty- the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will each have a woman on their respective presidential tickets in 2024. Unknown is which gender will lead each ticket.
A Biden Administration will focus upon behavior- a recalibration to the past where political norms, at least within the executive branch, and within the relationship between the executive branch and the legislative branch, embraced civility, dialogue, regular bipartisan contact (meetings, lunches, dinners, events). President Biden will try and that will be appreciated and probably rewarded with some legislative achievements. Seeking compromise will be the guiding policy- getting something done.
Much of a Biden Administration legislative (and treaty) agenda becoming laws will depend upon whether the Republican Party maintains control of the United States Senate where perhaps a first ideological battle will be replacing Mrs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 87), an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
If President Trump is re-elected, he will nominate a woman who is opposed to the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The specter of a woman associate justice supporting a repeal of Roe v. Wade has neither been written about by media nor yet digested by the public. It will be polarizing, painfully so; and the confirmation hearing will be emotionally debilitating for many women and men- and impactful politically for members of the United States Senate and for members of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, whose chair is Mr. Lindsey Graham (R- South Carolina) or could be Mrs. Diane Feinstein (D- California).
President Biden will embark upon reinstating some, but not all, policies and regulations operative during the Obama Administration.
Some policies and regulations from the Trump Administration will be reviewed, revised, and rescinded including those relating to China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, restructuring military assets abroad, the use of tariffs, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), and efforts to revamp the World Trade Organization (WTO), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), United Nations (UN), and Universal Postal Union (UPU).
The Biden Administration will need to maintain forceful positions relating to the negotiation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements because for many voters in the United States, the “toughness” of the Trump Administration towards seeking reciprocity and fairness is overdue.
President Biden will quickly return the United States to the Paris Agreement (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change); and may seek to participate in the eleven-country Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement to further constrain China. Both are bi-partisan contentious issues.
The equities markets (Dow Industrials, Nasdaq, S&P) have or are on a trajectory to surpass their respective high levels of pre-pandemic. The higher the markets, the more optimistic voters are in their present and their future. Unemployment will remain (currently approximately 10.2%) through 2020 at levels above the approximately 3.5% of February 2020. Interest rates will remain low, the Federal Reserve will see to that. The professional investors believe a Trump Administration is better for their business than will be a Biden Administration- so they will do everything possible to increase equities markets, decrease unemployment and maintain low interest rates even if temporary to influence the election in November 2020.
Many of the instincts, positions of President Trump (and before his becoming President Trump) make sense to many voters- it’s how he expresses himself that causes individuals to reach for the nearest containers of Alka-Seltzer, Kaopectate and Pepto-Bismol.
What remains true through the Trump Administration is much of what has been done is of value, the problem has been when President Trump opens his mouth about what has been done.
The nation’s fiscal condition will not provide for President Biden what required decades to create for Mr. Ronald Reagan prior to becoming President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) the Reagan Revolution.
The “Biden Agenda” will not require four years to complete. Important to note that Mr. Biden has never adopted an overarching philosophy, no revolution. His career and candidacies have generally been about what traditional politicians focus upon- the issue du jour.
So, if voters truly desire a woman or women leading the United States of America, then how they vote on 3 November 2020 may well determine if there exists a near-term trajectory towards that goal.
There is one certainty: In 2024, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will each have a woman on its presidential ticket. So, there will at 12:00 pm on 20 January 2025 be a woman as president or vice president for four years.
For President Biden, resigning so that two women would lead the nation before 2025 could redefine the term “presidential legacy.”
All the above is farfetched? So was for many was the idea of a Trump Administration…
Last note: The atmospherics of the three presidential debates scheduled for September 2020 and October 2020 will have more the tenor of events produced by the UFC or WWE than as opportunities for those who will vote to be educated. Perhaps, the sponsors of the debates should be Ensure, Depends, Poly-Grip, Harley-Davidson, Everlast, and 5-hour Energy.
Mr. Biden’s Nomination Speech Text:
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/901380014/fact-check-bidens-address-to-the-dnc-annotated
Mr. Trump’s Nomination Speech Text:
