Biden Calls for a Return to Unity
By: Stan Maddux
Former vice-president Joe Biden called for America to rediscover itself as a nation striving with a sense of decency toward consensus.
He said Congress holds the key and can start by lowering political barriers no matter how wide to get to know each other as human beings.
”We got to start talking to one another again,” said Biden during a October 16 presentation in front of close to 2,000 people at the Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor.
The 47th vice-president under Barack Obama and former longtime U.S senator from Delaware said the shortage of lawmakers reaching across party lines was caused by gerrymandering and unlimited cash political action committees can donate to campaigns without PACs having to disclose their financial contributors.
He said gerrymandering of the U.S House of Representatives district boundaries resulted in just 140 of the 435 seats being competitive.
The rest of the districts are so overwhelmingly democratic or republican, Biden said many officeholders base decisions strictly on the wishes of PACs to avoid losing that support to an extremist primary challenger.
The views behind the extremist money also discourages opposing party members in Congress from getting to know each other personally, which can stop any effort to reach a middle ground from getting underway.
”Too many people in both parties have decided the job is worth more than their principles,” Biden said.
Biden was 29 when elected in 1972 to the U.S Senate as a democrat from a state that supported the reelection that year of republican president Richard Nixon.
Times were different then with more congressmen, including himself, reaching out to members from the other party not just on the issues but to get acquainted.
Biden said he even made many republican friends like John McCain, the late U.S Senator from Arizona.
At McCain’s request, Biden delivered his eulogy.
Now, he said the extremism from both political sides has hate groups he thought crawled into a hole years ago back in the spotlight and human decency toward one another nationwide diminishing.
Eventually, though, Biden said he believes the uprising fueled by resistance to a changing society will go away.
However, he hopes Congress can begin the healing process before too many children begin following the example of the underbelly they’re seeing more often on their screens.
”I believe we’re living through the battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said.
Biden kicked off this year’s 75th annual line-up of guest speakers brought in by the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan.
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