Unable to generate any real enthusiasm for the Biden campaign, which to date consists of thinly reported stump speeches and push-polls that end with an appeal for contributions — four or five text msgs every day -- I’m spending my efforts supporting a local house election — Callie Barr vs Jack Bergman (an odious MAGA hack) in the Michigan 1st. Speaking from experience: knocking on doors, phone banking, stuffing envelopes, etc. during a presidential campaign seems to yield little. People aren’t home during the day, so the best one does is to leave a bunch of flyers. Most people including me resent the intrusion of a phone call, or now that we have caller ID, will not even answer.
So there we sit with our tally sheets, eating donuts, fondly remembering the real energy of the social media campaign of Obama in 2008….
Folks here can talk all they want about how great Biden has been — and he has done some real good. Meanwhile we blissfully ignore Gaza, the continuing deep divisions in our country, and the bleeding sore of unfairness in our society for poor folks and especially for people of color. The affect of the majority of blogs here on KOS is non-stop happy-talk about how Biden is 100% focused and sharp and that all of the reports of his lapses and the other clear signs of his old-age are nothing more than Fox News propaganda. We rely on the 2016 fantasy that El Cheeto is such a buffoon and liar that winning is an easy lay-up, and no one other than his howling base can possibly vote for him.
Time for some truth I think.
Biden is showing clear signs of senility. This is a fact. Not just normal ageing. I’m 77 years old and every other day I can’t seem to remember where I left the car keys. My mental processes have slowed; at the end of a long day like yesterday’s big family and friends’ get together, I am out of mental gas in a way I wouldn’t have been ten years ago. The Presidency, the democratically elected “king” we put in charge every four years, is an exhausting job. Reports have been leaking out for some time, and not just from Fox, that good old Joe has four hours of useful brain power on the average day, that his very able staff and the first lady play an outsized role in wheeling him around, and the lapses we have been trying our best to ignore are real and very, very troubling. These reports have become a flood since the debate disaster.
There is an area of engineering science that studies the psychological factors in catastrophic failures in everything from bridges that fall down to the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. One thing always stands out. When the consequences of the failure are very bad, even professional engineers tend deny reality. As in: That bridge has been OK for a long time, it’s going to cost a lot of money to replace it. It’s a vital route for our city’s commerce, and in spite of the obvious fact that it is a rusted out, rotten concrete, too old piece of junk, failure becomes unthinkable. And then one day the bridge falls down; people on their way to work die, and we start asking how could that have happened?
All of which is why, with the polls, the Supreme Court, and the lackluster Biden campaign scaring the s**t out of everyone I know, I have to say this is bad, very bad — and here we are, paralyzed. I myself have been all over the place: coaching tips for the next debate; arguing for an open convention; arguing with family over Harris vs Whitmer vs Basheer as potential replacements; arguing as we Dems always do, tied to the tracks as Snidely “ El Cheeto” Whiplash shovels more coal into the political firebox.
A bit of cold water folks. They are winning and we are losing. What seemed a good bet six months ago, when Biden it turns out should have announced his retirement, is looking like an hundred-to- one wager these days. We need to ask; Is it time to double down or is it time for a new deal?
If we really want to win, not just talk about how bad TFG is but win this thing, we Dems, every one of us, needs to get down on their knees and beg and pray for a third Obama term. A nomination by acclimation and a high-energy campaign will bury the Orange One. It won’t even be close, and Obama will go down in history as one of our greatest Presidents, the man who saved democracy, a 21st Century Abraham Lincoln.