On. Oct. 16, 2016, the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com Editorial Board said this: “Our choice for president: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She has the experience and temperament that Donald Trump doesn’t.”
Much of what we said then rings true today. “When it comes to Donald Trump’s policies, we have to ask: What policies?” we wondered then.
One statement did not, however, ring as true. The endorsement ended this way:
“Really, there is no other choice.”
We found there was another choice. At least the Electoral College decided so. Donald J. Trump stunned the pundits and America suffers for it now.
Not in our memory is there an election more important to our lives – literally -- and the future of our country than the one that takes place Tuesday.
The Advance/SILive.com endorses Joe Biden Jr. as the next president of the United States.
Biden, and vice presidential choice Kamala Harris, face a monumental task, if victorious, in bringing our nation back from the daily chaos and deep divisiveness to which we awake each morning. We cringe as we check our iPhones in fear of the latest, damning, middle-of-the-night tweet from the nation’s chief executive.
It has been said we as a nation are exhausted. Donald J. Trump is single-handedly exhausting America.
The fundamental decency of Biden/Harris, their experience nationally and internationally, their leadership, their deep knowledge of how government works – from inside the Congress to inside the White House -- and their genuine respect for all Americans no matter their color, their social standing or their wealth, are reasons they can return America to a place of respect and tolerance.
They will reestablish America’s position as the dominant global leader.
The election is a mere two days away. Already, more than 23,000 Staten Island voters have cast early ballots, along with 60 million fellow Americans.
We are not naïve in thinking what we say here today will sway many, if any, who go to the polls Tuesday. We know the sentiment of many Staten Islanders, and we assume most minds are made up. Plus, we acknowledge Staten Island is hardly a player in deciding a national election.
Still, our vote means something. It is a statement of who we are as a community, in what we believe, and it a lynchpin of what living in a free America is all about. So for anyone who might be wavering, hear us out.
In our endorsement for Staten Island’s congressional seat last week, we discussed a very simple philosophy in choosing a candidate: What has that person done – or not done – to require removal?
Donald J. Trump has failed as the leader of our nation. He is guilty on both counts – what he has done, and what he has failed to do. This president does not deserve your confidence, nor your vote. He has not earned either.
Staten Island placed its confidence in the businessman/TV-personality-turned-politician in 2016 to the tune of 97,612 Trump votes to Hillary Clinton’s 67,561. Heavy South Shore turnout, while low on the North Shore, fueled the victory here.
Four years later, many on Staten Island, and in the nation, point to what they see as Trump successes.
All pre-pandemic, of course, but they’ll argue low unemployment and a soaring stock market, boosting their 401k plans. Never mind it all may have been set in motion as the Obama-Biden administration drew to a close, setting up Trump on that path to success.
They love his law-and-order rhetoric, despite riots across the country in the wake of the deaths of Black men and women, and his inability to quell the anger. Blame it on the Democrats, they’ll say. Never mind the tone he sets.
They’ll argue he was right to play tough guy with world leaders by pulling out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which ironically takes effect the day after election. Never mind that scientists across the globe say warming is a threat. The president labels it a hoax.
They’ll argue he was smart to impose tariffs against China. Never mind American companies are suing to get tariff refunds, saying it is costing them dearly.
Legitimate debates, perhaps – positions we see some supporting and others not.
But then there are game changers: Donald Trump has failed monumentally in his leadership during the throes of the deadliest pandemic to overwhelm our country in 100 years. He may not be responsible for all of the nation’s coronavirus deaths, but his contempt for reasonable mitigation efforts – masks and social distancing – has clearly led to thousands of deaths, and untold financial and personal suffering.
Add to that the divisiveness and hatred he has sowed among Americans. He seems to support white supremacy, playing on suburban racist fears. "People living their “suburban lifestyle dream” will “no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.”
In other words, white people versus people of color. Staggering words coming from the leader of the free world.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden at the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Sept. 29. Jim Watson and Saul Loeb | AFP via Getty Images
His handling of the coronavirus that has killed more than 225,000 Americans – 1,093 of them Staten Islanders -- is a disgrace. The president privately told a journalist in February that we faced this plague-like disease. Yet he did nothing except impose a ban on China travel, a ban that came nowhere near accomplishing what he now boasts. The virus had already spread through Europe and travel to the U.S. from China’s Hong Kong and Macao territories continued. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.
“Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure,” The AP reported.
The president’s refusal to even entertain the advice of medical professionals and scientists, calling them “idiots,” is nothing short of astonishing. His mocking of anyone who wears a facemask in their effort to protect their own health and that of others, is absurd.
His pronouncements that the coronavirus is nothing more than the flu, convincing followers that it will disappear any day now, is criminal.
His assertion – and demand – that a vaccine would be ready by Election Day is pathetically transparent. He accuses Democrats of playing politics with the virus. That is all he has done since the first day he held daily White House Covid briefings, something he stopped by June.
And now, presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows told the American people that the United States is “not going to control the pandemic” but instead rely in finding the vaccine. Biden immediately accused the White House of waving the white flag, which Meadows immediately dismissed. No doubt after a conversation with his boss.
While Donald Trump spends a good part of his time assailing every Democratic governor in America, Joe Biden spends his time pledging that “I’m running as a Democrat, but I will be an American president . . . I don’t see red states and blue states,” he said. “What I see is American, United States.”
The president makes light of Biden’s nearly five decades in service to the American public. “The fact is, I did more in 47 months as president than Joe Biden did in 47 years,” Trump boasted, a ridiculous assertion.
It appears the president doesn’t know the history.
Joe Biden has developed relationships with senators and representatives in the House on both sides of the aisle. He was Barack Obama’s go-to guy when deals had to be brokered. America climbed out of the recession of the mid-2000s with Joe Biden implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Without it, the auto industry would have collapsed. He was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 30-plus years. He sponsored the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994. He served as primary sponsor of the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008, helping law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child predators. He secured the passage of arms limitation agreements in 1979 between the United States and the Soviet Union, reducing the risk of global nuclear disaster. He was a principle architect of the Affordable Care Act and promises that he will make it even better, cutting prescription drug costs, reducing Medicare eligibility to age 60, and keeping the pre-existing conditions provision.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and her husband Doug Emhoff during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)AP
We have little doubt that in Kamala Harris, America will have a vice president who will be publicly more visible and a key player in White House decisions. She has served in the Senate since 2017 and before that was a prosecutor and later district attorney of San Francisco for seven years. She was California attorney general and, elected twice, served in that role for six years. She will not be a “Yes Woman.”
If the sitting president wants to talk law and order, he should talk to Kamala Harris. Although her reputation is progressive, she is no Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As San Francisco’s D.A., she had an 87% conviction rate for homicides and a 90% conviction rate for felony gun possessions.
Our choice this election season comes to this: Do we want to live in an America consumed by hatred and anger? An America whose leader makes a mockery of all the country stands for with his childish rants, inane tweets and seriously questionable judgement? An America whose commander-in-chief has declared war on media and journalists in order to suppress checks on his own governance, who has overtly encouraged violent acts against American citizens during protests and actually had peaceful protestors attacked in order to clear the way for a photo op? Or do we want to live in an America where its leader thinks before he talks? Where we can be assured he cares as much about our lives and the lives of our families as he does his own? An America where its leadership will work to bring us together, not divide us. An America where its leader, perhaps not the perfect candidate but a leader, who is stable, capable and compassionate?
The choice is yours.
For us, the choice is Joe Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., pass each other as Harris moves to the podium to speak during a campaign event at Alexis Dupont High School in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)AP