BIDEN'S LOW PRIORITY, OUR HIGH HOPES.

• Author: Ervin, Mike
• Position: SMART ASS CRIPPLE

We're entering the Biden-Harris years, which-considering how punch drunk we all are from the last four years-are destined to someday be known as the Golden Age of Basic Human Decency.

Things got so bad that the ascension of a candidate with basic moral tenets makes a body buoyant with hope for a better future.

However, for the sake of protecting my fragile heart, I'm trying hard to keep in touch with reality and not let my euphoria over the eviction of the squatter who used to occupy the White House inflate my expectations of what's to come. Democrats are not automatic political allies of disabled folks.

On November 7, after being declared the winner by everyone except the squatter and his followers, Biden announced, "We must make the promise of the country real for everybody-no matter their race, their ethnicity, their faith, their identity, or their disability."

That's good because, when Democrats recite the list of neglected people whom they assure will no longer be neglected, they often forget to include disabled folks. Biden put us last but, oh well, we made the list.

But a few months earlier, when the great coalescence occurred and Harris and other Democrat presidential candidates dropped their campaigns and took up with Biden, I saw it as a dreadful occurrence. At the time, Biden was the only major Democratic candidate who hadn't put out a disability plan. That said a lot about the importance the Biden campaign gave to disability issues and courting our votes. Activists came up with the hashtag #AccesstoJoe on Twitter to amplify Biden's failure and spur action.

Biden finally released a disability plan on May 28. It was called "The Biden Plan for Full Participation and Equality for People With Disabilities." The Hill called the plan "wide-ranging" and many disability activists were pleased with the final product.

Does that make me feel better? Well, yes and no. It's still disturbing that disability rights was an afterthought for the Biden campaign. Again, we were last on the list. But at least he did take some action. And it was far more than just issuing some lame "I love the Americans with Disabilities Act" proclamation on the anniversary of the signing of that law.

The annual celebration of the ADA signing every July 26 is just like Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, in the sense that every snake politician that spends the rest of the year upholding white supremacy crawls out from under their slimy rock on MLK Day to declare their...