Keep Calm and Mind the Big Picture

Keep Calm and Mind the Big Picture

The Democratic Party nomination drama (chaos?) should not be seen as threatening. It is actually a very hopeful sign of the possibilities for our future. It is a future that the Republican Party has shown that it cannot (or will not) deliver.

Even an unbiased view of the wreckage that is the current administration shows epic incompetence in every department. The number of department heads who are “acting” after three years into this term is amazing. The number resignations of competent staff in professional and scientific positions is unheard of. The only qualification for top posts in this administration is fealty to Donald Trump.

So what can we imagine in the administration headed by a Democratic Party president? Tom Friedman in The New York Times whipped up a list of leaders that we might see in a Sanders administration:

Amy Klobuchar - Vice President
Mike Bloomberg - Secretary of Treasury
Joe Biden - Secretary of State
Elizabeth Warren - Secretary of Health and Human Services
Kamala Harris - Attorney General
Pete Buttigieg - Secretary of Homeland Security
Cory Booker - Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Mitt Romney - Secretary of Commerce
Michael Bennet - Secretary of Education
William H. McRaven - Secretary of Defense

Nearly every ideological and economic viewpoint of the common American will be represented. (Yes, it excludes white supremacists. So?) This is one of the strong points of the Democratic Party that is often mistaken for weakness, especially by the media. In the campaign season, the wide range of viewpoints and constituencies makes the Party look divided. After the campaign when it is time to actually govern this nation, the cross-pollination of ideas and the competition among equals leads to actual solutions to problems. 

Message to Democratic and Democrat-leaning and independent voters: 

Mind the Big Picture. 

You will not be electing only a President. You will be electing a wide range of Cabinet Secretaries, deputies, and department heads. The experience of the past Democratic administrations shows that they will likely carry both integrity and competence, the two most important character traits for governance. As we see, those are character traits sadly absent in the current administration.