Political Position Update: Saturday Political Soap Box 274

 

As we are now are over four months into the Biden administration, I thought I would briefly update some of my most important political positions and how Biden is doing concerning them.

Actually, I had another topic in mind, but when I woke up this morning, whatever I was thinking the previous day, has fleeted from my mind.

And, yes, I hope to do a more detailed review of one of the most politically significant books I have ever read, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. However, I am still working on how best to distill it and emphasize its impact.

But I will say this because it influences so much of the rest of my political thinking -

The Republican Party has become exclusively the party of preserving the caste system.

It's why Trumpeteers can become so slippery about traditional Republican dogma.  It's why they don't give a rip about free trade, or how much the wealthy are taxed, or the Russians, or government deregulation, or eliminating the minimum wage.

It's why Trumpeteers so easily seem to vote against their self-interest.  It's why they'll risk access to heath-care, defunding their schools, crumbling infrastructure, low wages.

It's because their primary interest is to make sure the dominant caste stays in control.

More on this later.

Meanwhile, here are my most important issues:

Mitigating/reversing Global Warming

I understand that 'climate change" is the preferred term.  And it makes sense in a way because the extreme weather is not just heat, but increased storms, including snowfall, increasing in frequency and strength.  But all the effects stem back to the same thing - the globe's temperature is rising at a dangerous rate, one that will make life challenging, and eventually, unsustainable.

Biden's Grade: B+.  His heart is in the right place, and I think he understands the reality of it and what's at stake.  Does he go far enough?  No, but he goes farther than any other American leader we've had.  He has led with rhetoric and executive orders.  He has gushed over the Ford F150 Electric Lightning.  His proposed American Jobs Act (includes infrastructure) is very green and progressive.  As far as passing the legislation, he has the same two problems as everything else I might list - 1) Republican filibuster and 2) Joe Manchin.

Universal Health Care

This has been at the top of my list for decades.  As a Christian and as an accountant, Medicare For All or some similar version of true universal healthcare has to be done.  It is both the morally correct thing to do, it is also the most economically feasible system we could put in place.  It saves money, and it saves lives.

Biden's Grade: C-.  He has made noises about preserving Obamacare, maybe even improving it.  He wants to do more to control drug prices.  But there is little of substance happening here. My major complaint about Biden is his objection to true universal health care.

Economic Justice Issues

We need to have a $15 minimum wage, one that includes tipped workers.  We need to reform our tax system - in a way that increases its progressivity.  We need to have more and stronger worker's unions.  

Biden's Grade: B.  He tried to include moving towards a $15 minimum wage in the Covid legislation.  He wants to increase the ridiculously low corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Many of the things passed in the COVID legislation significantly reduced the tax burden on working-class incomes in ways that I don't think many who will benefit from fully understand yet. He sided with the Amazon workers in Alabama who wanted to form a union (unfortunately, not enough workers voted to side with themselves).  In accomplishing this and more, he has some of the same problems as he did with climate change - 1) Republican filibuster and 2) Joe Manchin, and also 3) the Senate Parliamentarian.

Racial Justice Issues

These include, just to name two, voting rights and criminal justice reform.

Biden's Grade: B+.  Again, his heart is in the right place.  And some version of police reform may pass, thanks in part due to the hard work of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.  He has two great voting rights bills pending in the Senate, but without filibuster reform, nothing will happen.  These are tough issues, and I appreciate that Biden is trying to deal with them.

I will also say that on Covid, I give Bident an A+.  He has steered us out of this even more quickly than I had hoped for, even in my prayers and dreams.  This alone will make him one of the greatest Presidents of modern times.

I have other issues that are important to me.  And for those and the ones mentioned here, I am grateful for a President that at least brings these items to the table.

But as long as we have 35 to 40% of Americans* who choose caste over country, we will suffer needlessly in America.  The only thing that will end this is for any and all Trumpian candidates to be crushed at the polls in 2022.

Sadly, I am not holding my breath.

