The Life in My Years

I declared my Independence last Monday.

That is, I resigned from the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. For years, usually after another Dem disappointment, the idea of leaving the party would cross my mind, but it was a combination of my own laziness and the reality that, as an Independent, I wouldn’t be able to vote in primaries that kept me from jumping ship.

And then came the June 27th massacre and all that’s followed.

Joe Biden’s debate failure, his subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos, his letter to the Democratic members of Congress, and his phone-in to the Morning Joe television program combined to overburden the poor camel. The spine specialist could only shake his head and walk away.

My disgust over Biden’s insistence on running, despite the preponderance of voters from his own party who have consistently said that they believe that the president is too old to serve a second term, has long been feeding my appetite to depart a deluded party.

Biden’s post-debate persistence to stay the course, a persistence backed by his campaign and the cult of Biden (because at this point, what else could one call it) has me wondering just what the goal could possibly be.

Call me an old romantic fool, but I’ve always believed that the primary goal of every presidential election is to elect the man best suited for the job.

The man best suited for the job. Why is that so often a unicorn of an idea?

Every four years at least one of the major parties manages to endorse a fool. This time around both parties have managed to fail the nation by pitting a pair of unqualified old men against each other (and against the well-being of the country). And both parties did so knowingly and without regard to the future consequences.

In this election, as in the two previous, the electorate has been presented with another goal, and that is to beat Donald Trump. At least that’s the goal of anyone who wants to preserve a semblance of democracy and to keep the lunatic from occupying the assylum director’s chair .

This has been Joe Biden’s goal, and in that I take him at his word. Anything after that, and he loses me.

Biden insists that he is, quoting from his letter to Congress, “the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.”

Not only does that wording really make no sense, it’s also an insult to any number of potential candidates who many voters believe would stand a better chance to beat Trump. And it’s an effront to those of us who follow politics and the polls. We’ve refused to be gaslit by the campaign, and we’ve long understood that the message from the political tea leaves is that Biden is not only cooked, he’s fucking burned. And for our dilligence Biden has disrespectfully branded us, “elites.” Thanks Joe. And I always thought that I was just a simple old white suburbanite.

What makes Biden’s “elites” comment such a joke is that he made it during the phone-in to Morning Joe, a show that is central casting for elites.

Biden’s assertion that he’s the only one who can beat Trump is as delusional as the old man who drove his car into a ditch after refusing to give up the keys, and then blamed the ditch for swallowing the car. In poll after poll after poll Biden has been trailing Trump he’s been leaking oil ever since the debate. His response has been to blame the polls.

It’s been clearly established that the problem is not a Democratic Party one, it’s a Biden problem. In several states, Democratic members of Congress on the down ballot are outpolling Biden, and in some cases by double digits.

So why leave the party if it’s a Biden problem?

Because in the end, it’s the Democratic Party that has been perpetrating a fraud. There are an increasing number of reports coming out that administration, campaign and party insiders have been trying to conceal President Biden’s condition for some time now.

One must ask what the end game could possibly be. Have they been hoping that Biden will win the election and then some time during his second term resign the presidency to Vice-President Harris?  

I can only imagine the outcry from the Republicans, who have been screeching baselessly for four years about voter fraud, on the morning after Biden hands the keys to his Vice-President.

Sound like a conspiracy theory?  No more so than the idea that Biden’s failed debate performance was due to a cold, or something called a Gish Gallop.

It is unbelievable to me that those close to Biden, given his condition, are entertaining the notion that he can get through another four years.

And what is that condition?

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, actor George Clooney, a long time Biden supporter, lifts the veil as he tells of a recent fund raiser that he hosted for Biden.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

On her show Inside Politics, Dana Bash asked former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who was also at the Clooney fundraiser to comment.

“It was not surprising to anyone who was at the fundraiser,” said Favreau. He continued, “I was there. Clooney was exactly right, and every single person I talked to at the fundraiser thought the same thing, except the people working for Joe Biden. At least they didn’t say that. But I remember my wife Emily turned to me after the fundraiser and said, ‘What are we going to do?’”

What indeed.

In his op-ed Clooney added, “We are not going to win in November with this president,” wrote Clooney. “On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

It’s been widely reported that Democrats in Congress have been telling reporters off the record, that they believe that Biden should step aside.

Politicians speaking off the record and publicly giving full throated backing to their party’s presidential candidate while admitting in private that the self-same candidate is not fit for office. Gee where have I heard that before? And about what candidate? Hmm.

A follow-up article in The Times reports that when Biden insiders learned of Clooney’s piece, they mounted “a full-court press to persuade the actor not to publish it.”

‘Hey George, let’s not let it out that the man who wants to be reelected is not quite all there. What the voters don’t know won’t hurt them.’ What a fantastic idea. But isn’t that just the way with political parties? Lately that’s been the M.O. of the GOP, a tactic that Democrats have decried, in howls of outrage, as being unethical.

The Democratic Party has been practicing political malpractice, has engaged in hypocrisy, and is working on a railroad that will carry the Trump train to another victory.

And all for what? The answer to that escapes me. The horse is lame and the trainers have decided to send the beast out to race while keeping the truth from the bettors. If anyone can find some logic in that, I’m all ears.

My parents were long time Democrats. I’ve been a Democrat since I registered to vote in 1972, and then voted for lackluster George McGovern who got mollywhopped by Richard Nixon. I resigned myself early on to the reality that the Democratic Party often gets itself stuck in a quicksand of mediocrity, and all too often manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Despite the party’s maddening penchant for shitting the pisser I’ve always remained a loyal, if disappointed, soldier.

Being a mere minion, there isn’t much I can do to dissuade the party from its current shameless dereliction of patriotic duty. But I don’t have to remain in the club. There was no hesitation as I filled out my voter registration form. In fact, I couldn’t complete if fast enough.

I felt cleansed the instant I clicked send.