Joy Reid pushed back on Republican calls for Democrats to thank Trump voters. For what, I’m not sure, given that they still refuse to acknowledge the election results. Instead, Reid noted that the celebrations over Biden’s win were akin to those following the fall of the Berlin Wall or a dictatorship. And she unabashedly joined in. “They understand just how close we came to losing our democracy,” she said.
She reminded us that it’s not just Trump’s departure we should celebrate but those of his administration cronies, such as William Barr, “worst attorney general since, well, his predecessor, Jefferson Sessions,” and Stephen Miller, “only one of multiple white nationalists who Trump brought into the administration to tragic results for Muslim and migrant refugees.”
“America can breathe again,” Reid continued, because a Biden administration will work to reunite migrant children with their parents, reverse orders such as the one “banning federal funding to institutions that tell the truth about America's racial history” and have our country rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
“We can repair our relationships with our allies who will no longer think that we are a nation gone mad. And we can work on police reform and restoring the Voting Rights Act,” Reid added. “And instead of potentially millions of us dying in a bizarre herd immunity experiment, we'll finally have a plan to defeat the coronavirus. With a strategy based on science, not miracle cures and quacks and pillow salesmen.”
The result is that American lives were saved by ousting Trump, Reid pointed out. She gave thanks to the Black, Latino and Indigenous voters and activists who “got it done.” She also noted that with Kamala Harris as vice president, “little girls of every race, color and creed will see themselves when they see American power.”
Then Reid directly addressed the Republican hypocrisy of demanding strokes for Trump voters. At the same time, she cheered on Biden’s efforts to be president of all Americans:
Joe Biden is going to be the president. And he has made it clear that he intends to be actively the president for everyone. And that's a good thing. It's a necessary thing because we’ve got a vicious virus to fight, every one of us, so that we can get back to normal lives and out of our basements. And the right can go back to hating us because we’ve got Hollywood and Beyoncé. Sorry!
Reid suggested Biden should take a cue from from Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 inaugural address in which he warned that the 600,000 dead in the ongoing Civil War were a judgment from God about slavery. But he also offered hope that the country would end the war “with malice toward none; with charity for all; and “bind up the nation’s wounds.”
“Here's rooting for you, President-elect Joe Biden. You'll need it. Good luck,” Reid concluded.