*but Tom, you say, 35 to 40% is not a majority.  Why are you worried about them?  Because so many things put in place to defend the caste system works in their favor. The Electoral College.  The Senate, with states like Wyoming having the same number of Senators as California, and the filibuster giving power to McConnell.  The Supreme Court and judiciary, which have been packed with right-wing extremists for years now.  The gerrymandering of Congressional districts and state legislatures.  Lobbyists and donors that buy off politicians.  A heavily biased media towards the status quo or who are the outright leading soldiers voicing far-right causes.  So, yeah, I'm worried.

Back in the Wednesday Wandering Saddle

 

Whew!

Formatting problems fixed!

Anyone who wonders what I'm talking about should look at the previous post.  Somehow, it flipped to HTML view instead of compose view.  But I figured out how to flip it off and return to compose.

ARRRRE YOU READY TO WANDER?

Woke up.  Got out of bed.  Dragged a comb across my....naw, I didn't do that.  What do I care what my hair looks like when I get up?

The first thing is to let the dog posse out and prepare their food bowls. I also do the cat creature.  I have to put her up on a table in the study to eat it, so the dogs won't get to it.  She is now too old and fat to jump onto the table, so I have to lift her up/

Ellie and Cocoa Bear get dry food, as does Pixie, although hers is a different food with smaller pebbles.  Boss-A-Man gets a mix of easy-to-chew-softer foods, as Boss-A-Man has very few teeth left.

I take Cocoa Bear for a walk in the mornings.  My foot/leg pains are acting up right now, so it's a bit of a challenge.  I know I don't get enough exercise, so as excruciating as it may be, I still feel the need to barrel through it.  Walking is painful, but I don't think it makes things worse.  I could be wrong.

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I'm trying to discipline my work schedule to help give myself a little more routine.  I am taking Wednesday and Friday off.  This does not always fit the workflow, but I am determined to do it unless there is an emergency deadline.

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Mask policy has completely disintegrated wherever I go. I can't even say what's right or wrong anymore.  I will still wear a mask in most public situations.  

I was in Kroger Monday, and the sign in front now says that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in the store.  I wore mine anyway, out of habit, mostly.

While looking at a display of prepared fruit, a guy nearby saw me and started to engage in conversation.  He told me that he had done nothing to protect himself through this whole pandemic and had not gotten sick.  He attributed this miracle to God.

Disregarding the theological issues, one thing was clear.  This man was obviously unvaccinated, and he also was not wearing a mask.  

And that's the way I think it will be.  Most of those you see with masks are vaccinated because they were responsible enough to care about themselves and others.  In my opinion, the majority of those unvaccinated were not caring enough to wear a mask before - why should they now because we're on an "honors" system?

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Speaking of going into maskless situations, I plan to attend an OHC Writer's Guild meeting Thursday night.  I have some fear and trepidation, but I will do my best to control that.  I also intend to do all I can to avoid leadership positions.  I don't need the stress.

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I have had recurring dreams about being in public situations, and no one except me is masked.  Most of these have involved our church.  That nightmare came true last Sunday.  We had a vestry meeting Thursday trying to reestablish mask policy, accommodating the shifting guidelines of the diocese.  I thought that we had decided to continue wearing masks rather than putting special conditions on the unvaccinated.

That's not what happened.   On Sunday, it was decided before everyone got there that everyone there was vaccinated, so we didn't have to wear masks.  I tried to keep mine on for a while, but I soon gave up.  It's very confusing.  I know, for me, the mask may no longer be necessary, but it's been a way of life for over a year.

I'll get over it.  Eventually.

Wanderingly Yours,

T. M. Strait

The Unexpected Disappearance of Formatting

This is not working right. The formatting on my blog has gone insane, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it. I connat change the size of my font. I tried to add a picture, and it just added a binch of code. On this line, I'm going to see how long it will go begore it bumps me to the next line. Ok, so I'm staying on the same line. It's still having me type on the same line. Will this ever end? Stil the same line. Boy, this is a ...there it goes. I have no odea how this will look when it's finished. I hope I figure out how to fix this. Ten years of bloggin down the drain. This is not the topic I planned on writing on. So... due to technical difficulties, I am ending blog transmission for now. Hope to be back soon! I pressed a button and it further shrinky-dinked it.

