7/22/24

FINALLY!
 A SAD, INEVITABLE DAY
 AS BIDEN QUITS THE RACE

THE NIGHT BEFORE Joe Biden quit his campaign, I was raging to my wife and our cat - who unjustly have had to endure so many political harangues - what a stubborn, selfish man the president had turned out to be.
     Trying to cling to his candidacy for a second term, putting the nation – and all of us - at risk of another Donald Trump disaster, but much worse this time. Can you imagine the ego of the man.
     But by yesterday afternoon, when Biden finally did “the right thing,” I just felt sad.
      Wish came true, yup.  But a letdown? Also, yes.
     I missed him immediately. I can’t fully explain why, except that I’ve grown to like Joe Biden immensely in the more than three years in which he’s been president, the best president of my lifetime.
     Here’s the thing: I’d gone all in on the Biden shtick: the aviator sun glasses, the bike-riding guy from Scranton, car-loving Everyman grinning in the cockpit of his ’67 Corvette Stingray.
     He’d done the most important thing anyone could possibly do, saved the country, and all of us in it, from another four years of Donald Trump.
       A friend once warned me that's the wrong thing to do,  “liking” a politician.
      They are not your buddies, he said. Ultimately, they aren’t even nice.  The charm they exhibit doesn’t make them a good neighbor. Likeability is political Darwinism, natural selection; it’s impossible for them to get elected if they aren’t fun to be around.
     Instead, my friend said, pols, officials, the people in charge, should be judged impersonally, dispassionately on the things they do right, which is rare; and condemned for the what they screw up, which is routine.

SO I GUESS I SHOULDN'T go all weepy about Joe’s exit.
      Here’s the thing: it sure took him long enough – maybe too long – and drove everyone crazy waiting for the obvious. And when Joe did do it, it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, or because he’s a patriot, or because he loves America.
      He did it because he had to. Period. After the disaster of his June 27 debate, fellow Democrats, including his supposed “pals” like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, along with the pollsters, the media, rank-and-file voters, the Senate and House creatures of the “down ballot” and even Ben, our cat, they all made it impossible for him to remain in the race.
      It's one of the realities of politics: sometimes you can’t do what you want.    

      I had an image of Pelosi, the former House speaker and greatest woman politician of our era (so far), descending on his summer home in Delaware, dragging him out, leaping behind the wheel of Stingray, plopping Biden in the passenger seat and driving him far, far away until he “agreed” to leave the race.
     None of this is fair to Biden, after all he has done putting the country back to normal after the criminal chaos of Trump’s four years.
     But Biden hasn’t been fair, either, being so obstinate, clinging to power, thinking that he could ignore whatever is going on in his body that has made him so frail, his voice too low to be able to make the proper case against Trump.

I DO ADMIT to being surprised by the Republicans in how low and ugly they are, as in how they instantly responded to Biden’s withdrawal. But the GOP playbook is vast, and its chapters go far beyond Rule # 1: Always be a sore loser.
     Yesterday’s was # 36 - Never miss a chance to kick a man when he’s down.
     Biden leaves the stage and in about a minute and a half later, they’re getting a few whacks into the 81-year-old suffering from Covid, as well as despair.
     “Kick him, Mikey.”  
      “Yeah, Donny, you kick ‘em, too.”
      Mikey Johnson, the House speaker:
      “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
     The “new” Donny Trump, chastened after God herself brushed an assassin’s bullet away from his brain, displayed his newfound compassion:
      Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.
     
FOR A MOMENT, Kamala Harris is looking good, terrific, in fact.
     Harvesting endorsements, including one from everyone’s favorite uncle, Uncle Joe Biden; from fellow Democrats; hailed as a 59-year-old youngster and democracy’s best, last hope. But just wait until she starts getting the business from the Republicans, the media, jealous fellow party members who dream at night of walking into that Oval Office themselves and not as a guest.
     Can Harris stand up to it? Can she rally the party? Can she beat Donald Trump?
     Can a sizable chunk of the electorate even know the answer to this civics quiz question: Can you name the current vice president of the United States? 

      We should be humble about this:  there's a lot we just don't know.
      We just  don’t know, can’t fathom, how a big part of the country has been driven crazy by Donald Trump. He shouldn’t even be in the race, and here he is, literally dodging bullets, getting legal cases dropped, on and on and on, and we all don’t know how he does it.  Therefore, we don’t know what can be done about it.
     But on Nov. 5, we’ll know almost everything:  Did we do the right thing about  throwing Favorite Uncle Joe under the bus? Did we wait too long to do that?  Do people loath Donald Trump enough? Will we live free or die? All riddles will be solved.
     But one question will haunt our generation and history itself, because it never will be answered:
     Could Joe Biden have beaten Donald Trump?