BUCKLE UP

As Jonathan Capehart put it on Saturday, “Democrats, for whom the glass is always half empty, use what’s left for wetting their beds.”

The mainstream corporate media won’t let us forget about Joe Biden’s age - while never mentioning the fact that Donald Trump - statistically the same age - is incapable of doing any of the physical activity we see Biden engage in all the time; Trump can’t even walk across the green at one of his golf courses.

The unfortunate thing is that now it’s not just Republicans going to town with out-of-context videos of Biden looking down for a moment to see where he’s stepping. People not immersed in the daily back and forth of political events say things like “I like Biden. But I am concerned about his age.”

Jonathan Chait recently argued that Biden should be primaried, then finished by admitting “there are four examples of incumbent presidents facing serious primary challengers, and none of those presidents went on to win reelection.” Theoretical “Serious Person” David Ignatius went so far as to call for Biden to drop out, conceding at the end of his waste of electrons that “right now, there’s no clear alternative to Biden—no screamingly obvious replacement waiting in the wings.”

And before these two, Eliot Cohen wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic, “Step Aside, Joe Biden,” in which his argument was that after Biden’s victory in driving Trump from the White House, he has no business running for President at 80. He should do the right thing and bow out.

So, since all three wrote what they did and apparently thought their thoughts were Important Thoughts the public should consider, why did they all end by saying they couldn’t identify anyone who could replace him in the thirteen and a half months we have before the November 2024 elections?

Biden’s age has become an issue at the level of perception. Obviously, Biden is much older than he was when he was Vice President. Nancy Pelosi is two years older than Biden. You can see some signs of age in her face; the skin is a bit more drawn - and there’s that improbable hair color that is an acknowledgment of personal ego. But when it comes to what’s important - what’s going on above her eyebrows - she doesn’t seem much different than she did ten years ago, other than she has ten more years of experience to solidify her reputation as the smartest one walking the hallways in the capitol.

Age affects everyone differently. I’m four years younger than Pelosi and two less than Biden, and two years older than anyone in my family has been in 85 years. My doctor keeps telling me twice a year that I am “in great shape for a 60-year old,” and that makes me very happy. Professionally I am at the top of my game and experiencing more success as a writer than literally all the 40 years before. Is anyone going to tell me I am “too old” to write? I’m a better writer now than before because I know more. It’s the same reason why Pelosi is the best legislator in Washington and Biden is the best and most effective president in the last 70 years. Fine wine and single malt Scotch aren’t the only things that improve with age.

So, regarding Biden’s age, you know what? Get the fuck over it.

David Ignatius, Jonathan Chait, Eliot Cohen, and all the rest of the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable trust fund babies of the DC Punditocracy: Shut The Fuck Up and stop wasting our time. Go get real jobs, assuming anyone would hire you to do anything actually important.

The “controversy” over Biden’s age has been largely ginned up by Conservatism Inc., the GOP noise machine, the people even more over-educated, under-intelligent, and otherwise-unemployable than the DC Press Corpse.

These are the people who say - and at the time said - nothing about the fact that Ronald Reagan “wasn’t there” after about 1982 (Reagan even said to an interviewer in 1987 that “it’s like I wasn’t here this last year”). Like Woodrow Wilson, whose incapacity in his final two years as president was covered up by his wife, Reagan’s descent into Alzheimer’s was hidden by Nancy Reagan. Even the Democrats who opposed him said nothing about the increasing signs of his mental impairment.

For Conservatism Inc., Biden’s age is politically useful, both as a tool to undermine confidence in him, and as a “non racist” bludgeon to be used on Vice-President Harris. That the DC Press Corpse follows this and amplifies it - providing the strategy with “acceptability” - puts the lie to the traditional conservative complaints about the “lib’rul meeedeeeyah.”

In terms of practical politics, the bullshit spouted by Chait, Ignatius and Cohen, and all the other unemployables of the punditocracy who have never had real jobs in their lives where they actually had to accomplish something, the argument is Completely Stupid.

According to the Professionally Politically Illiterate, the unwillingness and inability of the Republicans to cut loose from a 77-year old career criminal who’s been impeached twice and indicted four times on a total of 91 felony counts, whose proclamations of his “excellent health” since he waved the piece of paper from his doctor proclaiming him “probably the healthiest man to run for president” eight years ago are even laughed at by Conservatism Inc. (in private), as well as everyone else, who is given to unhinged screeds unmoored from reality and claims like that made this weekend that “Biden is leading us into World War II” that obviously show his mental and physical decline is Nothing To Worry About.

No, no one is to say anything about the guy John Kelley said “was the most willfully ignorant president” he had observed in his life.

But Democrats should voluntarily decapitate their national leadership, get rid of a president with more achievement in office of any president since FDR, and launch a noisy, uncontrollable, unpredictable, ultimately-divisive primary contest over the next 12 months because the Professional Bedwetters are wetting their beds?

This is a recipe for political suicide, or a second Trump administration, which is the same thing.

All this hot air is nothing more than complaining that the sky should be green and the grass blue, and it makes about as much sense.

The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.

Democrats made this decision when they elected him president in 2020. American presidents run for reelection, unless they get involved in an unwinnable war in Asia. Otherwise, it’s as certain as the fact that night follows day. The two two-term rule has gone from being a norm to a constitutional rule. In fact, the system is now not a limit of two terms but one in which presidents serve for eight years, so long as their contract is renewed midway through.

In fact, if you look at events in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson declined to run for reelection in the midst of a broad national crisis, his de facto resignation accelerated the crisis and led directly to Democrats losing the White House that year.

This history has become such a consistent pattern for a reason. It’s “baked in” structurally. No one runs to be a one-term president; a whole system of patronage, expected appointments, intra-party compromises and incumbent advantage for the party reinforces that presidential ambition for re-election. Not to mention almost all of a president’s power is found in the first term, which is a function of an expected re-election. If Biden announced tomorrow he was bowing to the will of the Public Idiots and would not run for re-election, he would have no power whatsoever to deal with the really troubling issues that are front and center now and not going away in the next year.

Yes, there are lots of great Democratic presidential possibilities out there. The party’s bench of proven success is much deeper than that of Republicans.

Any one of whom will be great in 2028, when it is going to be necessary to continue keeping Republicans out of power, since the authoritarian virus they have fallen victim to will not have run its course by then.

Joe Biden is going to be the nominee, for better or worse. For me, it’s for the better. I wasn’t a Biden fan in 2020 during the primaries, until he surged in South Carolina and I got on board over the fact that we needed to unify as soon as possible if there was any chance of defeating Trump. And then I have been more than pleasantly surprised - I’ve been overjoyed - by his accomplishments, accomplishments made with the narrowest majority any successful president ever dealt with. He’s been an effective president, far moreso than Barack Obama - who I love - proving once again that Experience Matters. He’s done things I didn’t think were possible.

I see no signs his age has affected his ability to bring his knowledge and experience to accomplishing even more.

If you don’t agree, don’t deceive yourself into thinking that changing things at this point would lead to anything other than a political catastrophe.

“Project 2025" is out there, with people who are dedicated to imposing it on us as they destroy this democratic constitutional republic in the process.

As to keeping Kamal Harris, even Ignatius is smart enough to say that “breaking up the ticket would be a free-for-all that could alienate Black women, a key constituency. Biden might end up more vulnerable.”

Hey - what was your first clue?

Biden’s age is a challenge. But the question has been locked up.

Everyone who wants to beat Trump needs to realize that, stop whining, and if necessary buy a package of Depends. Or two. Or three.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy election.

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