Tuesday Twitter Questions #4

 

It's time for the third installment of my newest semi-irregular blog thread!  Wherin, I try to answer the first five Twitter questions I run across on my Twitter feed. Why don't I just answer them on Twitter?  Because on Twitter, no one can see my tweet.  Not that answering them here is much better.  Because on here - no one can see my blog.

Ruin a date in five words or fewer.

Trump's still President!

On a scale of 1-5, 1 being terrible and 5 being fantastic - how would you rate your time management?

3.14159265359

Do you plot your stories and then write or do you write and then discover the plot as you go?

I have a very broad idea of where I'm going, but the characters determine how I get there.

Where you're from, do people talk about you?

Not to my face.

How's everyone doing this morning?

I feel better than I did yesterday.  I was able to walk today, although it was slow and painful.  

When Cocoa Bear and I began, it was starting to get light, and by the time we finished, I felt like it was

getting dark.

Anyone else need jetlag pills after a weekend?

I did the weekend of the 16th after coming back in from Michigan (driving), but not this last weekend.

That's it for this Tuesday.

Something happened to my formatting so that it keeps the writing on the same line rather than go to the nest, like I screwed up the margins somehow.

Oh, well.

Maybe it will be okay next blog post.

    

The Greatest Honor

 

That is not the ocean.

It is Lake Michigan.  

After over four years, we were finally able to visit Michigan.  My sister and brother-in-law now live in the Grand Rapids area, as do my sister's daughter and son.

When last we visited, Carol had one grandchild.  Bailey, just under a year old, was her daughter Tiffany and Derek's young daughter, precocious and charming.

That has now grown to four grandchildren! 

Just like these baby geese we saw in Holland, Michigan, Carol's grandchild brood keeps growing...

...and growing! Now at FOUR (including Tiffany's second daughter, Morgan).

I can't begin to tell you what a wonderful, refreshing visit it was.

But, for me, personally, there was an extraordinary moment, an incredible honor, that I will cherish the rest of my life.

As shy as I am, most of you know that I can be quite the ham on stage. Whether good or bad, it gives me the rough equivalent of a runner's high when I hit the right zone.

I love reading aloud.  I love reading stories to children.  During the pandemic, I started Storytime with Mr. Tom, posting a few YouTube videos.  Like most of my creative attempts, it met with quite a thud.  Are they good or bad?  I can't tell because they're just not been - I am terrible at self-promotion.

But my grandnieces and grandnephews saw them, and their reaction and the reaction of their parents seem to be positve.

Other than that, they were pretty unwatched, so I got discouraged and stopped doing them.

But Nicholas, Carol's son, the proud father of two boys, Elijah and Evan, remembered.

When we came to his house for a get-together, we hadn't sat down long when he brought out a children's book and asked if I would read to the children after dinner.

Would I do that? I threw all shyness and hesitancy aside and said, of course, I would!

Who are these people?  My sister Carol, with Evan on her lap, me with the Cena book in my hands, Elijah, Tiffany with Morgan on her lap, Bailey, Tiffany's husband, Derek.  Alison is at the table, with Benjamin who is holding Carol's dog, Ellie.  At the kitchen counter is Carol's husband, Mike, and her son, Nick.  Behind the camera is Elijah and Even's mom, Kristen.

It was a book by John Cena (yeah - the actor) and featured eight different characters.

Did I do the best rendition ever done?

I don't know.  Probably not.  But what I do know is this -

I had a blast.  I got into the zone and felt that runner's high.  I let it rip, no hint of shyness, changing up and doing voices, highlighting every word I could.

I was afraid that one or more of them might get bored, start to squirm, or leave.  But they sat riveted, engrossed in the story I was telling.

Thank you, Nick, for offering me this moment.

