Biden was Elected: Now What? — Musings of a Modern Mermaid

On November 3rd, all of America was holding its breath to see what was going to happen. Rational America was hoping, praying, wishing, and refreshing the maps on our phones every five minutes to hopefully see Biden winning the big states; America according to Trump started in right away to say that things were being fraudulently counted and inaccurately represented. They are still up to this even after Biden has been declared the winner of the election by all the media, most branches of the government, and all of the states Trump is trying to sue for voter fraud. The unfortunate part of this whole election is that Trump is acting like a petulant child isn’t the worst part; it is everyone thinking that since Biden has been elected that all the problems of the past four years (and especially this year) suddenly will go away. This is hazardous thinking, and we cannot fall into it; Biden is the much better choice to Trump, but he is still a white, upper-class man in politics who is capable of making mistakes. And he will still need to be held accountable for them.

Now that Biden and Harris are elected, our work officially starts. We have a president and vice president who are going to hopefully be more willing to listen to the public and make an actual change and we cannot allow them to not listen to us now that we have made it this far. This is the first step, not the final one. Don’t get me wrong; when Biden was elected I was so ecstatic I teared up a bit. Knowing the Kamala Harris is not only the first female Vice President but also the first black, South Asian Vice President. Many strides have been here, and it ok to be extremely excited by this and celebrate that! Just do not let it cloud your judgment over the next four years as we move forward. Now that we have people in positions of power who actually want to help out the people they serve (we do not serve them, they work for the people) we need to keep pushing things forward so we can actually affect the change we have been trying to create all of 2020. Below I have outlined some of the key things we the people need to make sure we are holding them accountable for.

Climate Change- Biden has made it very clear that he would put the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement as well as enact the Green New Deal. This deal was introduced by lawmakers back in 2006, but then fell by the wayside as other things seemed to take precedent, but was brought up again by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. The Trump admin made a point to roll back as many environmental protections as they could possibly find, as well as constantly denying science and climate change, but the Biden/Harris admin has made it one of their main campaign points to do things differently. The wildfires the West Coast saw this year as well as an uptick in other natural disasters and odd climate patterns are proof that as a country we need to start doing things to preserve the only planet we can live on. We have to make sure that they not only go back to the Paris Climate Agreement and enact the Green New Deal but that they hold the people with the most greenhouse admissions accountable to change them. Things are only going to get worse for the planet (and us) if we do not make sure that these things go into effect. I have given some links for you all to use in order to make sure you are staying involved: Rainforest Alliance, United Nations, Environmental Defense, World Resources Report, Earth. Org, Green Peace.

Systemic Racism and Police Brutality- This is a big one. Even though this is something that will likely not be completely solved in the four years Biden is president, there are steps that need to be taken, and that he has promised to take. Biden has been very vocal about restricting the police system in order to make them only needed when there is an actual emergency (murder, break-in, someone threatening things with a weapon, etc.) and to redistribute funds to other groups within communities to help curb the amount of violence that occurs among the police force. Systemic racism is a harder one to combat since there is no one, singular clear solution. But, he has made promises about how he can help make these things better too. Hate crimes being prosecuted more fully, look at the prison industrial complex and release black people incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes, working on racism in the workplace, and so much more. I have left some links for you all to continue to use to demand justice for black people who are victims of police brutality, including people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As great as Kamala Harris seems as much as she has broken so many glass ceilings, she does have a history of siding with cops and locking away black people for petting marijuana-related crimes. Feel free to do research on this, but it is something we need to be aware of and hold her accountable for. Change, ACLU, Black Lives Matter, Repeller (there are a bunch of different resources in here so please check this one out), Transforming the System, The Atlantic, Equal Justice Initiative.

