Silence Is Not Golden for Long Island City

There are times in one’s life when people are called upon to make difficult decisions. Sometimes those decisions are wrong, but in the hands of a capable and intelligent person, more often than not they are right. Other times, people choose to not make a decision on an important matter (aka: do nothing). If by doing nothing, this leads to an adverse outcome, it is what I would refer to as an invisible mistake.

As the elected representative of 761,1691 people in Brooklyn and Queens, and given the exalted soapbox that comes with this position, our Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez needs to forcefully and loudly make a decision, one way or the other, on a matter of the utmost importance. A matter that dwarf’s any other political decision that she has ever made.

Now many members of congress may argue that ‘I am merely one in a body of 435, what difference can I make by speaking out?’ You can only control what you can control, but not doing so is not a valid excuse. It is better to be in the top 25 then numbers 52, or 71, or 110 to go on record. Your constituents deserve that, and as a 16-term congresswoman you should have the goodwill and moral fortitude to do so and put personal political considerations aside. Moreover, hiding with the herd in a stockyard will not prevent one from being slaughtered.

So here are the facts. The current President of the United States is suffering from pretty serious cognitive decline, a condition that has been obvious to any objective observer over the last year, and a condition which will continue to get worse over the next few years, if not months. It is not curable. He has been propped up by a collection of insiders, about whom the public knows very little, and who have created an echo chamber in order to not lose their place in the inner circle. Furthermore, the rigors of the job require that a Commander in Chief be ready to work 24/7 if needed. Joe Biden is not that man.

Not that it really matters all that much, because if he remains the Democratic candidate for President he is going to lose in November. Even before the debate debacle of three weeks ago, the electoral college math was very bleak. Biden is in no position to recover and things will only get worse between now and then. This too is a fact.

Taken together, these two facts lead to only one conclusion: as a Congressperson you need to use your voice right now. You can put forward a convincing argument stating that Joe Biden is able to lead this country for the next four years and provide a roadmap as to how he could possibly win. Whatever you do, please do not insult your constituents with talking points fabricated by higher-ups.

Or you could use all the political capital that you have gathered in the 30+ years that you have been a member of the US Congress, and take advantage of the opportunity that the sad debate of June 27 created by emphatically stating that you believe the President should remove himself from the ballot. Time is quickly running out and we are well past the period where the niceties of meek pronouncements of ‘letting him come to his own decision’ will in any way suffice. There can be no equivocating at this late hour: The people of Long Island City who choose not to vote for the Republican candidate deserve a viable alternative, not a placeholder, and you are the representative for these people..

Look around your district, is there so much as a single ‘Biden for President’ sign? Listen to the people, all 761,169 of them, are any of them but you still in favor of Biden remaining in the race? You have been given a very important pulpit Congresswoman Velazquez, will you rise to the occasion and use your voice, or will you make an invisible mistake?

1. # of people in each US Congressional District [↩]