Oh, the ache, watching Biden writhe! Whether fan or foe, one must grieve for the man even if one delights in the mess. Here’s where none of us want to end up – a superannuated parent sneaking forbidden car keys (I had one of those); Lear raging on the heath. Why can’t the end of life be a slow summer dusk, a ruddy glow fading to exquisite extinction! Don’t we deserve that, we pout preposterously (even knowing better). Nowadays few final scenes are pretty, as the genius of science remands us to tedious waiting areas for a flight that never boards. We read with wonder of famous old souls who decided when to die – the first Queen Elizabeth, for example, sitting stubbornly upright on her final throne; today we die as entangled as Laocoon by wires and tubes.
Biden’s on his political not his physical deathbed; still, the spectacle sears, a teetering old guy primped and propped by self-interested dependents fulsomely assuring him he’s better than he is. Oh, only a few gaffes – mistaking Vice-President Harris for former President Trump, or Ukraine’s Zelensky for Russia’s Putin, or thousands for hundreds of thousands: mistakes “anyone could make.” But this isn’t anyone – this is the most powerful person on earth, dragging the world’s most promising polity into dismal dark: how can we not roar?
We’re piling on, his proponents protest, being unfair, he did a good a job, didn’t he, give the guy a chance! I’m all for giving guys a chance – if their chance doesn’t erase mine. If Biden’s mind-boggling insistence on his fitness jeopardizes my grandchildren’s freedom to choose their lives, sorry, no dice. Elections are about tomorrow, not yesterday.
What makes me so sure, gentler friends temporize. Things will be OK, Carll, calm down.
“It is difficult to make predictions,” quoth sagacious Yogi Berra, “especially about the future.”
About the large events that shape our time, each of us forms a narrative, and each narrative differs. Some narratives are sharp as sunshine, others fuzzy as fog. Some are sure, others tractable. Some shriek, others shrug. We’re all looking at the same scene – why can’t we all concur?
Other species see as one. The deer out my window prick their ears simultaneously in the same direction. Herds stampede, no questions asked.
No two humans live in the same world. The nearest minds can approach each other is to overlap. You see the world your way, I in mine, and we’ve come to our views by different paths, driven by different histories, traits, and interests. We like those who think like us, for they reassure, and recoil from those who don’t, for they sow doubts.
Henry James confessed he had an “imagination of disaster.” Me too. Expecting disaster, I live pleasantly surprised. What a nice surprise to wake in the morning not dead! And to greet Jane – and Henry – and to meet you here! Lucky me.
I might exaggerate the consequences of Biden’s intransigent insistence on continuing his candidacy. Or not. “Shit happens,” as they say. I know in my bones Biden will lose – to a most dangerous demon – and drag not only our nation, but civilization itself, that great human experiment, into hell. I hope I’m wrong, of course – but as Francis Bacon whippingly quipped, “Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
I will vote for Biden – if I must – to deny the other guy. You probably will to. But I’m guessing there aren’t enough of us to rescue mankind from catastrophe.
Go, Joe, with our blessings, gratitude and affection, but go! – I bellow and pray.