For those out there who like to read about bad news and how much the sky is falling, today’s post will most likely not be your cup of tea. I will do the Democratic Party and the President of the United States a favor by touting some fantastic news today.
I know it’s not the narrative our mainstream media likes to engage in, but what the hell? Consider today’s post a public service announcement consisting of truth and facts, of which millions of Americans will not hear, or if they do, will merely chalk it up to “fake news.”
Consider the following economic news, released earlier today:
*Non-farm payrolls increased by 531,000 in October, beating the estimate of 450,000
*The unemployment rate fell to 4.6%, a new pandemic low and better than expectations.
*Wages rose 0.4% for the month and were up 4.9% from a year ago.
*Private payroll growth was strong, rising 604,000. 73,000 Government jobs were lost, which pulled down the overall number.
*September gains were revised upward to 312,000 from last month’s initial report that showed 194,00 jobs created.
*August job creation was also revised upward by 117,000 to 483,000
In addition to those robust gains, the stock market continues on its record rise, currently sitting at around 36,300. Weekly jobless claims totaled 269,000 last week, representing the lowest pandemic-era total to date.
In other words, folks, things are getting better in America. You certainly wouldn’t know it based on the total complete media freakout from Tuesday’s off-year gubernatorial elections. We were told by more than a few “expert” pundits that the Democratic Party and Biden were on life support. That Terry McAuliffe’s loss in Virginia and Phil Murphy’s close win in New Jersey represented an extreme warning sign that Democrats were poised to fall apart in next year’s mid-term elections.
However, what was lost in the translation is that what happened in Virginia is what has happened in all but one of that state’s elections over the past nearly 50 years, following a previous year’s presidential election. The president’s political party, whether Republican or Democrat, lost the Virginia governor’s race to the opposite party the following year. Ironically, the only exception was when McAuliffe followed President Obama’s 2012 re-election with a victory in 2013.
It’s part of the usual political cycle we’ve seen for decades now, but that was not the narrative winning the day on Tuesday. Nor was the fact that Phil Murphy became the first Democrat in nearly 44 years to win re-election in New Jersey. You’d think that might be the story, but it was the “narrow win” in a state Biden won by 16 points that got the most airtime.
Putting Tuesday’s election mania aside, though, there’s more good news to report, and it goes hand in hand with the positive economic numbers. Finally, it seems we may be seeing the worst days of the pandemic slowly receding in the rear-view mirror. Yes, we thought that was the case over the summer, and then we got slammed with the deadly contagious Delta-variant.
But this time, it feels different. Just this week, the CDC authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for 5–11 year-olds. Soon, pharmacies and pediatrician offices will have the capability to vaccinate up to 28 million kids. Surely they’ll be hesitancy amongst parents, and it might take a while to get those shots into arms. Still, hopefully, that hesitancy will wane once people see the safety and efficacy for themselves.
Also, today, Pfizer announced that its experimental antiviral pill to treat COVID-19 was shown to cut by 89% the chances of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of developing severe disease. It’s expected to secure U.S. regulatory approval by the end of the year. President Biden said the government had secured millions of doses of the drug.
And that brings us to why President Biden was elected in the first place: Getting a handle on COVID-19. And on that front, the numbers indicate he’s done an outstanding job. Here are just a few to ponder:
*Currently, there are roughly 192 million Americans fully vaccinated, representing 58.2% of the total population of the United States.
*Nearly 223 million, or 67.6% of the population, have gotten at least one shot.
Considering where we were on January 20, 2021, this is progress. The fact is, with the massive disinformation campaign currently infecting social media and Republican Governors suing the government for trying to mandate vaccinations, the numbers are truly remarkable. If Biden didn’t have to deal with the crazies out there, we’d be so much further ahead than we are now. But let’s give credit where credit is due.
And while we hear on an hourly basis how the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves, and they are, the fact remains that we’re on the cusp of them passing two enormous pieces of transformative legislation. The Build Back Better (BBB) and Bi-partisan Infrastructure (BIF) bills will soon become law. The process has sucked, quite frankly, and it’s causing some Americans to become frustrated and angry about the whole ordeal.
Once official, though, when you couple those bills with the $1.9 trillion rescue plan enacted earlier this year, the Democrats and President Biden will have delivered massive relief to the middle-class and working men and women of this country that should be paying dividends for years to come. Surely the narrative will be different next year, right?
One would hope. But Democrats, unfortunately, do not excel at messaging, while their counterpart Republican friends do. The messages Republicans are good at are lies, distortions, racial division, and disinformation. But damn, they’re so good at it. Democrats must get their act together to counteract the B.S. we will hear from them in the year ahead. If not, they will lose Congress. It’s that simple. On a side note, it was good to see President Biden out early today touting the good economic numbers. More of that, please!
Finally, I’d like to address one more thing I’ve heard from many folks, especially on social media, and it concerns President Biden. Here’s the deal: Biden’s an old man. There, I said the obvious. Most Democrats do not want him to run in 2024, and you can count me as part of that group. He’ll be 82 years old, and even I have to admit that he’s lost a step. It would be nice if we could get some new and younger blood in the White House.
But if the items I’ve just talked about begin to bear fruit; if all of the legislation is in place, as well as hopefully passing a meaningful voting rights bill soon, will he not be seen as one of our nation’s greatest presidents, even if it might be for only one term?
I want to think so. That’s not too bad for an old guy. I’m more than willing to accept a blunder here and there if he can right America’s wayward ship.
The bottom line is this: Joe Biden and the Democrats are steadying that ship, folks. Do we remember how close we came to losing it all on January 6, 2021? Things are moving in the right direction, no matter what the mainstream media tries to tell you. And indeed, not the lies we hear from Republicans and the right-wing media echo chamber.
I hope I didn’t bore you with good news today. But after what we’ve been through as Americans over the past five years, do we not deserve it?
On The Fence Voters 
Leave a comment