Amy Klobuchar comes out swinging
Amy Klobuchar may be out of the presidential race – but from what we’ve learned in the month since she bowed out, it’s clear that she’s not going anywhere. After endorsing Joe Biden for president, she quickly went back to work in the Senate to take on the COVID-19 crisis and took on the unique challenge this crisis presents for the 2020 primaries and general election by making it easier to vote by mail. Of course, this enraged Republicans – not just Donald Trump – who are now openly acknowledging that winning elections depends heavily on voting being difficult for those who don’t have a good reason to support right-wing policies.
This issue has now become one of the biggest contrasts of leadership between Republicans and Democrats at a critical moment in modern history. They’re probably especially anxious because they know they’ll suffer from Donald Trump’s inept response to the pandemic. While a few Republican governors showed effective management of the crisis, Brian Kemp of Georgia is clearly not one of them.
His aides probably should have advised him against publicly admitting he didn’t know that people who don’t show symptoms of COVID-19 can still infect other people, but he went public with this idiotic statement anyway, which implies that the number of cases there could start to rise significantly in the next few days.
Klobuchar, whose husband is still recovering from this disease, wasn’t amused – and had the perfect response for Kemp on Twitter: “If they had better election laws, Stacey Abrams would be governor of Georgia. Brian Kemp’s negligence could cost Americans thousands of lives.” In just two sentences, she demonstrated the clearest distinction between her side and theirs.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making