Note to the president-elect:political healing starts here
First of all, allow me to offer congratulations on your election victory. Given the looming transition, I assume that you have less time on your hands this holiday season than most in Washington to take stock of 2020. But having declared post-election that “this is the time to heal America,” here are some ideas for doing so.
Just to make it easier for you to scan while interviewing cabinet picks, I’ll keep this to a few pointers.
Let’s face it: You’re not the first politician to call for unity. These declarations are standard victory-speech boilerplate, but they don’t normally mean much.
I hope that’s not so in your case. Because whereas some of your predecessors, such as President Obama, were elected with a clear mandate to deliver change, your victory over President Trump was no such thing. True, you got a record 81 million votes. But despite a pandemic, economic catastrophe, and a titanic media effort to unseat him, your opponent broke records as well, with 74 million votes — actually increasing his tally by 12 million compared to 2016. More than any time in living memory, the country you take over is the Divided States.
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