America Needs Stacey Abrams And We Need Her Right Now
America doesn’t need to heal, so much as it needs to grow the f*ck up.
By David Todd McCarty | Monday, June 1, 2020
Anytime we find ourselves in a social crisis in America, especially in the midst of racial turmoil, leaders of all colors, positions of power and political stripes call for calm and patience and implore us that what we need is time to heal. The problem is that they’ve been saying this for over sixty years and we are still dealing with an open wound and a rising fever.
You can ask any second-year medical student, and they’ll tell you that festering wounds don’t just heal with thoughts and prayers—they don’t just go away. If you leave an infected wound to run its course, just hoping it will get better on its own, it gets worse, not better. The infection will spread throughout the entire body, and eventually, it will kill you.
America does need to heal, this much is true, but first we have to treat the infection and in order to do that, we need to grow the fuck up.
Donald Trump is without a doubt, the train wreck everyone thought he would be, it’s just that his ineptitude has taken three and a half years to reach its ultimate pinnacle due to sheer luck on his part. He inherited a booming economy and for almost his entire first, and last, term, he didn’t have to deal with any real crisis that wasn’t a product of his own making. He has more or less succeeded, despite his best efforts, even if his success has meant the decline of America in almost every meaningful measure with the exception of corporate profits.
We are in real trouble and it’s going to take everyone’s help to keep this ship afloat until we can find a new captain. The Democrats started out very strong, with an unprecedented array of political superstars, only to be left with one aging white man.
Joe Biden’s entire campaign for President was predicated on the idea that he was the best choice to bring America back from the precipice, to a welcome return to normalcy, and back to the good old days—as if things were going so well before Donald Trump took office. What we once assumed was his biggest asset, being Obama’s Vice President, now seems to be his most glaring detraction. Is a return to the normalcy of a decade ago enough to fix the hell we’re living in today? Not hardly.
Joe Biden is unfortunately, last year’s answer to yesterday’s problem, but it would appear he’s our best hope for slowing our rapid descent into the seventh circle of hell. Our only hope at this point, is to pair clumsy, old Joe with someone who has the intellectual fortitude and sheer charisma to force Democrats to put their big boy pants on and stop fucking around. Let’s just say it. We need a black woman.
Senator Kamala Harris is everything you’d want in a President. She’s smart, articulate, a born-fighter and experienced in government. But she’s also a sitting Senator we can’t afford to lose, a strong voice in Congress, as well as a former prosecutor with what might argue is a problematic record during a difficult election year. This is not her time. Elizabeth Warren was the candidate who should have ran in 2016, and she would have won. She missed her chance. Both women are probably more effective as outspoken Senators than any cabinet position we could imagine for them. We need them.
Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for Governor of Georgia, is frighteningly smart, fast on her feet, quiet but forceful, not easily rattled, well-educated, young, and energetic. She very nearly pulled the governorship right out from under Republicans in deeply red Georgia, and she’s on a mission to rebuild the electoral system that kept her from winning it outright. Top that off with an infectious smile and an easy laugh, and you have a ticket that can take this country by storm. Someone who could actually tie this fractured and damaged party together, and give it a new direction. Stacey Abrams might end up eclipsing Joe Biden, and in any other time, that might be a problem, but during this crazy point in history, that just might be the thing we need.
Imagine the terror in the heart of Mike Pence at the prospect of having to debate Stacey Abrams. Recognize that it will likely be black women, the backbone of the Democratic Party, will be the ones who save us from ourselves, and kick everyone in the ass towards a brighter future.
If we’re going to heal this country, we need to grow up and deal with our many issues like adults. We need to take them on, face to face, and talk about them with clarity and honesty. We need to stop being so frightened and timid. We need to stop pretending we are something other than what we are. We do need to heal, but first we need to grow up. The last thing America needs right now is a white man telling us how to heal ourselves, we need a black woman to show us how.
The leeches aren’t working.
Follow David Todd McCarty on Twitter @davidtmccarty and The Standard @capemaystandard
