It was great seeing the old trooper, former President Joe Biden, being the same Old Joe in a rare public appearance last week. It was Dec. 4 at a national gathering in D.C. of LGBTQ elected officials and candidates under the auspices of the Victory Fund. He was his usual fiery self, centering his remarks on the theme, “Don’t get angry, get elected!”
Given the unmistakable pattern of election returns across the U.S. in the last months, it is excellent advice to everybody who isn’t still a Trumper.
If Biden’s capacities are somewhat diminished after his 50 years of public service, they’re nothing compared to what’s becoming of Trump now, and who can credibly argue any longer that the nation wouldn’t be far, far, far better with Biden still at the helm?
Biden’s message wasn’t just about equality – remember, as vice president in 2012 he beat out his boss Obama by a few weeks coming out in favor of gay marriage – but also about opportunity. As his administration showed by its historic achievements that opened up new opportunities by which the American people could excel and thrive producing world changing results, as it has always been for this country.
It was a particular honor to be in the room where Biden delivered his speech last week. It was 16 years earlier when I first met him on June 25, 2009 at a Pride Month event hosted by the Democratic National Committee. That night, my friend, the late gay pioneer Frank Kameny, the late major league baseball LGBTQ “ambassador for inclusion” Billy Bean, former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank and many others attended. I got my picture taken with Biden grinning between Kameny and I, his arms around us both..
That was, of course, three years before Biden became the first U.S. vice president ever to endorse gay marriage, a development that was an answer to those gay leaders who protested that 2009 event on grounds the Obama-Biden administration wasm’t moving fast enough on their issues. Biden and Obama also repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” as a discriminatory policy in the military, and as president BIden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act and issued numerous non-discrimination executive orders.
In his speech last week, Biden’s voice modulated between low whispery tones and when be bellowed, insisting that if we put our collective resources to it, we as a nation can do almost anything, “This is the United States of America,” almost causing his microphone to short.
Biden’s speech heightened again the stark contrast between what he’s represented all his life and the grave danger that Trump has caused for the nation..
This context calls for the evocation of the legacy of our nation’s Founding Fathers, and Biden can proudly stand, with Lincoln, FDR and others, among them.
It was Ben Franklin, perhaps the greatest among our founders, who inspired the biographer Walter Isaacson in his wonderful new little book, “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written” (referring to the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence) to write, “We can try to be more lik e Franklin.”
Franklin, he noted, “Not only helped to craft the sentence that defines our common ground, He lived it. He organized police, fire and street-sweeping corps; a public library, hospital and school; a widow’s pension fund and a mutual insurance cooperative. He ran a newspaper that was dedicated to publishing a wide variety of opinions and following no party line. He bequeathed a revolving loan fund for young people to start enterprises. He donated to the building funds of each and every church in Philadelphia, and he helped lead the fundraising for a new hall that would provide a pulpit to visiting preachers of any belief, ‘so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.’ And, on his deathbed, he was the largest individual donor to the Congregation Mikveh Israel, the largest synagogue in Philadelphia. So when he died, 20,000 mourners watched his funeral procession, which was led by all the clergymen of every faith. Including the local rabbi, walking arm-in-arm.”