Election 2024: Image World (6a)

Miracle on the Potomac

Did anyone expect that to go smoothly? Everything and everyone I read and/or listened to predicted that Joe Biden bowing out of his campaign for reelection to the presidency would result in the political equivalent of the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 — a 1982 Washington, DC disaster with few if any survivors. So, after the June 27 debate, I braced myself for that, anticipating the worst.

Instead, Captain Biden and his co-pilot Kamala Harris have given us a veritable “Miracle on the Hudson” — but relocated to the Potomac. Not only did they land the metaphorical plane safely for all aboard but — after a brief layover for maintenance and refueling — they took off again, almost as if nothing had happened. Indeed, as if everything had gone according to plan, with the flight still on time and all the passengers magically upgraded to first-class.

Without dipping my toe into conspiracy theory, I suspect that Biden and Harris have played a very long game here. The timing has been impeccable, and so many pieces have fallen into place so quickly and smoothly that I’m inclined to think they didn’t just cobble all that together on the fly but strategized elements of this transition well ahead of time, with components thereof set up and ready to go.

We may not learn for some time exactly what went on behind the scenes. (For one insightful analysis, see “Identifying Media Misinformation: AOC Says Out Loud What We Have All Been Thinking.” Here’s another: “We Now Know What Really Happened in Atlanta,” by Seth Abramson, Proof, July 10, 2024.) But it doesn’t really matter. Crucially, Harris came roaring off the starting line as Democrats across the board have joined hands enthusiastically, catching the Republicans flat-footed and slack-jawed.

I can’t retrieve anything remotely like this in my personal memory of American politics. I hear Sun Tzu chortling.

The Not-so-Great Debate

Here’s what I drafted the day after the debate, toward a post here that went unpublished:

I fully intended to watch the June 27 Biden-Trump debate all the way through, on the assumption — despite all the coy will-he-won’t-he — that Trump wouldn’t and/or couldn’t back out. I lasted for about the first ten minutes, and then had to pull the plug.

Apparently I can no longer listen to Trump’s Gish-gallop mendacity and vituperation for increments that last more than 60 seconds, with substantial breaks in between. Bombarded by the recently convicted felon’s tonal range from scorn to rage to braggadocio, the arrogant and smug facial expressions, the peculiar body language, and the deranged content, I can feel my brain start to bubble dangerously just a few sentences into any of Mango Mussolini’s stock harangues, and have to step away for the sake of self-preservation, before any permanent damage gets done.

Neither the CNN format itself nor its designated moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bush, did anything to moderate Trump as he flooded the zone with his usual verbal diarrhea. They even addressed him deferentially as “President Trump.” (Perhaps Team Trump required that as part of the price for his participation.) They also accepted without question any answer that Trump chose give to any question, nor matter how off-topic.

That placed the entire burden of using the occasion for meaningful communication on the 81-year-old shoulders of President Joe Biden. Even under the best of circumstances, keeping this event on track would have proved challenging for Biden on his own. As it happened, Biden had come down with a cold, while (I’m guessing) over-preparing for what he expected would at least vaguely resemble traditional debate form, and doing so well into the evening — on top of his daily duties as (checks notes) president of these United States, commander-in-chief of the country’s military, head of his party, and leader of the free world.

Not surprisingly, under those conditions Biden had several false starts, freezes, and stutterer’s moments. Plus passages of open-mouthed astonishment at the sheer volume of nonsense that Trump spouted. Which made him look, at least for some of those moments, disoriented and enfeebled. Exactly what everyone — and certainly Team Biden — had hoped to avoid.

No doubt carefully edited videos of those glitches already circulate in the MAGAsphere. Certainly they created an immediate panic in sectors of the  Democratic Party and the MSM bloviating class, resulting in calls for Joltin’ Joe to step aside for … Gavin Newsom, maybe, or perhaps Gretchen Whitmer, or possibly Amy Klobuchar. Basically, anyone younger.

As I write this, on June 28, that disarray continues. I predict that it will pass. Incumbency, experience, track record, and savvy should ultimately outweigh youth and charisma. More to the point, subsequent polls indicated that Biden’s failures that night didn’t move the needle toward Trump to any significant degree,  while Trump’s fabrications and bullying did not go over well with independents and undecided voters. So while the debate did not propel Biden well ahead of Trump, as some had hoped, it did not have any irreparable adverse effect either.

No evidence indicates that a debate this far out from the election carries much weight. If you need more reassurance that we’re not doomed to christofascist rule unless we abandon Biden for someone perkier, check out the speech he gave the very next day in North Carolina. (Biden’s talk starts at timestamp 26:00.) Here he’s his usual combative self again. And if you want some more reassurance, spend a few minutes with the sane voice of Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word.” Let’s take our cue from the stiff-upper-lipism of the Brits: Keep calm and carry on.

