By stufflovely
This is an op-ed on the 2020 election by Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Our nation has experienced one soul-crushing crisis after another this year. I lost my older brother, Don Reed, to COVID-19 in April. Losing a beloved family member is always hard, but not being there, and not having a chance in those final moments to tell him how much we loved him, was so painful. It’s been months now and — like so many Americans — I still haven’t been able to be with my family in Oklahoma.
The pandemic has ripped at the fabric of every family in this country that it has touched. More than 220,000 Americans have lost their lives, forcing countless family members to say goodbye to a loved one. Millions of women are out of work, and many others are juggling careers with caregiving for their families.
In moments of crisis, we all cope and recharge in our own way. For me, it’s keeping up with my steps by walking Bailey, or watching an episode of Star Trek with Bruce before bed. Soon, I’ll be getting ready to exercise my ultimate act of self-care for this year: holding Donald Trump accountable and voting for Joe Biden, a candidate who actually cares about all of us.
This year, America’s families have paid a steep price for having a president without human empathy and basic competence; a president who puts himself first. From the start, Donald Trump lied to us about how serious this pandemic would be. He never made a plan to stop the spread of the virus and he refused to take even the most simple step of encouraging his supporters to wear masks. This week, his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, declared on CNN that the U.S. is “not going to control the pandemic,” revealing what President Trump’s strategy has been all along: sticking his head in the sand and hoping the virus will go away.
Now as cases continue to climb, President Trump has sent his lawyers to the Supreme Court to do what he and Republicans in Congress couldn’t do on their own: overturn the Affordable Care Act and take away health care coverage from tens of millions of Americans. If Trump wins this case, insurance companies will be allowed to deny coverage to, or force higher premiums on, over 100 million people with preexisting conditions, prevent people under 26 from staying on their parents’ plan, and charge women more just for being women. This is only the beginning of President Trump’s assault on our health care, because the Supreme Court could throw out Roe v. Wade next.
I won’t sugarcoat it: We can’t afford four more years of Donald Trump. That’s why it’s so important that we elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
