QOTD: Focus On Congress, Not Just Presidential Race

 

Washington Post op-ed columnist Colbert King on how the election is about more than Biden vs. the Malignant Loser:

"The Biden-Trump collision will get sorted out on Election Day. But at least for this voter, Trump is a settled matter, and he has been since he crashed the presidential scene in 2016. I have said as much. The past eight years, with his abuse of presidential powers and his malignant conversion of the Republican Party into a cult of his own, have served only to reinforce what was apparent from the start.

It would be a mistake, however, to get totally distracted by Biden and Trump. The struggle for control of Congress matters enormously, too. Lose sight of Capitol Hill and say goodbye to any influence over laws that affect the life you want to lead. The House and Senate are not stately relics. They are the places where a president’s policies find life or death.

Much is being made, among the core and vital Democratic constituencies of Black voters and young progressives, of the fact that Biden has not delivered on issues he campaigned on. Policing, criminal justice and voting rights are at the top of the list. So are complaints that the Biden White House has not produced material changes in the lives of people of color and those left out of the system.

Those critics are myopic at best, and blind as bats at worst. They fail to look toward the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where Congress sits and disposes of a president’s proposals. Take, for instance, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, named for the 46-year-old Black man killed by Minneapolis police in 2020. Introduced in the House and endorsed by Biden, the act died on Capitol Hill.

That’s because there weren’t enough yea votes for the bill in Congress. And that’s because not enough Americans showed up to vote in the House and Senate races to make sure there were." (our emphasis)

Two of the three branches of the Federal Government are elected, and they determine who will judge in the third branch. King reminds us that elections, from the Presidency, to Congress, to State officials, have to be paid attention to and participated in. Despite the attention paid them, the Presidential candidates are only part of the picture.