Conscious President Speaks: (What Should Be) Joe Biden's Compact with Young America
Issue 111
If this is your first read, welcome to The Conscious Politics Op-Ed (formerly The Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter), currently being published whenever possible.
Also, this happens to be another installment of “Conscious President Speaks,” other examples of which are here and here.
To: All Americans Aged 18-29 & All Americans Eligible to Vote for the First Time on November 5, 2024
Fr: President Joe Biden, Conscious Politics Practitioner (Imagined)
Re: Quid Pro Quo for Election Day, November 5, 2024
Young America, your country needs you. My reelection campaign needs you. And, I dare say, you need me. So herein, my proposed Compact with Young America, a quid pro quo:
If you voted for me in 2020 you vote for me again this November. If you didn’t vote or you didn’t vote for me or you weren’t yet eligible in 2020, you register to vote and you vote for me for president this November. If you will be eligible to vote on Election Day, November 5, 2024, you register to vote and you vote for me for president this November. With your friends and peers, you organize your 18-29-year-old cohort to register to vote and urge them to vote for me for president — and, of course, for like-minded, down-ballot candidates and the offices they seek — this November.
Simply, it’s imperative that this election be a repudiation of my likely opponent and everything he and his party stands for in 2024 — a win so decisive that no credible challenges to the results can take hold. It’s my and the Democratic party’s job to win this election and we can win, as they say in the business, by expanding our base/by reaching out to those most pre-disposed to supporting our campaign. And that means you, Young America, because when you vote, Democrats win. Democrats don’t always have to win, but they have to win the presidency and Congress in 2024 so that we can wrest control from anti-democrats and be about the business of focusing on policies that work for all of us.
Fast-forward with me, then, to November 6, 2024 when our collective relief and gratitude pour into you for saving American democracy. I’ll say to you then what I’m famous for having said to President Obama that one time: this is a big fucking deal. We owe you big time, I’ll say, and I’ll challenge you to make a new America with the oldest president in history. I’ll talk about how we can now, as a country, not go back to my personal heyday of how things used to work in politics in America but, rather, onto an entirely new path, one that leads to a refreshed and reformed, modern, forward-thinking, dynamic, mature American democratic republic — a country that, at long last, takes seriously its knowing that every single one of us is equal to every single one of us and going from there. Call it MAGE: Make America Great for Everyone. Or Better MAGA or MAGA 2.0: Make America Great for All. Call it what you will but if you’re with me on this intention to create an America that works for all of us then, as president, I will help you amass and wield political power.
War is a perfect example of something that is, something that has already been created, so let’s use the one in Gaza as an example of the distinctions I suggest we make.
Except wait. Excuse me. One more thing. This compact requires that you do the exact same thing for midterm elections in 2026 by supporting Democrats and like-minded, down-ballot candidates with the hope of insuring that neither house of Congress is run by the anti-democrats who make up the bulk of today’s Republican party (to say nothing of state, county, and local governments). Then, in 2028, as the ones who saved American democracy, you’ll be able to assess where you are and what you will do in that year and beyond. And I’ll retire.
So thanks for all that quid, Young America! Wow. Now, then, to your pro quo. It’s my intention, as I said, to help you amass and wield political power and I mean it. I also believe it will serve us best, as we go, to make a clear distinction between what is…and what is wanted. Conscious practice dictates, always, that we be present to what is while we invest as much of our precious time and energy cultivating what is wanted (if what is, is other than that). War is a perfect example of something that is, something that has already been created, so let’s use the one in Gaza as an example of the distinctions I suggest we make.
This particular war started, arguably, on October 7, 2023, but I ask you to widen your lens to see that man’s inhumanity to man, writ large, has gone on for millennia. So what we see in Gaza today is only one of the most recent effects of a consciousness that, itself, is dying but, as we can see, is also clinging for dear life — steeped in fear and terrified of its own demise. It’s a consciousness that believes war is inevitable and that othering, dehumanizing, torturing, maiming, and murdering human beings and decimating families and perpetrating violence on the planet can be morally justified. It’s a consciousness that believes energy can be destroyed when everyone and physics knows it can’t be. Protesting this consciousness and expecting it to change or getting it to be a little less brutal is not the best use of your precious time and energy, trust me. Trust conscious practice.
Indeed, I’m old enough to have some facility with it and that’s a tremendous advantage. I’m betting our entire compact on the belief that it’s a slice of my generation and a preponderance of yours that aligns with the new consciousness so let’s divide and conquer. I ended the war in Afghanistan and was pilloried for it, such is the pull of the old consciousness, as if there are right and wrong ways to begin and end wars. So let me be the one to contend with what is. Let me act as a hospice nurse tending to his patient by using my facility with the old consciousness, tinged as it is with some of the new, and decades of deep experience and intimate knowledge of how to use the levers of government and geopolitics at home and abroad — such as they are — to insure that we allow this antiquated thing called war to die in as rapid, sane, and rational a way as possible. Meanwhile, Grasshoppers, recall this: violence begets violence; fighting begets fighting; resistance begets resistance; compassion begets compassion; love begets love; peace begets peace.
Which brings me to the other, far more interesting side of the ledger, the side I believe you are best equipped to lead: cultivating what is wanted. Sticking to the example of war in Gaza, I’m assuming that what’s wanted is the same for you as it is for me: forever peace on Earth among all nations and peoples, which means a forever end to the entire concept of war, the entire concept of sides, the entire concept of retribution and vengeance. Will you take responsibility for meeting this moment and being serious about creating the very peace you desire when most of our society is not quite there yet? Will you steward the project of creating and sharing multitudes of robust versions and visions of what forever peace looks like with our fellow Americans? Will you investigate and challenge belief systems that do not comport with said visions? Will you work with activists and legislators to inform legislation that moves the United States into a post-war existence? Do you trust that this is how we will create what’s wanted? (FYI, check out that Conscious Politics guy. He wrote this about peacebuilding and it might get some juices flowing.)
Of course, peacebuilding is but one issue and I want to help Young America with all of the issues it deems relevant. So here’s some more pro quo:
• I will secure prominent roles for your cohort in our national campaign coordinated by a senior-level Liaison to Young America, whom I will name in the coming days. I propose that we use the campaign, between now and Labor Day, at events across the country, to prioritize Young America’s issues and campaign on them in the season’s final stretch, essentially from Labor Day to Election Day this fall.
• On the first day of my second term, I will establish a White House Council of Young Americans, replete with cabinet-level representation. The Council will be charged primarily with conducting deep inquiries into the issues it chooses to study.
• I will hire a certain (to be determined) percentage of 18-29-year-olds to work in every department in our government. I will further task the Council with connecting these employees to one another, encouraging the creation of a network of Young Americans in federal government, strengthening your ranks.
• I will task my legislative staff to work directly with the Council to create connections to and partnerships with legislative teams in both the White House and the halls of Congress, fostering the turning of your learnings into legislative solutions when they’re called for.
• I will task the Council of Young Americans to establish a pipeline of younger Americans — those who will be eligible to vote in November, 2026 — to make sure they are registered, engaged, and ready to vote in that year’s midterm elections.
Young America, you are not the only constituency making up our 2024 Democratic coalition. But I believe you have the capacity to drive it if you choose. If you sit it out or give in to apathy, frustration, and fear, the other guy wins and if he wins, nothing you want will come to fruition for a generation. If ever. We need each other. I’m on my way out and you’re just getting going but you have an opportunity for history to view you forever as the generation that ushered in a new political consciousness. Any questions?
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Great piece! Warrants reading!
Great piece, Steven!