This season of ongoing debate about Biden’s fitness has produced a lot of ideas. One of the latest is from Atlantic writer Graeme Wood, titled “A Scheme for Biden to Preserve His Dignity.”
The story is brief because his idea is so simple. It is well worth a read.
It begins:
Senility is part of the human condition, but dignity is usually a choice. I pity Joe Biden for having to make what may be the most humiliating decision in presidential history. The questions Are you senile yet? Are you sure? have no dignified answer—which is why Biden should consider an option midway between resignation and denial, and persist in a way that is not, to my knowledge, being considered.
It then suggests that Biden do two things: release his delegates from their binding requirement to vote for him on the first ballot at the convention, and continue campaigning.
Wood explains:
Asking the country to trust him is no longer a credible option. But inviting delegates to witness his continued vigor and competence, and his superiority to other candidates, is a possible path forward—indeed, the likeliest one to end in another Biden term. He would have to give a speech to explain this choice. It might go something like this: You saw me looking old. For the next month you’ll see much younger Democrats and Republicans eating my dust. And if in August, my party thinks this old man is ready for retirement, I’ll be thrilled to finish my term, support the nominee, and work on my golf handicap come January.
He then rebuts the predictable objection: that the Party shouldn’t waste time and spend political capital on infighting, but should instead unite quickly behind Biden.
He recounts a line he heard from former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin:
“When I was a boy,” Harkin said, “I heard cats yowling underneath the porch.” They sounded like they might be killing each other, so he reported his concern to his mother. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “It just means that there are going to be more cats.” Competition is healthy, and what sounds to naive ears like a death match is an essential step in the propagation and survival of the party.
I can already hear strong protests from many folks here at Daily Kos. I get it. They will argue persuasively that our best and only chance to beat Trump is to start accepting the reality that Biden is our nominee and get behind him.
But as Wood’s piece demonstrates, the issue of Biden’s capacity absolutely won’t go away no matter how much we protest, simply because of his age. It will be with us up to — and either including or after, depending on the outcome — election day. And it persists not because I persist, perhaps fruitlessly, in posting about it here. It persists because Biden’s actual age and demeanor, and video of his debate performance, exist in the real world.
I am not an enemy, I am a die-hard Democrat who will support Biden in the end if he is the nominee, and I’m not posting this to troll anybody. I am doing it to allow an inconvenient truth to be expressed in a community I value, even if that community does not value me much in return. Yes, at this moment in this forum, I’m a gadfly.
If, having reached this concluding sentence, you are irritated, no need to attack me in a comment. Just do yourself the favor of not reading me.