Biden Takes Himself Out
Terry H. Schwadron
July 22, 2024
For once, Joe Biden was down and not ready to spring up again.
That kind of perpetual optimism been his signature move, along with a deep desire to offer comfort when he can, to move the country towards more progressive policies that address middle- and working classes, and to work to expand individual rights.
But the unforgiving political divisions with which we live, the image-dominant eye of social media and 24-hour cable do not allow for a bright man whose physical limitations at age 81and counting to spryly insist that it is his mind, not his TV persona that matters.
Too many in his own party pressured that Biden, a political force for more than 50 years, could withstand the rising MAGA movement and its cultish love for a public relations superstar like Donald Trump. It didn’t matter which candidate might govern the best, only which candidate could win — — by looking and sounding like a candidate who can come closer to meeting an American need for constant vitality.
At the end, it was a perception of “strength” for Trump, himself 78 and often incoherent, and “weakness” for a frailer Biden, who could not persuade voters that if he slips up at 81, he will find the presidency impossible at 85 and 86. Big donors joined alarmed congressmen worried about their own reelection on a ticket Biden headed in abandoning Biden for Kamala Harris or whoever is pushed forward to conduct two years of campaigning in the next four months.
Though the conclusion had been building for weeks, if feels as if that would-be assassin’s bullet not only struck Trump’s ear, killed a Trump supporter and injured two others; it knocked Joe Biden right out of consideration out of the belief that he no longer could win in an image-heavy race with a reality television performer.
In coming days, we’ll see lots of tributes to Biden and speculation about the political craziness that will consume us about proper procedures. We’ll hear a cheer for youthfulness or at least the avoidance of one of the two candidates who are seen as too old.
It would be nice in all the partisan maneuvering if any thought at all could go to the actual problems facing the nation and the kind of thoughtful leadership required for complex problems. Our times should be calling for wisdom as much as spryness.
##