Sunday, June 25, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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I am not in the “I think President Joe Biden is bad for America” fan club.
That is a club, as best as I can tell, that meets in the darkest corners of the web and on Fox News. And it has little going for it other than everyone in it agrees to be mad all the time — at one thing or another.
No, I choose to be in the “Joe Biden is good for our country” club, which is made up of all kinds of people. Some are optimists, some not so much. Some are well to do, others just want to do well. Some are striving for their kids and grandkids, others are just striving to make a small place for themselves. But, all of them, each and every one of them, believes that tomorrow can be better than today, and that is what drives them.
I was thinking about this great divide in America while struggling along with the rest of the world through the great personal tragedy of the Titan submersible and all the drama that unfolded last week.
While that episode ended in the worst possible way, there was a resounding message of hope that churned through the North Atlantic as rescue ships — manned and unmanned — raced to the site high above where the Titanic has been resting for more than 100years.
Throughout the search and rescue efforts this past week during which equipment, people and technology came from all parts of the globe, hope sprang eternal from the lips of those trying to reach the five passengers before their oxygen ran out.
While there remained even the slightest hope that those passengers could be found alive and rescued, we didn’t hear about the cost involved, we didn’t hear the petty squabbling over jurisdiction — although there were plenty of toes being stepped on — and we heard nary a complaint from those who put their own lives on hold and on the line while they barely slept and rarely ate because there was vital rescue work being done.
That’s what decent human beings do.
Sadly, we have learned it may all have been in vain since it appears the Titan imploded sometime on the first day of its voyage and the herculean effort made by so many for so long would have proved fruitless in the end.
But it wasn’t fruitless. We learned, once again, that people everywhere can and will work together for a common human purpose, that deep down there are more people of goodwill who are willing to do good than there are detractors — those people who think that somehow dividing Americans from their neighbors will make us great.
That’s a far cry from what so many of us witness on a daily basis from elected leaders who do their best to sink our hopes for a better America in order to win an election or raise a few bucks from those gullible enough to write a check.
And while all this up close, important and very personal work was being done, what was President Biden doing?
He was doing what the American people were paying him to do. Not to squabble, not to divide, not to turn one American against another.
On the very day the world learned the fate of the Titan and its passengers, the president of the United States was hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India at the White House.
While the rest of the world was looking down, some 2,000 fathoms below the ocean’s surface, Biden and Modi were looking ahead — many years into our future.
Modi represents almost 25 percent of the people on this planet. We cannot and must not ignore that country’s desires, wants and needs because they are so entwined with our own hopes and dreams.
Whether it’s about issues of high technology, climate change, food scarcity or security in a world growing less peaceful, it is imperative that the United States and India bridge our differences and build on our common interests.
That, to me, is what our president should be doing because that is how the lives of 330 million Americans get better and not worse, safer and not less secure, and more hopeful, not less.
So while petty politicians and those looking to score a few bucks continue their efforts to cause our country harm by weakening us from within, I have to root for those with an eye to our future.
So, whether that is our president looking to make us safer by inviting our neighbors — with whom we have some disagreements — to the White House, or neighbors from many countries hoping against hope to save their fellow human beings in trouble, consider me a fan.
That’s because I believe that those who want to continue in a darkness of their own making can no longer count on the rest of America — the folks who want and wish for better — to be fanboys anymore.
It’s time we looked forward and did forward things. And it is time we did all this together.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun
