James Finn
2 min readJan 14, 2022

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I published my own story about this on Medium yesterday, and the Los Angeles Blade picked it up and ran it too. Biden is simply not keeping the explicit and implicit promises he made to the people who voted for him, particularly members of minorities like LGBTQ people, Black people, and other people of color.

As far as the LGBTQ Equality Act goes, which Candidate Biden promised repeatedly and forcibly to make one of his administration's highest priorities, President Biden has done precisely, and I mean that very literally, nothing. He not only did not make it a top priority, he made it no kind of priority at all. He just stopped talking about it and hoped we would forget. That's the kind of despicable political bullshit that makes me agree with your "feckless" characterization.

Biden is not an effective leader of the Democratic Party, let's face it. He's made it very clear that he's an institutionalist who respects the traditions of the Senate even though the American people are telling him we don't give a shit about the Senate's traditions. It took Biden a year to come out even weakly in favor of changing filibuster rules. Of course he hasn't gotten anything done. We've been telling him for a year that he would get nothing done unless he came out powerfully in favor of changing filibuster rules, and he did nothing but waver. He's weak. He's counseling everyone to get along with the Republicans, when the Republicans are being strong and focused and determined and winning.

Biden is losing, and he's going to keep losing, because he will not lead with strength and determination. He will not crack the whip of party discipline, he will not exercise the awesome powers of his office to rein rogue senators in. He apparently won't do much of anything.

He only had two years to begin with. The Republicans are very likely going to take the House back for the next Congress, and then it's game over. We're all fucked.

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James Finn
James Finn

Written by James Finn

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.

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