Don’t abandon (all) hope
This week’s #MondayMotivation
I didn’t think Biden was going to cancel $10,000 of loan debt for students, and even more for Pell Grant recipients. And I wasn’t alone in thinking he wouldn’t. His announcement seemed to have caught a lot of media and politicians across the ideological spectrum off-guard.
To be honest, I didn’t think he’d cancel any significant amount of debt for students. I thought that ship had sailed a long time ago, along with the non-existent minimum wage hike, healthcare reform (not even talk of a public option, much less Medicare for All), and much more…
In other words, I had given up hope.
Fear not — I have not turned into a mindless Biden supporter now just because he did take significant action towards helping students saddled with loan debt.
Could Biden have done more? Yes, and many of us on the Left (including Bernie Sanders) are acknowledging and praising Biden’s cancelation of a large chunk of student loan debt while also pushing him to do more.
Why not wipe it all out? After the $2+ trillion gift to the wealthy and corporations under Trump, and the forgiving of billions of dollars of PPP loans, people are starting to catch on to the fact that the government can do a lot more than it lets on.
BUT on the other hand, did Biden have to cancel $10,000 of student loan debt? No, he didn’t. And he’s getting a lot of flack from his fellow centrists and corporate media.
Whether he (or his advisors) thought it was the right thing to do, it was a political calculation that it would help the Democrats electorally in the midterms, or some combination of the two, this could be life-changing for millions of people.
In these times, where the whole system seems to be — and often is — stacked against progressives and the “little guy,” when fossil fuel executives have more of a say in so-called climate legislation than environmental organizations do, you wouldn’t expect the president to cancel billions of dollars of debt for students. Speaking for myself, not only did I not think he would, I didn’t even have the slightest hope he would do it anymore.
So something between “Everything is a bed of roses” and “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” is the way to go for most things politically. I guess the question is where you should fall on that spectrum. And for now, I’ve moved a little bit away from complete political despair. Baby steps I guess, lol.
