Former Time Magazine Editor and former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel aptly pulled an appropriate historical analogy when describing, on MSNBC's Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace, President Bidens pending announcement that the United States would buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer Vaccine and donate them to the needy country's of the world.
He called it (about 14 minutes and ten seconds into the clip," the "Vaccine Marshall Plan."
This is a reference to the forward internationalist thinking of both President Harry Truman and his Secretary of State George Marshall who organized the economic reconstruction of Europe following World War Two in part to counter the propaganda of the then expanding Soviet Union into its Eastern Block.
Truman, if you watch the acclaimed CNN documentary series, Cold War, said in an address to Congress in 1947, it was about "keeping hope alive" for the people in Europe faced with dire living situations following World War Two.
Earlier on Deadline White House, NBC White House Reporter Mike Memoli said the Biden/Harris Administration was using another historical reference, saying the United States would become the "Arsenal of Vaccinations."
This is a reference to the Franklin Roosevelt's address to the nation in 1940 calling for national support for America to be "an Arsenal of Democracy" in aiding the Allied Powers against the Totalitarian powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
President Biden has repeatedly said that this is a time when Democracy is coming under attack at both home and abroad from reactionary know-nothing autocratic forces and it was vital to show that Republics and Democracies, as they proved after World War Two and the end of the Cold War, are the indispensable way of governing.
In his address to United States troops in Britain ahead of the start of the G7 Conference, the President relayed:
"...And at every point along the way, we're going to make it clear that the United States is back and Democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and issues that matter most to our future. That we are committed to leading this plan, defending our values, and delivering for our people. Americans are in a position to advance our national security and economic prosperity when we bring together like-minded nations to stand with us. These nations that have shed blood alongside of us, defending our shared values, our unrivaled network of alliances and partnerships are the key to the American advantage in the world and have been. They make the world safer for all of us. And they are how we are going to meet the challenges of today which is changing rapidly, we are going to meet it at a position of strength. Our alliances are grounded on Democratic ideas, a shared view of the future, and where every voice matters…
… The same reason some of you signed up to serve, to proudly defend and honor the democratic values of our natural strength. If our British friends will excuse me quoting the Declaration of Independence, America is unique of all the world because we are not forced -- formed from geography or religion but an idea. The only nation in the world founded on the notion of an idea. We hold this truth to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Meaning no nation can defeat us as long as we stick to our values. It is our American creed. It makes us who we are. And it draws friends and partners to our side. For hundreds of years, Americans have fought and sometimes died defending those values…We have to build the shared future we see, the future where nations are free… The moment falls to us to prove that democracy will not just endure, but they will excel as we rise to see is the enormous opportunities of a new age. We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over as some of our fellow nations believe. We have to expose as false the narrative that the creed of dictators can match the speed and scale of the 21st Century challenges. You know and I know they are wrong. But it does not mean we don't have to work harder than ever to prove that democracy can still deliver for our people. But things are changing so rapidly, democracies cannot get together to form a consensus and respond like others can. But you know better than anyone that democracy does not happen by accident. We have to defend it, strengthen it, renew it. And I know that the American People are up to this job. I know because I look around this hanger, all I see is America…"
With this investment of donating 500 million doses of the Pfizer Vaccine, President Biden is trying to demonstrate, like Roosevelt's Arsenal of Democracy and Truman's Marshall Plan, that Democracies can still work on the international stage.
With his American Rescue, Jobs, and Families Plans, he is trying to show that government (like it did during the Clinton and Obama Presidencies) can work for good at home despite perennial decades-long Republican obstruction.
Despite what individuals drinking the Know-Nothing, Black Shirt sponsored Kool-Aid in the Trump Zone-Fox Island think, there is no substitute for inclusive Democracy, an economic policy that moves the country forward and the people prosper, full and unsuppressed voting rights, and the American Republic.
The American People need to work hard to help ensure the Biden/Harris program succeeds Democracy survives and thrives, and attempts to weaken it are thwarted.
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