It was the greatest moment, one I will cherish forever.

I can't wait to get back up to Michigan again.  

Invasion of the Unvaccinated!

 

Look, I get it.  The CDC is following science, and the scientific evidence leans heavily towards vaccinated people being protected, both from getting serious cases and giving serious cases to others.  So, it makes sense.  Those who are vaccinated do not need to mask anymore. Not outdoors.  Not indoors.

That's just great.  I mean, really, it is.  The country has shown remarkable progress in the last few months.  Cases and deaths are lowering.  We are on the right trajectory.

Our vaccination rate is the best in the world (boy, it feels like a long time since I could say the US was number in anything positive!).  Almost half the country has received at least one dose.  This is not herd immunity yet, but it doesn't factor in those who have had COVID and may or may not have developed temporary immunity.  So, we may be even closer than we think.

Here's the situation.  Vaccinated people do not need to wear masks, except where mandated by local governments or private businesses.  Unvaccinated people should continue to wear masks and follow cautious protocol.

And there's the rub.

People responsible enough to get vaccinated have had no trouble wearing a mask, and many will continue to be extra cautious and show support.

People, who at this point remain unvaccinated, were probably not responsible enough to wear a mask in the first place.  Some of you reading this may live in more responsible places, but here where I live?  It's always been the wild, wild west.

How will they enforce this?

Short answer - they won't.  They are leaving it up to the "honor system."

HA!

This may be extreme, but there is no honor among many (but not all) of the unvaccinated.  

A store puts up a sign saying that if you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask, but if you're unvaccinated, please wear a mask.  Hear that chortling in front of the store?  That's the unvaccinated laughing at the whole concept.

Most reactions will be one of the following:

I'm not wearing a mask.  They don't know whether I'm vaccinated or not, and because it's an honor system, no one will challenge me on it.

OR

Mask?  Are they kidding?  Why should I start wearing one NOW?

The reaction will definitely not be what the CDC is hoping for:

Oh, my!  I guess I have to put on my mask!  I wish I was like the vaccinated and able not to wear one.  I know!  I'll get my vaccine shots, so then I can go maskless too!

Yeah, CDC.  I hate to break it to you, but most people aren't wired that way.

I don't have a solution to this.  It may be a stage we have to go through.

I wish people behaved better.  It would help speed the fading of this deadly virus.  We are still in a race with variants.  But there is no reason to think the irresponsible are suddenly going to start being responsible now.

For me, I'll continue to wear my mask unless I'm with a group that's fully vaccinated.  Is it overdoing it?  Is it too cautious?  Maybe.  

But I know what side I want to err on.

Not Letting Go: Saturday Political Soap Box 273

 

William Jennings Bryan did something no other person did.  He ran as a major nominee for President three times and lost the popular vote all three times.

The first time he ran in 1896, he was only 36 years old, the youngest nominee in American History, a record that still stands today (unless AOC runs in '24 - currently, I have her penciled in for 2028 when she is 40).

Bryan had his virtues and his flaws.  He was a great defender of agrarian interests and favored farmers over the banks and wealthy interests that tried to control them. He was more Progressive than his opponents (an exception might have been the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt).  He later became Secretary of State in 1912 under the racist President Woodrow Wilson, but it was not a good fit - Bryan opposed imperialism and resigned in 1915 as he protested our increasing movement towards involvement in World War I.

But his attitude towards African-Americans was mixed at best, as were many at that time.  And he was a fundamentalist., very conservative in his religious views.  His last public act was leading the prosecution at the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a Tennessee teacher was put on trial for teaching evolution.  This trail was dramatized in my favorite play, Inherit the Wind, and featured the most famous defense attorney of that time, Clarence Darrow, bringing Bryan to the stand, where he grilled him about the Bible and its contradictions.  Bryan died only five days after the trial.

He lost the first time by 600,000 popular votes and 95 electoral college votes.  Yet the party turned to him again in 1900, this time losing by 858,000 popular votes and 237 votes.

