A Biden campaign speech about inflation
There are a great many issues on the ballot on November 8, 2022: abortion, gun control, climate action, and democracy to name a few. Every poll, however, says that the economy and inflation are at the top of the list in voters’ minds.
Currently Democratic candidates are doing an excellent job of ignoring inflation and the economy. President Biden recently addressed the issue in this way, “The economy is strong.” That is not enough, Joe. Listen up. I am going to tell you what you need to say if we are to keep control of the House of Representatives and gain a couple of seats in the Senate. Here is a speech you can give. Excuse me if I don’t get the voice completely right.
President Biden steps to the podium and begins:
My fellow Americans when I was running for President of the United States, I said there would be no Malarkey. I meant it. I understand your pain when you go to fill up your tank or buy groceries. Inflation in America is at its highest in 40 years. You may not think so, but my administration is doing everything possible to bring the inflation down without causing a recession. Meanwhile the Republicans are working really hard to convince you that we caused the inflation and are doing nothing. So, let’s talk about inflation for a minute.
America isn’t the only country experiencing record inflation. Most countries around the world are in the same boat. Over 100 countries have worse inflation than ours. Prime Minister Truss in Britain may lose her job because she thinks the solution is to give tax breaks to the rich.
Biden leans over and whispers into the mic:
Everybody knows that won’t work.
Then continues,
In France the entire country is prepared to go on strike because they need relief from rising prices.
You gotta ask yourself, ‘If old Joe here caused our inflation, how come so many countries are suffering from it?’ The answer is simple. I didn’t. This global inflation was caused by how all of us nations reacted to the pandemic, putting billions and billions of dollars into circulation to make sure COVID didn’t kill 50 million people before we had vaccines, to make sure our citizens didn’t starve while we waited, and to make sure our economies didn’t crash and make things even worse. In America, most of that money was spent before I became President.
Regardless of who you elected in 2020, our rescue effort during the pandemic was going to cause inflation. You elected me. That makes the pandemic inflation my problem.
Then in February, Russia invaded Ukraine wrecking the supplies of oil and wheat around the world. Gasoline and grocery prices soared. Just as gasoline was becoming affordable again, OPEC decided to cut production by 2 million barrels per day. And that’s where we stand now.
The Fed is raising interest rates to slow the economy a little without causing a deep recession. We’ve passed the Inflation Reduction Act. We’ve lowered prescription drug prices and opened the strategic oil reserve so we can pump and refine more oil. There is legislation before congress to reduce our dependence on oil and make America energy independent… from oil. Legislation to allow farmers to grow more to reduce food prices, to invest in childcare to reduce its cost to our working parents and to tax the rich so they pay their fair share toward running America. I could go on.
But the point is that getting this inflation under control is going to take time, more time than we have before November 8. If you want to see this inflation problem solved, if you want to protect a women’s right to choose, if you want to have sensible gun controls, if you want to act decisively on climate change, if you want the January 6 perpetrators to be held responsible for their actions, then you need to give us more time. You need to vote to keep the Democrats in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
If the Republicans are put in charge, we will still have this inflation and they will raise taxes on the poor and middle class, ban abortion nationwide, end Social Security and Medicare, continue to deny that Climate Change exists, and let the planners and instigators of January 6 off Scot-free. The choice is clear.
That’s why I need you to get out and vote for Democrats on November 8.
That’s how I see it. No Malarkey.
God bless you all.
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We, the Unchosen
We did not grow up to be the President. We did not become pro sports legends, movie stars or astronauts. We have not won Nobel Prizes. Those dreams of greatness faded with adulthood and responsibilities. We chose families and the work-a-day life. We are the Unchosen. We are America.
My father belonged to the Greatest Generation, the one that saved the world from totalitarian rule by defeating Hitler and the Nazis. World War II claimed the lives of 419,000 Americans (60 million worldwide). All but a sliver of those were also Unchosen.
The perilous threats we face today overshadow those of my father’s generation. The global cost of worsening Climate Change, in lives and property, continues to mount. American oligarchs like Charles Koch are lining the pockets of Trump Republicans to make certain their income streams are uninterrupted by mitigation measures. Other oligarchs, likewise, make similar investments to avoid being taxed, thereby, assuring government coffers are too empty to take effective action on this extinction level event that is climate change.
The conservative U.S. Supreme Court, having diminished women’s control over their own bodies, blunted government efforts to allay our climate crisis, reduced efforts to control deadly weapons, and opened a breach in the wall between church and state, are prepared to vacate rights to contraception and same sex marriage, while allowing wholesale discrimination against certain minorities.
A re-elected Trump would hold Putin and Xi in such high esteem that, one could easily imagine him ceding Ukraine to the Russians and gifting Taiwan to China in exchange for one-third of the world pie, the triumvirate of nuclear nations, crushing democracies and ousting tinhorn dictators around the world along the way.
In November of 2020, we, the Unchosen, manned the polling ramparts and turned out in record numbers to fight for our seat at the table. We carried the day and took our seat.
Again, the forces of darkness are amassing for the next battle, armed with legalities and loopholes meant to strike down as many of our voting numbers as possible, while scaring up more opposing voters with inflation, immigration, and socialism.
Whenever Trump endorsed candidates declare that the 2020 election was stolen, they are not promoting the Big Lie. They are sounding a dog whistle to publicly acknowledge their ongoing seditious conspiracy and commit to installing Trump or a protégé as President following election 2024, by whatever means necessary. If his candidates are elected this November, they will be poised to install their candidate regardless of the outcome at the polls. If they succeed, 2024 will be the last free election in America.
We must defeat them all, even if it means escalating the civil war that may have already begun.
If we are victorious in this November’s election, we will further advance the transformation that will save us all. If we persist, triumph after triumph in election after election, through the darkness in the decades to come, we will reach the dawn of that better day, a democratic America, having averted the climate catastrophe. We, the Unchosen, will be hailed as the Greatest Generations to have ever lived.
If we fail, there will be no one left alive to notice.
We, the Unchosen, are the only heroes we have. We the are the heroes we need! You may not be a Democrat. You may not like what the Democrats stand for, but this November, they, alone, stand between us and the abyss. Choose wisely.
Vote!