It may be a considerable stretch to evoke Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” alongside President Biden’s speech on Tuesday, Jan. 11, in Atlanta, but his declaration that he will no longer be quiet roars like Reddy’s manifesto of song.
To hear him take a forceful, aggressive stance on voter suppression, the fraudulent Trump and his acolytes, and the demand to eliminate the filibuster should remove some of the charges about his reluctance to deal with these pressing issues. And these comments speak volumes to those who have called him “Sleepy Joe.” He is “woke” now in both senses of the word.
Many of the accusations about his being slow to act are not accurate. It’s not that he has been exactly quiet, his words failed to out shout the right wing media and swell of criticisms from his own league of supporters.
Okay, you’ve heard from Biden but these are just words, just pleasing rhetoric full of sound and fury that will soon recede into the echo chamber of half-remembered phrases.
Let us hope that his intentions have some resonance and meaning for members of Congress, especially the two senators in cahoots with the recalcitrant Republicans. As we know so well, hell is paved with good intentions; it’s the action that puts the rubber on the road, to mix the metaphors.
Yes, Mr. President, your roar continues to echo among your constituents—and may have even reached some of those who raged at the Capitol a year ago—but if it does not elicit a passionate and determined response from voters and a corps of elected officials, it will die aborning.
He is Biden, hear him roar, and even with a clinging cough the other day in Atlanta, his words had a welcomed power, and we hope they have the results it brought to so many women who heard Reddy’s call to arms, her roar.