I intended to record my real time reaction to the presidential debate last week and sat in front of the TV with my laptop open. I have rarely watched these in the past: they are performance, not policy. But this time, performance may be what matters. After about 5 minutes, I closed the computer, realizing my reactions would be a continual stream of varied sorrow.
Biden seemed from the outset very confused. There was not a single sentence that, if written down, makes sense. It was very hard even to intuit what he was talking about. This was during the better parts. Trump was subdued, the no interruption clause a huge gift, making him look presidential. On the split screen, Biden looked genuinely frightened by the man standing across the stage from him. The candidates went back and forth calling each other liars the whole evening. Dana Bash and Jake Tapper both appeared alternatively embarrassed or dyspeptic for ninety minutes. Toward the end, there was a moment where Biden reached towards a great message about the durable allure of America as a place of opportunity, but like everything else he attempted, it was muddled and made sense only if you extrapolated the best possible intent.1
Several hard core lefties I have heard from say they are, and we should be, waiting for more data. If you watched the debate, what more do you need? There is a wise team behind Biden, we are told. Really? The same team that thinks this level of acuity is acceptable in the POTUS?
It is very difficult to watch someone in cognitive decline. It is even more difficult the closer you are to the person and the more you respect his ideas. It is thus not surprising that so many Democrats are committing the age old mistake of looking only at the data that confirms their desired outcome.
There’s a certain mood in political discourse right now that reminds me of a joke David Remnick2 told to describe the mind of the Soviet man:
A farmer came back from the fields and was distraught to learn that his beloved cow had died. But then, a mysterious Great Spirit appeared to grant him a single wish.
What was the man’s wish?
That his neighbor’s cow be struck dead too.
Also in the mind of the totalitarian subject is service to a man, rather than an ideal. The premise that “the alternative is worse” may be sound, but the structure of Democrats’ arguments are fundamentally flawed. They are looking for answers about election outcomes from philosophical treatises and grand visions of society, ignoring the fact that America, despite what the alarmists tell you, has a robustly functioning electoral democracy made up largely of voters who cast ballots based on a sense of who would be a better leader. Not based on whose ideas would stand up better to academic dissection. You need a better person at the top and better ideas. Experiments always trump3 theory.
There is the fear of the wilderness if the convention does not produce a clear mandate, if Harris is passed over. The donations are still pouring in even after the debate, they say, and it has always been done this way, we cannot change it now even if Biden is infirm. Except that it has not always been done this way: brokered conventions were the norm until ~50 years ago. Ezra Klein is looking more prescient by the minute.
Towards the end of the debate, the moderator asked Biden: “Do you think the tens of millions of Americans who will vote for Trump will be voting against US democracy?” The question was meant to identify what pundits would have you believe is the irredeemable core of the MAGA crowd and maybe even the garden variety Trump voter. The idea that if Trump is elected, he will never leave office or will dissolve civil liberties or some other hyperbolic scenario. It was a shit-eating question, an attempt by the moderators to shill for Biden. But Biden could not answer it. And the Democratic party, if they keep him as their candidate, will reveal they do not actually believe it to be a real question either.
To have to say to someone that you love, “it’s time to call the game”, is hard. To say this when the person is no longer at the height of his mental abilities is excruciating.
America’s primacy, the support of our allies, comes not from love, but from practicality. There is such a thing as the West because the world knows America is the strongest country on earth, whose leadership results in the greatest chance for the most people to live well and free. Right now, this is a strong argument for Democrats to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. If this does not happen, it will be a strong argument for many voters to elect Donald Trump in November.
Biden was saying something to the effect that there’s not a world leader who wouldn’t change places with the American president, given the strengths of this country. But why the hell is this the point he is trying to make? He should be saying that is America is a great place and its people, in their best instantiations, are a tolerant, striving bunch.
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick, Random House, 1993.
Sorry.