Back when women and little girls wore slips beneath their dresses, the worst thing that could happen would be to leave home with one’s slip hanging below the skirt hemline. Even more humiliating was if the slip had a tear or a stain, the reaction was sheer panic. In line with that was a saying in the Black community that pointed out when, beneath the surface, you were doing something wrong. Anytime I was on the wrong track as a teen, my friends would say, “Hey man, your slip is hanging.” In the movie, Ray, pianist and singer Ray Charles, was told his slip was hanging when confronted about his drug abuse. Unfortunately for America, if one still believes in the accuracy of presidential polls, the hemline of America is not covering its stained and torn slip.
The fact that Donald Trump is within striking distance from being president speaks to much of what has gone wrong in America. What seems to be the one glaring negative against Joe Biden is his age, not his performance or successes, but his age. A booming stock market, historic unemployment, wages outpacing prices, new infrastructure projects beginning every day, a change—albeit incremental in gun safety laws, and the cost of a crucial drug [insulin] for the health of many Americans falling drastically. The best post-COVID-19 recovery in the world tops off all of this. Yet the news media tells me daily that because Joe Biden walks like a man of eighty and still fights with a lifelong stutter, he is not fit.
Sure, there is some criticism to be talked about…
Most of the criticisms are not his making, despite what Republicans would have you believe. Poor, scared immigrants trying to find a better life for themselves, and their families were once touted as the American way. The country accepted a gift statue from France at Ellis Island, New York, affirming that promise. Whether you or I agree on whether the killing of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza is an atrocity, unfortunately, President Biden is doing nothing any other American president has done or will do. The difference seems to be he is willing to listen to the dissenters, allowing them to shout him down at rallies and speeches.
Contrast that with former president Trump, who answers his critics with the threat of being taken out on a stretcher or being punched in the face. As an African American, I am disappointed that he did not achieve voting rights reform or the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but again, the failures were not solely of his making. Mr. Trump’s party is content to see women and children sliced up with razor and concertina wire, trying to avoid drowning in the Rio Grande. Caged children became a poster for their cruelty. The chant genocide Joe is being bandied about as if President Biden is huddled in a room with Benjamin Netanyahu. The public disagreements between the two leaders culminated in Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s national security minister, publicly wishing for a return of Trump so Israel can go further, which should be revelatory. Trump has promised to deport all Arab immigrants and their families and, following the advice of Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans, would escalate a full-blown war with Iran and their allies.
America needs to hitch up her skirt to get beyond the twice impeached, four times indicted former president judged to have sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. Most day-one promises by presidential candidates are to make life better, but Mr. Trump promises a day of dictatorship. America, your slip is hanging; Joe Biden is the safety pin.
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