Yet this was not enough to dissuade the Democratic Party.  He was their nominee a third time, in 1908, this time losing by 1.270,000 popular votes and 159 electoral college votes.

The more he ran, the further away he got.  And yet, the Democratic Party turned to him time and time again.

This hasn't happened in modern times.  Since 1972, major parties have turned fiercely against their Presidential losers. The Democrats turned against McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Clinton.  The Republicans were even more extreme in their reactionary exclusion of Bush Sr., Dole, McCain, and Romney.  Oh, sure; they might become a cabinet Secretary, or win a Senate Seat.  But they would never be considered as Presidential candidates again.

This hasn't happened in modern times.

Until now. 

Until Donald J Trump.  A man who has only flaws and no virtues.  A man whose only claim to fame is his desire to preserve the American caste system. A man who shouldn't be a dog catcher, much less President. A man who led an insurrection against democracy.

In 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2,869,000 votes and only won the Presidency because of a deeply flawed and broken electoral college system. In 2018. he was the major factor in the Democrats winning control of the House.

In 2020 he lost the popular vote by a whopping 7,053,000 votes and lost the still skewed electoral college vote by the reverse of his 2016 results (304 to 232). And now, even the Senate fell narrowly into Democratic hands.

And yet, the Republicans did not turn on on him. They cling to him all the harder.  If he wants to be the nominee in 2024, it will be handed to him on a silver platter.  Heck, probably a golden platter.

Unless he's in jail by that time.

Hell, who am I kidding?  Even that may not matter to Republicans

Why this clinging to someone, who if he ran again, is likely to finish further away from winning, as did William Jenning Bryan?

Because the Republicans are no longer about policy positions.

They only care about power.  And that power is to be deployed in the preservation of the American caste system.

And for them, that is a fight worth having.  

It horrifies me.  But it is true.

Saturday Cartoon Fun Time!

 

Saturday Cartoon Fun Time!

In late Summer/early Fall, all my comic books would blare out in double-page spreads the brand new Saturday morning cartoon schedules coming to one of the big three networks shown on your spectacular TV (if you were lucky enough to get all three broadcast networks).  

I would gather them together and plot out my morning cartoon strategy.  Unlike some of my peers, I was not afraid to get up and turn the channel once in a while.

They would run from as early as 7 in the morning and on through early afternoon.  The later you got, the more likely they were to be live-action, or, even worse, try to be educational (blech- that's what school was for!).

Today's comic books do not promote such things.*  Because such things no longer exist,  Saturday morning broadcast networks are now filled with extended news programs, infomercials, and maybe a show about pets or sports.  Cartoons are GONE.

Cable networks are now devoted almost entirely to cartoons and related programmings, such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.  But they also do a lot of wandering into other formats, and if they have a special dedicated Saturday morning schedule, I don't know about it.

No, we didn't sit around and watch cartoons every Saturday morning from 7 AM to noon.  But it was there when we wanted it.  

And thanks to those double-page ads in the comics, I knew what to watch and when.

I knew when to change the channel, and I was man (boy) enough to do it.

*truth be told, there are very few ads in comic books today.  Most are in-house ads promoting other things their corporate owners sell.  Marvel has been subsumed by Disney, DC by Times/Warner. Ain't oligopolies grand?

Have the Rules Changed?

 Have the rules changed?

I collected unemployment once.  Back in 1995.  

It was humiliating.  It was only a tiny fraction of my employed wages.  Even if you were to add $300 a week, it was quite pitiful.  

And you couldn't just sit and collect it.  You had to go to classes to teach you how to look for a job.  You had to report you were looking for jobs.  I don't think, without a very good reason, that you could turn down a job.

I was only on it for a few weeks.  Not because I found a real job, but because I went in with somebody on a bookstore.  I had a lot of comics and trading cards, and I added those to her existing bookstore.  I also did a card/comic show at a mall about twice a month.  These efforts netted me virtually nothing, a significant drop from the unemployment check.  Nevertheless, I so much did not want to be on unemployment that I willingly gave it up.

