By Gregg Chadwick
This crisp Sunday morning in Santa Monica, I am reflecting on the remarkable achievement by so many to keep the United States steered toward a bright future as evidenced by the inspiring results of the November 2022 midterm elections. Our democracy was tested and held firm.
As Nick Corasanti reports in the New York Times:
“Every election denier who sought to become the top election official in a critical battleground state lost at the polls this year, as voters roundly rejected extreme partisans who promised to restrict voting and overhaul the electoral process.” Writer Billy Mernit wrote in a comment to a story that I linked on twitter, “It's still amazing to me that ‘Tell people who like to vote to vote for the people who want to take their votes away‘ was perceived to be a winning strategy.”
I painted the musician H.E.R. performing America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl in February 2021. America the Beautiful was written as an aspirational response to the bluster of The Star-Spangled Banner by feminist poet and Wellesley professor Katharine Lee Bates and published on the Fourth of July in 1895. In my painting H.E.R. (The Idea of America), I envision H.E.R.’s liquid guitar solo filling the stadium and sonically asking the question: Can the United States live up to its grand ideals? This week, I think our country took a step forward in fulfilling its grand ideals. We have much work to do. Yet, we also have much to celebrate.
Gregg Chadwick
H.E.R. (The Idea of America)
2021
Oil on linen
The singer, songwriter, and actress, originally born Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, now known by the acronym H.E.R, serves as the subject of my portrait. Through her creative persona H.E.R, she abdicates her original identity in exchange for one that is intended to be a voice for all women. This portrait offers a glimpse of the energetic moment she performed "America, the Beautiful" at Super Bowl LV.
My oil on linen portraits of H.E.R. and Nikole Hannah-Jones were on exhibit at the 18th Street Arts Center during the exhibition Recovery Justice: Being Well which ran from March 8, 2021 – September 11, 2021. Link at: https://18thstreet.org/event/recovery-justice-being-well/
I agree with Elizabeth Warren who said on Meet the Press this morning that,” This victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular."
I also was inspired by David Rothkopf’s Twitter thread which documents President Biden’s masterful handling of the country during his time in office. I have gathered Rothkopf’s tweets together into essay form below for easy reading:
“In '20, Joe Biden was second guessed by many (me included). He wasn't exciting. Too old school. Talked about healing. Talked about a clear agenda when the other side had little to offer but hate & good TV ratings. And he won decisively despite the skepticism of the "smart money."
For two years, he was derided for reaching out to the other side, for his compromises with the left or with the centrists in his own party, for not be exciting enough. He ignored the Beltway buzz. He did the dullest thing imaginable: he governed.
The American Rescue Plan lifted millions out of poverty and helped stimulate a job boom that now has produced 10 million jobs, a record, more than the last three GOP administrations added up. Record number of quality judges were appointed. Executive orders undid Trump's damage.
He made the bold decision to end America's longest war. He passed the largest piece of infrastructure legislation in half a century. He helped tame a pandemic. Critics, even within his own party said, "Don't do too much, don't spend too much, the bond markets won't like it."
But the jobs kept being created. When Putin challenged the decency and the West in Ukraine, Biden led and has been central to NATO and global support for Kyiv that has produced extraordinary results and made all safer. It was all part of restoring American standing worldwide.
He and a disciplined Democratic Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act that also was the biggest piece of environmental legislation in US history. He took steps to reduce healthcare costs for Americans even when zero Republicans supported it.
In fact, with few exceptions, the Democrats passed a rich agenda, that also included the important Chips and Science Act that will help the country compete and create more and better jobs in the future, in the face of constant GOP obstruction.
Still, the savants and pundits said, the Democrats would be crushed in the 2022 elections. The GOP had momentum. Inflation would do Dems in--even though it was a global phenomenon and the GOP was closely linked to its causes from Putin to corporate profiteering.
There would be a Red Wave. Biden was too busy focusing on democracy and protecting the fundamental rights of women and voters when, the GOP talking heads and the bogus polls said what was front and center was inflation and only that and the Dems were doomed.
But Biden stayed laser focused. He said his first act in the new Congress would be to guarantee a woman's reproductive freedom. He made moving, heartfelt speeches about why it is essential to reject the lies, the election deniers, the coup plotters.
The result was the best result for a new president in a midterm election in sixty years, maybe longer. The Democrats held the Senate. It is still unclear how many seats they will lose in the House. But it won't be what was predicted.
In fact, it is still possible that the Ds could hold the House, still possible the Dem margin in the Senate could be better than it was. Election deniers running for top posts were rejected. Legislatures were flipped. The Republican leadership is turning on itself.
And Biden's first comments after the election were about the work to come, the governing ahead. Joe's too old. Joe's too boring. Joe's too quick to compromise. Joe's too stubborn. Joe's out of touch. Joe's...just off to the best start of any POTUS in more than half a century.
Left in his wake, defeated by his experience and his wisdom and his determination and his truly exceptional world class team, are the media favorites, the highly rated pundits, the best-selling columnists, the know-it-alls, the fancy insiders.
I could write the same thing about Speaker Pelosi or Sen Schumer, co-authors of this remarkable record. You could say it about so many members of the united, mobilized Democratic team that this time around weathered the GOP efforts at suppression, ignored their lies & showed up.
You could sat it about the Gen Z voters and the women and people of color who saw the threat and made the effort to fight for democracy. You could say it about all of you who have participated in the wholesale rejection of the greatest threat to our system we've seen since WWII.
Common sense is not exciting. But what we just saw was a victory for common sense. Decency doesn't drive clicks. But what you just saw was a victory for decency. Governing is tedious, incremental, arcane. But what you have seen for two years are the benefits of governing.
The conventional wisdom has been wrong about President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader of the United States Senate Senator Chuck Schumer, @WHCOS, the president's cabinet, @TheDemocrats and their team from day one. Maybe we will learn. Probably we won't. But we can be grateful that they will ignore all that.
We can be grateful that at a perilous moment in US history, they will focus on the work that needs to be done, on the threats we face at home and abroad, and on what matters. And if the past is any indication, they will continue to succeed...against the odds, on behalf of us all.”
- David Rothkopf
(Host, Deep State Radio; latest book-"American Resistance"; columnist, Daily Beast, board of contributors, USA Today)
Note: David Rothkopf's team also put his tweets into essay form as I was creating my post.
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