Take the Deal

Creator: William Thomas Cain | Credit: Getty Images

Dear Republicans,

The election of Joe Biden is a gift, your ticket to a successful agenda for your party.

This election is a bit like the Nixon-Ford era of 1974. President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his crimes to move the country beyond the Watergate scandal and restore trust in government and the rule of the law. In so doing, Ford sacrificed his presidency and put his country first.

President-elect Biden has said he is not interested in prosecuting Trump after he leaves office. This is who Biden is - an old-school moderate Democrat. That means there is a deal to be made. And politics is nothing if not about making a deal for the good of the country.

Now this deal requires something of both of us. It requires you to put down your weapons, your Twitter anger, your desire to return America to the Mad Men era. Put aside your resentment of the way Democrats went after Trump. It requires you to drop the effort to brand Democrats as socialists. It requires you to drop Trump and the QAnon people and return to the roots of the Republican party. It requires you to recognize that aside from the presidential election, you made gains! You have more seats of power around the country. You can drive an agenda. But it requires that Mitch McConnell not seek to destroy Joe Biden as he tried to do with Obama.

In return, you get to negotiate your agenda with moderate Democrats like Sen. Chris Coons and Joe Manchin via your moderates like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. You have the votes!

Take the deal.

Also, President Biden will not prosecute Trump. He will do what Obama did with the Wall Street bankers who created the 2008 recession. Biden believes it is wrong to put the country through the agony of prosecuting Trump, his family and his aides. Heck, most Republicans don’t like Trump anyway and are glad to see him go. Let the left wing criticize Biden for letting Trump go.

Take the deal.

You are for prosperity and freedom. You are for balanced budgets. (frog got caught in my throat just writing that.) You are for smaller government and less regulation. You achieved that over the last four years. Now you have a president who will work with you. And if you decide to work with him, you can get what you want. We all can.

Take climate change. We can pursue a market-based clean energy proposal that creates whole new industries that will employ millions IN YOUR STATES. You can be heroes to working class people in your states and continue to take that voter away from Democrats. Do you really care whether Americans work in coal jobs or solar jobs? I don’t. I just care that they are employed. Put aside that clean energy can help us save the world. Just think about the job creation. Sure we can argue about how much to subsidize the switch away from fossil fuels. But why on Earth should we keep subsidizing oil, gas and coal as it destroys the planet.

There is no way Joe Biden is going to drive industries out of business to serve some leftie agenda. His North Star is job creation and employing people. His climate czar comes from BlackRock on Wall Street for God’s sake. His specialty is making money on clean energy. How can you oppose that?

Take the deal.

I see Republicans don't like Neera Tanden for OMB director because of her mean tweets about Republicans. Really? You may not like her tweets. (We sure didn’t like Trump’s) But she is smart. She knows how to say NO. And she knows how to make a deal. Your people on Capitol Hill now have someone to negotiate with, who they can call on the phone. She will take the phone call. The left doesn’t like her because of ties to Clinton. What do you care? Are you really going to take down a child of immigrants because she said mean things about Trump and because she is too close to Hillary Clinton?

Does submarining Neera Tanden get you your agenda? Torpedo her and you get somebody to the left of her.

Take the deal.

We are at a fork in the road here - all of us. We can keep fighting over the little stuff to the detriment of the country and score little victories on Twitter and the cable shows. Or we can take the deal on the table that Biden’s election offers. Work together with a moderate Democrat to get things done to help the country out of the pandemic and the recession. And make an economy that works for everyone. Prosperity!

In it together. Please - for the country’s sake and your own survival as a political party - take the deal.