Health Care- Another doozy. It is absolutely disgraceful that not only is Trump trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act before he leaves office, he also denied medical aid to people who were laid off during a global pandemic and then lost their health coverage. During a global pandemic. How is that even remotely acceptable? While I hope he would be able to enact some sort of medicare for all, I do not know that he would be able to with only four years. So, we just need to see him uphold the very basic and minimum requirements to help make sure everyone has comprehensible health insurance. There needs to at least be a way to not tie health insurance to your job, so if you get laid off or fired you do not need to worry about not having health care. Health care is a human right and so many people do not have it during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Now more than ever it needs to be made a central part of the next four years so everyone, including the low-income families (POC are disproportionately affected), has access to health care. Here are some links on how to continue to make sure this gets pushed through: Washington Post, AAFP.org, World Health Organization, NCIB. This is not something I can link since it will be different for everyone, but pay attention to the public health officials in your community; they will tell you what they need and what you should be doing!

Women’s Health- Unfortunately, with Amy Coney Barrett now on the Supreme Court, women’s health is in serious jeopardy. Ted Cruz and many other Republicans have been making comments about how birth control is basically an abortion pill (which is just not even scientifically true at all) and how it needs to be banned. There is also talk of trying to get Roe v. Wade overturned, and let’s not forget that the US has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation. Women are not treated with respect and we are not taken seriously in this society, and there need to be laws in place to make sure we are. Laws need to be put in place to help make sure women are protected in all medical situations, that we have bodily autonomy, and that basic female health care (birth control, access to abortions) is given to us without question. If there is better access to birth control, there will be fewer abortions. Employers and doctors should not be allowed to not cover/prescribe birth control for religious reasons. They are not the ones taking it (and they don’t have to) so it is unacceptable that someone’s religious beliefs would get in the way of someone else access to health care, which is a basic human right. Here are some links to keep the Biden/Harris team accountable when it comes to all things women’s health: Agency for Healthcare Research, Planned Parenthood, RAINN (there is a specific link in here that will help you hold the senate accountable to end the backlog of rape kits), End the Backlog, Yellowhammer Fund, Center for Reproductive Rights, Physicians for Reproductive Health.

COVID Response and Relief- This is one I really hope we do not need to keep them accountable for. Trump and his team completely butchered the handling of the pandemic and the fact that the US is leading Covid deaths are ridiculous. He fired the pandemic response team and then continuously discredited scientists and told everyone at every press conference that Covid wasn’t bad and everything is fine. I’m sorry, but does 11.6 million seem fine to anyone else? Luckily Biden is at least a reasonably rational human who will listen to the doctors and scientists to proceed with the best way to get things under control. I do think it is important to make sure that there is another stimulus should we go back into lockdown (a better one that one $1200 check) and there needs to be better programs put in place to help small business affected by the pandemic, rent and mortgage forgiveness, health care for all, and student loan debt forgiveness wouldn’t be bad either. People would be less upset going into another lockdown (which we need to do to end this) if they knew they wouldn’t be homeless and lose their businesses over it. Here are some links to make to hold them accountable for stimulus and relief: The Hill, CNET, News Week, International Monetary Fund. For a lot of Covid relief and making sure you can hold officials responsible, you have to go through your state representatives and senators. A quick Google search will give you the info you need.

The Issues at the Border- This is yet another heavier hitter and the one I am going to end on for today. 666 is the number of children in detention facilities at the border who do not know where their parents are. Women are being sterilized without their consent. Covid is running rampant because no one is taking precautions. Young children are being forced to care for even younger children because no one else will take care of them. This is a horrific abuse of human beings and it has got to stop. Biden needs to work on getting things in place so this doesn’t happen ever again, work on making actual immigration policy that is doable, and finding and reuniting all of these families. What is happening there is absolutely disgraceful and I am horrified to live in this country when they could do something so awful. I will once again leave some links here for you to use in order to keep them accountable for this. New York Times, American Immigration Council, Council on Foreign Relations. Once again, you will also need to connect your specific state representatives for this action. Their emails and phone numbers are easily available online.

That is all for today folks! I have a fashion post coming for ya this weekend, and some more content ready to go for next weekend! In those links, I included ways for you to get involved and to help with each of the causes above. Please comment below anything I may have missed, any other organizations you know of that I didn’t list, and honestly just any information you would like to share about these topics!

Madey

Cover art by Avery Lynch