All is Quiet on the Southern Front
It’s been only a week since Inauguration Day, but from my vantage point just north of the forty-ninth parallel, it seems very quiet in the good old U.S. of A. Biden has been quietly signing executive orders in rapid succession to get the lurching tanker back on kilter and good things seem to be afloat.
His number one priority is streamlining the delivery of the Covid vaccine with the help of the military. Second, he is trying to bring in a trillion (with a T) dollar economic aid package to stimulate the economy and put cash in people’s pockets as soon as possible. He is also moving to set a minimum wage of $15 and postpone evictions for failure to pay rent for several more months. These are all good things.
He has also dived into climate change by rejoining the Paris Agreement and putting a halt to the Keystone Pipeline. He has taken a stance against racism by forming a Domestic Policy Council to help bring services and health care into poor back communities. He has rescinded Trump’s border blockade on Muslim travelers and is working to reunite Central American families who were separated by Trump’s awful wall. These are all good things.
From a personal perspective, through chatting with my American friends on Twitter, there seems to finally be some calm in their mood and hope that social justice might prevail now that the orange goblin is gone. The news channels are quieter, the endless posts about all his mistakes have stopped and there’s a sense that the wheels of government are grinding away as they should. It is a nice change.
I truly hope that Mr. Biden lives up to the hype and delivers some improvements in the living conditions of the average American worker. It has truly been difficult to watch our neighbours unravel into despair these past four years. My daughter lives down there, so I feel more personally invested than some Canadians. Please share your hopes and any changes you have noticed, for better or worse.
*sourced from Time Magazine article by Jeffrey Kruger and Simone Shah* Feb.1, 2021
