BIDEN’S VISION ON HOW TO HEAL OUR COUNTRY
Just a few days ago, the United States was in a national tizzy about a balloon.
Never mind that China poses a more significant security risk through TikTok, potentially spying on us while floating inside our phones, and that the United States probably will garner more intelligence from the balloon than it did on us.
President Joe Biden wisely skipped over the balloon in his exceptionally strong State of the Union address to address topics that matter much more, and that will actually affect our ability to stand up to China. These include the millions of Americans who “have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible,” and who are now part of the staggering toll of addiction.
We now lose more Americans to “deaths of despair” — drugs, alcohol and suicide — every 10 days than the total of all the service members killed in two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And for every person who dies from an overdose, countless other homes are in anguish because of a loved one struggling with addiction or mental health.
We also desperately need better policies, for our system for providing mental health services and drug treatment is a disgrace. Only 13% of those with drug addictions get treatment. And China’s most grievous behavior toward us doesn’t involve a balloon but the reckless export by Chinese companies of fentanyl precursors that end up killing Americans.
I don’t know if Biden’s proposals — involving a major effort to crack down on fentanyl — will succeed. Nobody does.
Deaths of despair are just one facet of our country’s dysfunction. With mediocre fourth-grade reading scores, unacceptable high school graduation rates and appalling levels of child poverty, they constitute the four vital signs for a patient who is not doing well — and we must address these underlying pathologies if we are to be competitive with China and the world.
As President John F. Kennedy noted, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
Affluent Americans are often insulated from the crisis in working-class America, but Biden’s understanding comes through with his focus on the word “dignity.”
“My dad used to say, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck,” Biden said in Tuesday’s speech. “It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect.”
Millions of workers today are scrambling for money and numbing their pain with drugs or alcohol. That’s why a successful drug policy has to be not just about treatment or interdiction of fentanyl, but also about education, job training and more opportunity — and Biden offered that vision in his speech.
When Republicans bluster about confronting China and defending America’s place in the world, I hope Biden will make the point that these domestic initiatives are every bit as important as our aircraft carriers. Military hardware cannot fully compensate for domestic unraveling.
I have a friend, Eric, who for decades wasn’t able to get a bank account. This is common: Some 4.5% of American households have no one with a bank account, and this is costly. Every time Eric needed to cash a check, he had to pay an $8 fee. But there was another cost as well: the sense of exclusion.
A few days ago, Eric was finally able to open a bank account — thanks, Umpqua Bank! — and he won’t have to pay fees. That’s an economic relief, but he focused on the psychic benefit. “I feel part of the community,” he told me.
That’s the task Biden faces — to recreate community and opportunity, invest in children and healing, and build our strength at home. And that’s the way we most effectively stand up to China, not by pounding our chests and pledging all the ways we’re going to pulverize a balloon.