NOVEMBER 25, 2020 – Yesterday I watched Biden’s live, televised introduction of his foreign policy and national security team and the individual presentations that followed: Antony Blinken, Secretary of State; Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence; Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security; Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Ambassador to the UN; Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor; John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy on Climate.
Now I know how it feels to be among marooned sailors low on hope, who, on the far side of an island called Despair, encounter a well-equipped, well-supplied rescue team eager to restore us to health and home.
The words that resonated above all the rest were in a single sentence uttered by the president-elect: “[These team members] will tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear.” Upon this alone I felt my hope and confidence soar . . . as did equity markets.
Biden’s picks exude expertise born of experience; intelligence leveraged by education; confidence filled with humility; empathy combined with competence. And they most certainly expressed my strongly held opinion that to resolve our most imponderable problems, we must work in concert, not in contest, with the rest of the world, especially our allies.
Already several Republicans have taken pot-shots at Biden’s picks. Fine. You’ll always have people who prefer a really awful garage band over the New York Philharmonic; the Podunk Peewees to the L.A. Dodgers; a county fair amateur show to a stunning display by Cirque du Soleil; a tin cup of Boone’s Farm strawberry wine to a crystal champaign glass filled with Don Perignon. But my frame of reference, Biden has assembled the “A” team—the very highest quality public servants that America can offer.
And there’s an added bonus: these people can and will swing into action immediately. According to reliable reports, Biden’s transition team had identified this group and other cabinet-level picks as early as last summer. Many had worked in the Obama Administration and therefore will bring direct and invaluable experience to the Biden Administration.
For the past four years we’ve had two or three powerless adults surrounded by a crowd of kids with little to no government experience, little in the way of substantive expertise, and no strategic vision beyond personal gain. The fate and effectiveness of every Trump appointee were determined overwhelmingly by a single factor: personal fealty to an uncaring, unknowing, sociopathic narcissist; saying what the Naked Emperor wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear. If we learned nothing else from the Trump years, it’s that we shouldn’t want blind, unqualified hacks running our government any more than we should want them piloting our planes.
With Biden in the Oval Office, we’ll have a real pilot at the controls. We’ll have certified mechanics servicing the plane, well-trained air traffic controllers directing it in flight, experienced attendants making sure our needs are met on board. It will not be a fly-by-night or a fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants operation. It will be the real deal.
As Biden put it best, “America is back.”
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
