Wednesday on CNN, former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the coronavirus pandemic was an “opportunity” to ensure every American could vote by mail.
Anchor Wolf Blitzer asked, “You’ve written an article, an opinion op-ed in The New York Times, and you say it’s not enough to just get back to normal. You also write this, ‘The coronavirus has laid bare our domestic divisions unequal economy and glaring racial and socioeconomic disparities as well as the fragility of our democracy.’ Ambassador, how should the United States use this crisis right now to address some of those problems that you mentioned fully exposed by the virus?”
Rice said, “Well, Wolf, I say that going back to normal isn’t acceptable because what we’ve seen what was normal has been extraordinarily costly and deadly for all Americans. And yet what we’ve also learned from this experience and for many of us it wasn’t learning it, it was just making it very obvious to those perhaps who didn’t see it is that we have a society that remains extremely unequal, in racial and socioeconomic terms and so many other ways. And yet as we have experienced throughout our history from frankly look at the Great Depression, look at World War II, look at the 1960s, out of every moment of crisis we have found a way to do things differently and better. The Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corp in the Great Depression, the GI Bill after World War II, the Great Society, and the expansion and insurance of voting rights for all Americans in the 1960s.”
In Just One Diocese, 7 Catholic Churches Are Canceling Sunday Mass Entirely as Minnesota’s Self-Destruction Continues
Op-Ed: Sparing Our Children from a Nuclear Iran
Luigi Mangione plea talks raise showdown over Brian Thompson murder trial
9/11 families push to ban Mamdani from 25th anniversary remembrance over ‘hostile’ record
Thune pours cold water Trump’s call to axe August recess for SAVE America Act
Illegal immigrant accused of murdering college student dials into hearing from hospital bed
Trans influencer breaks silence after Trump’s comparison to CNN anchor at WHCA Dinner
Police Searching for Second Suspect After Deadly Shooting at Seattle Festival
Episcopal Church Headquarters Forced to Evacuate After Nearby Manhattan Tower Sagged
‘Shame on you’: Sherrill knew voter-roll bombshell was coming when she called Trump a liar, DOJ official says
Trump demands Thune keep Senate in session until SAVE America Act passes
McConnell ‘not yet cleared’ to leave rehab to return to Congress
How the Big Beautiful Bill became law: Trump locks horns with GOP lawmakers
Pentagon Official Is Out After He Told James O’Keefe on Undercover ‘Gay Date’ He Planned to Subvert Trump’s Policies
World’s Dumbest Rapper Arrested for Fraud, But Satanic Discovery and Live ‘Sacrifice’ Found at Home Are Far Worse
She added, “This is a moment not only of crisis but inherent in that crisis is opportunity. And we need to take a step to broaden our social safety net to ensure that the most vulnerable have the health care, have the education, have the housing that they need. But in the immediate term because many of those things are going to take time and be ambitious. I recommend two critical steps that Congress could take in the next legislation that it passes. One is to ensure that every American has the ability to vote safely in our November election. We saw the fiasco in Wisconsin, which has cost scores of lives. And we have a real challenge to ensure that voters are able to access the ballot by mail, by longer periods of early voting, by safer polling stations, and that is the job of Congress to ensure. And secondly, Congress can make a down payment on this effort to build a more equitable society by expanding national service. And in particular, by creating something called a health force which can begin by hiring unemployed Americans and the like to be contact tracers when 300,000 of them are going to be needed for us to trace and open up safely.”
Story cited here.
