Along with the rest of the country, I was shocked by President Biden's recent debate performance. Don't get me wrong; it won't change my vote. A catatonic President Biden would do less damage to our country than a narcissistic grifter suffering from his own cognitive impairment.
Still, considering the fact that, as I've written about before, the last election between these two men essentially came down to about 100,000 votes in three states, anything that would give a voter pause before voting for President Biden again is probably fatal to his reelection.
I've been kind of horrified and enraged by some of what's now coming out of the Biden's administration. If it's true that a very small cadre of people are tightly controlling access to the President because of his relatively limited time in which he's cognitively agile enough to act as president; if it's true that they limit his schedule from 10 am to 4 pm; if it's true that multiple people have witnessed a noticeable decline over the last three and a half years; then the fact that this has not only been suppressed but that they've been pushing President Biden to run for reelection is dangerous, unpatriotic, and frankly, elder abuse.
If true, what is their end game? Do they really think that they will just keep President Biden hidden away for his entire second term? Do they think that they'll pull the wool over American's eyes long enough to win reelection and then, after a decent interval, let him resign and have Vice President Harris take over?
Way back in 2017, I wrote an article about the weird cast of men that have been elected President in my lifetime (check it out here). Well, it sure does look like my rogues' gallery of Presidents will continue. At least at the time of this writing, our choices are the 78 year old former President that was impeached twice, is a convicted felon awaiting possible jail time, and owes a shit ton of money due to lost civil cases or the about to be 82 year old current President who apparently can't work more than six hours a day.
When events of the day stress me out, I always go back to history. Are there parallels that can somehow guide us in the present?
First of all, there's Woodrow Wilson. In the aftermath of the conclusion of World War I, Wilson went on a national barnstorming tour in an unsuccessful attempt to convince Americans of the pressing need for the US to join the League of Nations (spoiler alert, we never did and the League turned out to be pretty worthless and toothless). He overworked himself so strenuously on the tour that he had a major stroke.
It left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. His personal doctor told Wilson's new wife, Edith, that it would kill Wilson if he was forced to give up the presidency. Therefore, the doctor and Edith conspired to keep Wilson's incapacity from not only the public but his aides and congressional leaders. They tightly controlled what issues and decisions to bring to Wilson. Considering the fact that Edith was not elected President, this would seem to be a very bad thing.
The difference with the Biden situation is that Edith Wilson did it for basically a year and a half (from October 1919 to March 1921). Here the Biden administration is trying to win election for four more years. If he's already at this state now, what will he be like four and half years from now?
The second historic parallel is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg is truly one of the liberal lions of the Supreme Court. Over her decades on the court, she had a major impact. She was also diagnosed with cancer five times. Her first bout occurred in 1999. In 2014, she had a stent placed in an artery. In 2014, she was 81 years old. Barack Obama was President. If she'd resigned then, Obama could have replaced her. Maybe she didn't want to give up the job. Maybe she thought that Hillary Clinton was a lock to win in 2016.
Whatever she thought, Clinton lost and Donald Trump became President. She tried to outlast Trump but she had recurrences of cancer and she ended up dying in September of 2020. Trump and Mitch McConnell wasted no time in rushing in Amy Coney Barrett. Including Barrett, Trump was able, in his single term, to nominate three conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Those justices have overturned a woman's right to choose and apparently have decided that the President has nearly complete judicial immunity as long as they are performing 'official' duties. Sure, the conservatives currently have a 6-3 majority, but still, having one more liberal vote couldn't have hurt.
Just as with Wilson, I'd argue that the Biden administration is doing something even worse. Through their actions, they could very well enable the reelection of Donald Trump. Although Trump claims not to know of Project 2025, the fact is that the the people that he will bring into his administration are intimately familiar with it and will use it as a playbook. It will be a dark time in our history.
Please President Biden, try to learn from past historical mistakes.
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