These are not the five ads that won the 2020 campaign contrary to Benedict Pringle‘s assertions.
This is what won. Deserve. The country needs to hear a bipartisan, collective, updated version of this message now, after one year in and three to go, with mighty, unexpected setbacks faced. This is how hope grows, what the country deserves to survive and thrive, the anthem of present tense accomplishments by American people regardless of political affiliation or geography in a time of unrelenting pandemic precarity:
With added, proven, present tense, inputs such as these:
- “The American Rescue Plan…cut child poverty in half by putting $66 billion into 36 million households.”
- “Year-end accounts of the U.S. economy are very strong indeed. According to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal—which are certainly not giddy media outlets—U.S. economic output has jumped more than 7% in the last three months of 2021. Overall growth for 2021 should be about 6%, and economists predict growth of around 4% in 2022—the highest numbers the U.S. has seen in decades. China’s growth in the same period will be 4%, and the eurozone (which is made up of the member countries of the European Union that use the euro) will grow at 2%.”
- “The U.S. is “outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century,” wrote Matthew A. Winkler in Bloomberg, “and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years….””
- “In February, Biden’s first month in office, the jobless rate was 6.2%; today it has dropped to 4.2%. This means the Biden administration has created 4.1 million jobs, more than were created in the 12 years of the Trump and George W. Bush administrations combined. Wages in America are growing at about 4% a year, compared with less than 1% a year in the eurozone, as worker shortages and strikes at places like Deere & Co. (which makes John Deere products) and Kellogg’s are pushing wages up and as states increase minimum wages.”
- “The American Rescue Plan, passed by Democrats in March without a single Republican vote, cut child poverty in half by putting $66 billion into 36 million households. More than 4.6 million Americans who were not previously insured have gotten healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act, bringing the total covered to a record 13.6 million. When Biden took office, about 46% of schools were open; currently the rate is 99%. In November, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will repair bridges and roads and get broadband to places that still don’t have it.”
- “Support for consumers has bolstered U.S. companies, which are showing profit margins higher than they have been since 1950, at 15%. Companies have reduced their debt, which has translated to a strong stock market.”
- “The American economy is the strongest it’s been in decades, with the U.S. leading the world in economic growth…so why on earth do 54% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy (according to a [recent] CNN/SSRS poll)?”
- “That disapproval comes partly from inflation, which in November was at 6.8%, the highest in 39 years, but inflation is high around the world as we adjust to post-pandemic reopening. Gas prices, which created an outcry a few weeks ago, have come down significantly. Patrick De Haan, an oil and refined products analyst at GasBuddy, an app to find cheap gas prices, tweeted today that average gas prices have fallen under $3 a gallon in 12 states and that in 36 U.S. cities, prices have fallen by more than $0.25 a gallon in the past 30 days. Falling prices reflect skyrocketing gasoline inventories.”
- “Respondents also said they were upset by disruptions in the supply chain. But in fact, the much-hyped fear that supply chain crunches would keep packages from being delivered on time for the holidays has proved to be misguided: 99% of packages are arriving on time. This is a significant improvement over 2020, and even over 2019. It reflects that companies have built more warehouse space and expanded delivery hours, that people have shopped early this year, and that buyers are venturing back into stores rather than relying on online shopping.”
- “What it does not reflect is a weakened retail market. Major ports in the U.S. will process almost one-fifth more containers in terms of volume than they did in 2019. Container traffic at European ports has stayed flat or declined. Consumer goods are flying off the shelves at a rate about 45% higher than they did in 2018: it looks like Americans will spend about 11.5% more in this holiday season than they did in 2020. Indeed, according to Tom Fairless in the Wall Street Journal, American consumer demand was the key factor in the global supply chain bottlenecks in the first place.”
- “And yet 63% of the poll’s respondents to the CNN/SSRS poll said that the nation’s economy is in poor shape. And here’s why: 57% of them say that the economic news they’ve heard lately has been mostly bad. Only 19% say they are hearing mostly good news about the economy.”
- “How people think about the country depends on the stories they hear about it.” – Heather Cox Richardson
Only 19% of America gets to hear mostly good news about the country. Let the People’s Freedom and Pride in unfragmented Democracy, the inviolable Rule of Law, and these reassuring economic performance indices ring. “How people think about the country depends on the stories they hear about it.”
Let’s tell the good news stories to the rest of America’s 81% especially in the face of Covid, inflation and the upcoming first anniversary of America’s twenty-first century first domestic insurrection selling rancid, racist nationalism as patriotism of the faithful. Like hit songs playing non-stop on the radio tuned in to the heart of America’s civic soul, let’s drown out the background babel-cacophony of false performative prophets shouting from populism pay-to-play pulpits, those who claim to know otherwise but can’t prove two words of what they scream at us.
Deploy the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, the moral force of facts uplifting localized, inclusive solutions until they become bipartisan truths. Talking to and with the people, never at or down to them, hearing by listening hard to what they have to say to circle back with proffered antidotes in outstretched hands earning credibility and trust. Endless do-loop of first doing good to then do well by others as ourselves.
Focus on equal opportunities for all starting with the country’s mosaic precariat in ways that count the most for those most in need. Leave the snark-verse to the shark tank replete with those who would divide us, securely festooned on intra-commoditizing platforms cannibalizing spirituality, solidarity, citizenship, democracy, and anything humanly decent.
Scale life’s inherent biological ratio of two ears to one mouth connected to minds, hearts, and souls.
Help us find the hope we so desperately need as regenerating fuel to rebuild today and tomorrow.
Revitalize https://unitethecountry.com/ for 2022. In its original, authentic, compelling, and deserving beyond partisanship voice.
More reading:
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/next-us-civil-war-already-here-we-refuse-to-see-it – by Stephen Marche
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/opinion/january-6-attack-committee.html
- ProPublica’s upcoming event, “The Insurrection: One Year Later.” on January 6, 2022 at 3:00 PM EST. You can use this link to join the event.
