The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
January 20, 2021

This Article Was Received Prior To The Inauguration

The Bidens and the Harrises

The storming of the Capitol building by an unruly mob was, generally, an unprecedented moment in this nation’s history. Speaking after the calamity, President Joseph Biden stated, “the scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are. What we’re seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness… .” In some respects, the then President-elect is correct, but in more ways, than he is comfortable coming to terms with, he is unfortunately not.

I sympathize with the Herculean task ahead of the newly inaugurated President and understand and respect his approach to condemning mob violence in the name of inclusion and unity. However, his remarks, while profound, are short-sighted and prosaic. They do nothing to seriously address the deep, entrenched social, economic, and political cleavages that everyone in the political class knows to be true but simply chooses to ignore.

Whether we like it or not, the mobs are America—or at least represent a subset of a larger body of America—the tensions are America: the underlying animus and prejudice and frustration in America. I don’t wish this was our America. But to deny the very obvious in the name of maintaining some optic of long-standing stability is like looking in the mirror and pretending you are someone you’re not.

What is a “true” America, as President Biden asks? Is it an America that deeply swallows the founding mythologies of the Founding Fathers and their virtues while ignoring the institution and vestiges of slavery? Is the “true” America one that ignores Native American removal, the implementation and legacy of Jim Crow, wage slavery, Japanese internment, Chinese exclusion, white poverty, religious prejudice, xenophobia, mass deportation and child separation, Islamophobia, neoliberalism, and the like? Is the “true” America an outgrowth ofsome 1950s Leave it to Beaver re-run that we try to desperately to cling onto, or are those simply illusions and bedtime stories we repeatedly read to one another to maintain some concept of manufactured reality?

The unruly mob that stormed the Capitol may not be the “true” America that we wish to exist, but who can say that it is not America? Who can say that this kind of activity does not represent a form, an undercurrent of America looming in our deep conscience? Whether people choose to believe it or not, half the country voted for President Trump, even knowing his unruly antics and prejudicial mentality. Half the country voted for the now President Biden, and yet it is the archaic Democratic Party that has advanced the privatization of prisons, the slide of education into test-based forms rather than critical thinking methods, and enacted trade deals that flagrantly ignored the implications on rural and industrial America. Both parties are captured by big business, and, while the Constitution protects one’s ability to support a candidate or elected official monetarily, the crystallization of our two-party system has excluded the diversity of political thought and narrowed the level of debate to effective two-halves-of-the-same-corporate-whole thinking.

The irresponsible inaction and incitement of violence by President Trump must surely be condemned by anyone with a good conscience who is committed to preserving the long-running political institutions of this Republic. However, to assert that his removal from office will somehow solve all of the underlying problems, that his impeachment is somehow a panacea, is not only disingenuous but uncritical in the highest degree. Because after the smoke clears and President Biden delivers his inauguration speech, we are still confronted with a long list of issues platitudinous rhetoric will not solve. Depression exists in broad strokes, drug and alcohol use imperils communities across the country, suicide ruptures family and social bonds for those impacted by its tinge, domestic violence disrupts families of all persuasions, and the innumerable psychological issues of pain, anger, fear, and insecurity run rampant across this nation. Lastly, the all-important but often dismissed question, for its seemingly “un-academic” nature, bubbles to the surface: Are people even happy with their lives? There are some questions that law and policy cannot solve, but herein lies the challenge: how to we reform structural dynamics that have enshrined institutional racism, economic immobility, social tensions, and power politics driven by the powerful?

We pretend that returning things to “business as usual” will be the answer. This is not to say that President Trump was not an aberration to our wholesome sensibilities and inclination to do good and be just, but it is too simple and naively (or willingly) uncritical to claim that what we had before was somehow ideal. That was a time when we invaded countries on false evidence, moved jobs overseas at the local population’s sole burden, pillaged communities with racial animus and over-policing, drone-striked countries at our geopolitical convenience, and failed to prioritize the very critical mental health issues and political depolarization necessary to a healthy, functioning society.

So, when the dust settles from the calamity of post-election Trumpism, and “business-as-usual” returns to Washington, we simply cannot operate as though things are better, solely because it serves the interests of the economically and politically privileged at the expense of everyone else. Tens of millions of Americans continue to live under the poverty line, communities across the nation are stripped of necessary educational and social resources needed to catalyze mobility, and cultural greed and smoke-and-mirrors lifestyle projections do nothing other than exacerbate personal insecurity, depression, and vice.

Only when we stop pretending that the mob is not American and come to grips with the reality that, not only is this absolutely American, but more American than we are willing to acknowledge, will we be able to turn the page in this country’s uncomfortable history. We’re either a country or we’re not a country. We either accept and confront uncomfortable truths or we continue to decay and erode with cognitive dissonance. We either embrace diversity in all of its forms or we relegate ourselves to impish fools, willing to make the exact same mistakes of yester-year’s policy and judgment that have brought us to this critical juncture.

The choice is ours, and we simply must do better. What else do we have?