It is tempting to fantasize that we can just hop in a time machine back to 2016. For a lot of people, the Trump era is a time of exhaustion. I hear again and again this sense that time seems to have slowed. That every day is another horror. People are tired of the work and pain of following every calamity. This is wartime, every day is another battle. And I want you to get ready for the reality that the war won't end with the 2020 election.
As much as you may want peace, you can’t go back to 2016. You don’t want to go back to 2015 either or 2014. Because those were imperfect times too. People could tell they were getting a raw deal. Liberals may be nostalgic about a time when the president wasn't an embarrassment. And if you were a white American of enough means, living under Obama meant that politics was easy. It was something you could ignore, because things were fine. It wasn't fine for everybody else, but never mind that.
I want to specifically note that Joe Biden was willing to use Charlottesville as a campaign prop, but he wasn't actually on those streets counter-protesting the Nazis. Why would he be? His skin isn't in the game. He's been in the halls of power long enough that he'll be good and rich no matter what. To Biden, the problem with the Nazis wasn’t that they were Nazis, but they were loud and that he had to see tiki torches on the front page of the New York Times. The problem with Trump isn't Trump or real politics that affect real people, but how it reminds Biden of unfortunate things he'd rather ignore. Biden has lived his entire life fighting for a pretty okay America for those who already have, not the Have-Nots. Biden might as well campaign on "Make America Fine Again". That doesn't mean actually improving America. No Biden, is the man who will make it cleaner and less problematic for people like him. And is that the best we can do?