During the height of the pandemic, under Trump and a Republican Senate, unemployment was fattened up to $600 additional per week.  Why?  Well, there were a lot of places shut down or with business COVID restrictions, and that meant a lot of temporary closures.  And they did not want people to fall into poverty or for the American economy to completely collapse.

Even with that, many people went back to work at the first opportunity, even at the sacrifice of that supposed sweet $600 a week.  Because despite the overwhelming prejudice of many ultra-conservatives, most Americans WANT TO WORK.

Fast forward to the present.  People on unemployment are getting HALF the boost that they were, $300.  And yet, the howling has begun.  With that and the $1400 per person payment, people are just too flush and lazy to want to work.

Bullcrap,

Yes, with COVID on the downswing (not over by a longshot, but there is hope on the horizon), the US leading the world in vaccinations, and yes, people having a little cash in their pockets, the economy is coming back.  And businesses at the forefront of that recovery spending, like restaurants and retail establishments, find themselves in need of quickly staffing up.

If we had a true capitalist society, this would mean huge pressure to boost wages and improve working conditions.  There is no evidence that is happening, at least on any large scale. At least not yet.

People want to work.  There are some, like me, that are paranoid and take what we can get.  Others want to make wages that make sense in supporting themselves and their families, and are as safe as possible.

Somebody who has recently been on unemployment, please let me know.  Have the rules changed?  Don't you have to demonstrate that you're actively looking?  Don't you have to take reasonable job offers?

Stop blaming a temporary boost in unemployment compensation for all the troubles of the American economy.  Stop blaming the working poor for an economic system designed to exploit them and keep them impoverished.

Let's redesign the system so that the boat is bigger and the middle class is stronger.

 

Tuesday Twitter Questions #3

 It's time for the third installment of my newest semi-irregular blog thread!  Wherin, I try to answer the first five Twitter questions I run across on my Twitter feed. Why don't I just answer them on Twitter?  Because on Twitter, no one can see my tweet.  Not that answering them here is much better.  Because on here - no one can see my blog.

What are some movies you can watch over and over again and never get sick of?

Darn few.  I'm not much of a repeat viewer.  Specifically, Blazing Saddles.  I love that movie, and I don't seem to tire of it.  Generally, Mel Brooks movies, and any of the movies directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From New York, They Live, etc.).

Do men really like the way a woman smells?  Like their hair and stuff?

Uhh, I guess.  Mostly, I like the absence of bad smells as much as I do good smells. Perfumes don't help much.  They are either neutral to me or overpowering.

Are you happy?  If not, what would bring you happiness?

One of them pizza places that let you assemble your own pizza, like Subway style.  And being able to earn enough money doing the things I love that I can close out my accounting career.

Why is white supremacy allowed to fester?

Because many white people fear that they will be treated like they treated minorities if they are ever outnumbered. And many are slow to recognize that there even is a problem.

No more negativity for today.  Tell me about the awesome stuff you are working on.

Well.  I'm trying to re-energize my blog.  There has been no bump-up in traffic, but at least I'm writing again. I have a completed novel, The Extra Credit Club, that I'm not trying to find a publisher or publish on my own - I'm just sitting on it because I'm so terrified of the next step. For the rest of my writing efforts, I intend to relaunch after May 17th.

Well, that's it for now.

Thanks for stopping by!

T. M. Strait

Return of The Blog!

 

Sorry.  Misread that.  Should be The Blog, not the Blob.  

Good start, eh?  Anyhoo, the rest fits. Kinda.

My month-long experiment without posting a new blog piece gave me an idea of what my bottom was.  In April, the blog had 929 views.  That's not nothing, but certainly not enough to have Buzzfeed or any Instagram celebrity shaking in their boots.

How much is it when I operate normally?

Oh, in and around 2,000.

Pretty pathetic, isn't it?  All the effort extended to garner maybe another 1,000 views.

Well, I'm still trying to decide what to do.  But I do intend to keep the blog.  I just don't know the level or frequency.

