Count me among the depressed, discouraged and disgusted.
I am a life-long Democrat. I loathe Trump and the bucket full of corrupt and dishonest butt weasels of the Republican party. I would vote for Biden’s ghost if that were the choice we were given.
And I am 80 years old. After watching 15 minutes or so of the debate, my stomach knotted, and I started getting texts from friends. We were and are all very nervous about what we saw. No editorial, commentator or TV talking head was involved.
We did not see a vigorous Barack Obama failing to push his advantage or muffing his talking points. It was not George Bush parading his ignorance. What we saw was an old man looking very fragile. Anyone who watched saw this.
I am not a bedwetter nor I am abandoning anyone by admitting what I experienced. So please do not tell me that I did not see and hear what I saw and heard. That is the very definition of gaslighting.
Nothing Biden or his surrogates have done or said since has reassured me or changed that impression including the Stephanopoulos interview. Has the standard really become “He finished his sentences and didn’t drool?”
I don’t care if your 85-year old uncle runs marathons and your 90-year old father could solve differential equations in his head. To me the question is whether this man at this time can do this job? Is this the best man at this time to win this election? If you believe polls, a large percentage of people including Democrats (including me) don’t think so.
In the last year, as an 80-year old man, I have had contemporaries drop dead of a heart attack, receive a cancer diagnosis, develop an unnamed lung disease, and generally exhibit the decline and limitations of old age (myself, included), sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly. What I know for sure is that old people don’t just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and bounce back as someone younger.
I am not comparing what I saw with Trump’s usual disgusting, incoherent and dangerous harangues. To me it is not an issue of how much Trump is deteriorating or the state of his health, although that is important. Nor at this point do I think we are accomplishing much by complaining that no one is calling on Trump to withdraw, although clearly he should be in jail and should never have been a candidate for any office.
I am aware of and admire what President Biden has accomplished in his term. And I know well the dangers we face. I certainly am not ageist, or adopting Republicans’ narrative. But based on what I have observed over the last year or so which was put in sharp relief by what I saw at the debate, a serious question presents itself: Is he up to the job now? So far, all of the answers from party bigwigs assumes Biden is the only choice and therefore far better than Trump. But to me that is or still should be an open question given the stakes.
This is a question for us Democrats to resolve. Do we take the risk of staying with Biden or do we take the risk of putting up a new candidate? Can that even be done?
I don’t know the answer. I wish I did. (For my part I could be excited by Shapiro/Whitmer or Whitmer/Shapiro.) My point is that we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the seriousness of the problem…pretend it doesn’t exist or that it will go away. Joe Biden is an old man and looks and acts it.
However we got here, I believe we have to face this very difficult situation with open eyes, clear heads and hard noses. And soon.