If we've learned anything from the past 4 years, it's that a good chunk of your country lives in a parallel, fantasy universe. One where the 1970s can somehow come back, if you just elect the right person to make it happen.
These are people who believe that someone can make their kid gay. These are people who believe that not only have we reached actual racial equality, but that people of colour have all the power now and being white is a disadvantage. These are people who believe that through tariffs and magic, you can produce smartphones in the US and not have them cost an average monthly salary. These are people who believe that in 2020, you should be able to own a 1500 sq foot house and two cars and have spending money left over with a high school education. These are people who still believe certain jobs are for men and certain jobs are for women. These are people who believe Putin is an example of a leader. These are people who believe Putin means well to America. These are people who definitely want economy to grow, but can't understand that with current birth rates, the country needs immigrants for the jobs that growing economy will produce and require for more growth.
The US and the world are at a major crossroads right now. It's 2020, not 1970 or 1990. The challenges of the modern world, which almost certainly include more pandemics, can't be met by trying to turn the clock back. I don't know what the solutions are, but I do know they will likely be radical and that even I won't like some of them. That's including ones I strongly support and that's okay. It's not my job to like change, and it's not the job of our leaders to make me like change. The disenfranchised or as Hillary said, deplorables(I thought these were the people who love leaders who say it like it is) aren't going to be convinced by Joe or Kamala or Nancy or anyone that this is necessary. Not in this day and age and not when they're caught in the Fox News cycle.
You can't let half the country hold the entire country hostage because gosh darn it, they just don't like how things are different than they used to be. Putting things off for the sake of compromise won't do anything. America has a huge race problem that needs immediate attention and radical solutions. It's not just going to go away if you ignore it or throw yet another coat of paint over it. It'll just get worse. Some kind of change is needed, and again, it might be painful. The alternative is even more painful.
And it's easy to overlook the main, core issue here. The division between those who want change and don't want change almost exactly corresponds to another, much more important division. The world and America are basically divided into people who believe that things need to be earned and people who believe that they don't. That's the most profoundly sad thing about the state of all our societies today. The economy in the USA produces more than enough value that you should be able to clothe, feed, home, educate, and heal everyone in the country. You simple choose not to do that because it's "socialism." You choose not to because so many people believe there should be a moral test to see if you deserve to eat, to have a roof over your head, to sit in a first-year communications class, or be able to see a doctor. In other words, they don't see any of these as basic human rights and the lack of these as an affront to human dignity and a stain on our collective conscience.
And if he wasn't currently forming a militia somewhere, this is where babe would come in and talk about socialism and how the moment someone gives a hungry person food without them having somehow earned it, we all lose our freedoms and baby Jesus' second coming is delayed(or hastened...I can't ever parse most of his messages). You can call it whatever you want to call it, but the issue remains the same. Half the country will never accept that you earn the right to not be hungry, or homeless, or sick simply by being born. That's fine. I don't think the politicians have a duty to convince them. I think they have a duty to put this into practice. Not tomorrow, not when Kamala is president, but now. Because we can.