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And here’s something I wrote in early July:

I’m 80, just a year and a month younger than Pres. Biden. I don’t have the physical strength I once did. I need more naps.

But I also continue to supervise and contribute to a decade-long team project involving colleagues younger than myself, a multidisciplinary research project that has had an impact on our fields. I do much of the writing, and edit and prepare all the material single-handedly for web and print publication. I lecture publicly on the subject, both in person and online.

In short, as a writer, scholar, and speaker I’m fully competent — and, arguably, never better at what I do professionally, even if I walk a bit more slowly to the podium.

So yes, Biden’s age is an issue, as is Trump’s. And yes, the June 27 debate told us something about the extent to which these men exhibit symptoms of cognitive decline. But recent evidence, from the SOTU a few months back through the D-Day speech of June 4 to the Raleigh speech a few days ago, suggests that Biden is all there. While Trump clearly is not.

As you can see, even after the debate I remained all in for Biden. Yet I wrote all that with my fingers crossed for good luck. The subsequent feeding frenzy regarding Biden’s fitness for office — orchestrated by a combination of media malfeasance and mega-donor muscle-flexing — will get closely studied and dissected after the election. What mattered about it in that moment had to do mainly with the visual image it embedded in public consciousness of Biden as a weakened and inarticulate old man. Regardless of the reasons for that, the injustice of it, and the apportionment of blame for it, no amount of rationalizing his performance dispelled it, so it proved insurmountable.

Betwixt, Between, and Bewildered

Going through my notes and rough drafts for unpublished posts in this series on the election, I find that, in my own head, I went back and forth as I mulled over a prospective second term for Biden. For example, in January 2023 I wrote this:

President Joe Biden deserves tremendous praise not just for the 2020 victory but for what he and his administration have achieved since the election, against all odds.

With that said, as a geezer myself (just turned 79) I have my doubts about a second term for him. Leaving aside all questions about aging, stamina, mental and physical health, etc., the Dems winning the next election will require pulling in even more votes from the young, POC, women, and others in greater numbers than in 2020 and 2022. Much greater numbers if we want them to have solid majorities in both Congress and the Senate, so that instead of struggling with gridlock and Republican obstructionism they can roll right over the christofascist right and actually get big things done efficiently, thus fulfilling their election promises and moving the country forward decisively on climate change, civil rights, voting rights, campaign financing, police reform, Supreme Court reform, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and a slew of other urgent matters.

Getting those sectors of the electorate enthusiastically on board and participating — by which I mean actually going to the polls to vote or requesting and mailing in their ballots — requires giving them a chance to elect candidates with whom they can identify and whose election will immediately empower them.

Notwithstanding the undeniable charm of Biden himself (and the appeal of the “Dark Brandon” memes he has inspired), I’m not convinced that he will have that drawing power a year from now, when he’ll be old enough to be a young first-time voter’s great- or even great-great-grandfather. Much as I respect her, I don’t think Harris does either; she’s solid and engaging but not charismatic enough to head the ticket.

Absent some very high-profile and notable accomplishments on her part over the next 12 month, I don’t think she’ll get seen as presidential timber. So I don’t envision a scenario where Biden bows out while passing the baton to her. Nor does it feel logical to imagine Harris second on the ticket again with someone else in the top slot — say, Hakeem Jeffries. (I could be persuaded otherwise.)

Seems to me, then, that the Dems will need a pair of nominees both younger and more galvanizing. Right now I don’t know who that is. Jeffries? Stacey Abrams? Pete Buttegieg? Beto O’Rourke?

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Yet around the same time I sketched this:

People ask, “Is there anything wrong with wanting leaders to be closer to your generation? To have something closer to your own experience growing up and growing older?”

First, Biden himself represents a generation, and a demographic, that votes. (I’m among them.)

And to just which generation(s) would a younger candidate appeal? And how much younger would the candidate have to be? Would a 70-year-old have more appeal to voters in their 20s? In their 30s? In their 40s?

Conversely, would a 40-year-old have more appeal to voters in their 50s? In their 60s? In their 70s?

In short, from which generation should the ideal replacement for Biden come? And which generations of voters, realistically, should we expect to vote for that candidate (based on the age factor) in significantly greater numbers than we might project would vote for Biden in 2024?

Finally, given that in running anyone but Biden the Democrats would automatically lose the advantage of incumbency and the many achievements of his administration, and that any such candidate would necessarily have less experience and expertise in presidential matters, what in that younger candidate’s track record (aside from youth) would offset those obvious disadvantages?

Perhaps we need to affirm that our current president has done and continues to do a great job, and so long as he’s willing to keep on keeping on he has our full support. Let me suggest a nickname for this fine man: “Abiding Joe” Biden — “Abidin’ Joe” for short. …

(Part 1 I 2)

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