re: #17 i(m)p(each)sos

Oh, no doubt, and I’d trust either of them (or Klobuchar, or hell, even Steyer or Bloomberg) to pick competent and smart people for that. (Bernie, not so much. Tulsi, not at all.)

But: calming the world is going to be a huge job that the next president shouldn’t and can’t completely delegate, even to a really solid SoS and/or VP.

The world of 2021 (if we last that long) is going to want the new president, him- or herself, out front as the healer-in-chief. We used to have a guy who was really good at that, dammit. And for all of Biden’s flaws, which are many and which are deeply worrisome, my gut is telling me he’s going to get a bump as people look to him as being the guy best prepared to take on that particular role.

A few thoughts:

1) I don’t necessarily see that Joe Biden has any particular strength that puts him head and shoulders above Elizabeth Warren. He has served on many diplomatic delegations and done good things in this regard, but just because foreign policy is his only real strength doesn’t mean he’s all that much stronger than a rational, well-spoken Senator like Warren. The other ‘frontrunners’, ie. Sanders and Buttigieg, would make terrible presidents and are only frontrunners because the US media really, really wants a white man as President.

2) Arguably, it really doesn’t matter who America puts forward as a candidate, because in the eyes of the world, how do you trust America ever again? How do you make any deal with President Biden knowing that Americans are just itching to make Donald Trump Jr King as soon as possible?

3) If it is possible at all to repair America’s image in the next generation or so, it would be with nations who value rational, honest actors, and it is not lost on these nations that America is stating clearly that it is ruled by and on behalf of white men only. Sending out another white man is not going to have the same calming effect that it would have on Americans. Even India, one of the most misogynistic and patriarchal cultures on earth, has had a woman Prime Minister. Americans may feel better when white men rule them as God intended, but foreign diplomats may not respond the same way.