I may not know more until May 17th.

I love writing, so it's a matter of deciding to focus my attentions.  My major goal is to continue the phaseout of accounting, so I may have to evaluate what best serves that end.

So, stay tuned!  I should have my usual 15 or so new blog posts this month.

If you want more of a fix, don't forget that I have over 2,250 blog posts for you to select from!

Bloggingly Yours,

T. M. Strait

The Biden Premium: Saturday Political Soap Box 272

 

After a self-imposed exile of one month, I am back to my blog, baby!  LIKE IT OR NOT!

First up, as promised to my many conservative fans (Kimberly! Kermit! Rhonda! Rolf! Dayton! Dean! Deanetta! Nicole! Nicodemus! David! - I'm talking to you!* - maybe- well, they're really just names plucked out of a hat - kinda),  I am following up my Trump Premium with a -

BIDEN PREMIUM!

Now, I would not expect this to be zero.  The US and world have been through a lot, and you can't expect everything to turn on a dime.  I did allow for a small transition, stopping the Trump Premium on January 20th and beginning the Biden Premuin on March 2nd.

As a reminder, the total Trump premium was...

288,285

That is the total number of covid deaths that EXCEED what would have been expected in the US had we had a proportional share of the world's covid deaths and then DOUBLED based on the fact that, well, faux personal liberty and all that.

Now, I will go through the same calculations that I did for Trump, but with the number accumulation beginning on March 2nd.

Let's start by conceding that it might be fair to assume that the US would have at least a share of the cases based on its proportion of the world's population.  Estimates vary on this, but I think a reasonable percentage would be 4.25%.  That's a little bit of rounding, but not much.

This is based on numbers provided by the Bing COVID-19 tracker.  Please keep in mind this is in constant flux, rising every hour.  As of 8 AM May 1, the global total of confirmed COVID-19 deaths (from March 2nd to the present) is -

637,975

We then look at that number and take out the number of US deaths to reconfigure what it would look like with a proportional number of US deaths based on US population -

637,975 - 62,509 = 574,466

Then we take that number, adjust it up to cover what it would be with 4.25% of COVID-19 deaths attributable to the US.

574,466 / 95.75% = 599,964

599,964 * 4.25% = 25,498

25,498**

Our population share of the global COVID-19 deaths would be 25,498.

But let's give Biden the same benefit of the doubt I gave Trump.  Even under the right leadership, we are not the best-behaved country on Earth.  We can't have expected to react as well as South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, or even China.  We just have a bone-deep strain of rugged individualism (politically incorrectly version - selfish pricks -people who value their personal liberty over social responsibility).  So, let's say we behave WORSE than the rest of the world (well, except maybe Brazil), even with the leadership saying and doing the right things. I know this is horrible, but let's say we are TWICE as bad as the rest of the world.  So let's double the number we could expect under good leadership -

25,498 * 2 = 50,996

So, where does that leave us, comparing the number of COVID-19 deaths we have to the number that we might have had under the ideal US conditions?

62,509 - 50,996 = 11,513

So, a fairer number to use with Biden,  as of Saturday morning May 1 at 8AM EST, is 11,513, rounding to 11,500.

See, Trumpeteers?  I'm being fair and using the same method as I did with Trump.

Why is it not zero?

Well, there's a long history to get over—a lot of problems to conquer.  Biden delivered on what he promised - shots in arms (doubling his promised projection) and checks in pockets.  Like him or not, he said he'd do it, and he did it.

The behavior of the American people, in many places, is still atrocious.  There are a lot of very right-wing state governments opening way too early.  People think they smell the finish line and are beginning to abandon caution.  You don't want to even get me started on how Southeast Georgia is behaving.

One other important note.  I've been periodically updating the Biden Premium, and I should tell you that two weeks ago, the number was... 17,000.

Yes.  In two weeks, the Biden Premium has gotten SMALLER, NOT BIGGER.

There's no guarantee that will continue to be the case.  

But I pray that it is.

*please forgive my brief Romper Room moment.