I can’t imagine wanting the job you were elected to do Mr. President, and Mrs. Vice President, but I am glad and relieved you are at helm of this weary ship called the United States of America. She has lost so much integrity and civility which you are beginning to restore with your very presence. No more foul language, no more disrespecting women and minorities, no more firing everyone who doesn’t kiss your boots. No more embarrassment at international meetings, no more midnight tweets. No more news stories about issues embarrassing to parents who have to explain to their kids what the president just said.
The majority of us and all of the people I know who donated to your campaign need a nap from the torture of the last four years of deceit and impropriety. But it is no time to relax. America needs to heal, and you have the keys to the medicine chest. I intentionally did not say Americans need to heal, though indeed we do, because America is more than the sum of the 331 million humans who call this country home. America is made up of rivers and mountains, great plains and estuaries, coniferous and deciduous forests, lakes, sand dunes, ponds and fens and they and all of their wild inhabitants are hurting too.
You are undoubtedly getting so much advice your heads will spin, but if you adopt the slogan “Heal America First” as the keel to your boat you will head us in the correct direction. There are some numbers I wish to share with you both and I want you to keep them in mind when you are signing policies into law. They will give context as to why it is so hard to govern these days beyond the belligerence from across the aisle and from inside greed-laden board rooms.
When you were first elected senator from Delaware, Mr. President, the year was 1972 when there were 209.9 million Americans. The proud but small Delaware had approximately 573,000 citizens. When you sit down in the Oval Office those numbers will be very different and they matter to the job you have to do. There will be 331 million Americans under your care, an increase of over 121 million Americans all wanting and needing a good life. Delaware’s senators Coons and Carper now must serve nearly 974,000 who now live in the second smallest state in the union, giving them each over 100,000 more people to represent in Washington. A senator’s job is never easy, now imagine it with this much heavier load.
Mrs. Vice President, when you were elected Attorney General to the most populated state in the union, California, had three million less people than it does now. Even more significant is that from the time President elect Biden was first elected to the time of when you first held a political office, America gained 100 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house, educate. You will now be responsible to provide health care and good paying jobs for those additional millions too.
You both have a huge job of healing to do. America is sick and broken, out of work and out of our minds with worry about the future for our families in light of the pandemic and the other mega problems of climate change and nuclear war. America will no longer be in denial about the pandemic with your science-respecting ways, but it can also no longer be in denial about the math of our numbers related to the ecology of the land, water and air in our country which is struggling in overshoot of its resources.
Our spacious skies and amber waves of grain are not endless, our water supply cannot be purchased from bottles in a store. Yes even and especially in the good ol Us of A, we live in a limited place and must live within those parameters. Our wide-open spaces, are not so wide open anymore and the remaining lands cannot be littered with ‘For Sale’ signs for there is not enough water to support development. Besides the coyotes and elk got there first. Our cities cannot accommodate more density, our roads do not need more traffic, our schools and especially our hospitals do not need more demand.
This is what you tell America when you limit our future growth, you tell them you are healing America first. This is not about hating anyone, it’s about loving us and the ones we must now turn away. With all of your experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you know, Mr. President, that there is a whole lot of repairing of relationships to be done with other countries. The hurt we feel in America is not unique to us, but we are unique in the way we respond. We continue to give resources to others while over 500,000 are homeless here. We look the other way when businesses hire undocumented workers and then take advantage of them when so many Americans are out of work. We think we are helping the world by taking in even more people from other countries when in fact we are just making everything worse in America. It will effect you in profound ways, you who have been given the monumental task of governing us.
No president has had it easy. Roosevelt had the depression and World War II. Lincoln had to go to war with the South and send soldiers into our bloodiest battle before anesthetic was invented. But with 300 million more Americans to serve since Lincoln’s time and 205 million more since FDR first took office, you too have a formidable task ahead of you. You must try to please millions more of us and serve with policies that some will never accept. But leaders must make those difficult choices for the greater good.
Neither of those heroic presidents had to deal with 331 million Americans and all of what that encompasses. You will be trying to make life better for more Americans than any previous US president and vice president. This unprecedented situation will only be made worse by adding even more Americans due to outdated immigration policies.
Policies which benefit American citizens, American jobs, American wildlife and open spaces can be implemented with an iron fist or with gentle firmness and I am sure you will both choose the later. After the pandemic, revolving door immigration policies can allow for visits and educational opportunities while not increasing our total numbers.
Before planes take off, they always remind us to put on our oxygen masks first in case of turbulence. That is all I am asking. Take care of Americans first. You are getting on a plane with enough turbulence to make the masks fall before the pilots have a chance to blink, put them on us before you welcome more onto the plane.
You can do all of this without hateful rhetoric, I know you can. Just remember you’ve been given the keys to an overflowing ship with so many needy people already on it, the answer cannot be to add more passengers.
Epilogue:
I am a huge fan of the PBS Television Series, “Finding Your Roots”. Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a wonderful host of this fascinating show designed to show us that we are more alike than different and that we all owe much to the struggles of our ancestors. While tracing back the lineages of celebrities, Gates frequently reveals stories of the hardships and negative attitudes towards immigrants that their ancestors endured. I am profoundly disturbed by the show’s spotlight on the historical record of hatred and bigotry toward immigrants, be they Irish , Jews or Italian. It is easy to see why anyone who brings up the topic of immigration today is immediately ushered into this group of bigots who created a more painful existence with slogans like, “NO IRISH NEED APPLY.” Many guests are rightfully disturbed to learn that their ancestors owned slaves.
To proclaim that the US is full, or in overshoot, is a truth we must all face. It is an act of protection, and is not rooted in any sort of prejudice whatsoever. To be remotely associated with those who look upon their fellow human as deserving less of life’s promise due to their culture, race or religion is morally offensive to me. This letter and all of my writing about the need to stop the freight train of population growth due to the main way we are growing, immigration, comes from a place of deep concern for our country, not prejudice against any group of people. It is for the protection of water resources, open space and the wildlife that live there. It is for stopping the growing traffic and pollution too. It is an effort to try not to run out of resources be they vaccines, hospital beds or food staples. We are practicing an old open-arms story in an overcrowded landscape to the advantage of no one, least of all those who we are inviting in with promises we won’t be able to keep.