Dear Jill Biden…
You and your family blew it. There is still time to save some face and grace, and bring Joe home.
A year ago about this time, Joe Biden could have informed the nation, and his party, that he would not run for re-election. It would have set up a wide-open primary for the Democratic nomination. He would go into history as an heroic figure. He did his duty. He staved off a Donald Trump re-election. He passed an historic infrastructure bill that will improve things, including long-needed repairs, in every single state. He made progress on environmental, healthcare and economic fronts. His administration oversaw the creation of nearly 16 million new jobs. The stock market, and retirement and savings accounts, soared. He made life better for every American. And he placed the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, who may go down as one of the great justices. Then he made the selfless decision to step away. To freely, happily, give up power. Like George Washington.
Oops, not quite. With the blessings of his family, Joe Biden decided to run again. It was the wrong decision, for him, for his family, and for the nation.
Here are some irrefutable facts about Joe Biden. He is charisma-challenged. He has never been a great campaigner, though oft a lucky winner. He has always been a gaffe-machine. He has never been an even good debater, though, in actual elections, he has gotten away with that deficiency. This will be his fourth run for president. Once again, we are witnessing a very unexciting candidate, to say the least. This time around he brings all his usual baggage and deficits, plus… he is 81 years old. We are witnessing a candidate who can barely speak clearly, strongly and without a gaffe every fourth quasi-sentence. Against the Gatling-gun spew of lies of Donald Trump, Joe looked like he was tilting at windmills, while thinking of chocolate chip ice cream. This is nowhere close to the candidate we need in this dour hour of our nation’s history.
Joe Biden’s wish to be president goes back a long, long way. He was in high school at Archmere Academy, when he told a classmate’s father, who asked what he wanted to do with his life, that he wanted to be President of the United States.
His first actual run for president, in the 1998 Democratic primary cycle, was revealing. He bombed in an early debate, and suddenly the way ahead, a clear path to victory, was clouded. Sinking in the polls, funding drying up, he gathered his family and they decided (any of this sound familiar?)…
… that he should drop out!
Joe’s family and supporters paint it as a great sacrifice. It wasn’t because he stunk as a candidate, just that he felt it more important to scurry back to the Senate to block a radical-right Supreme Court nominee that Ronald Reagan had put up. Seems that duty only fully dawned on him after he had tanked as a serious candidate.
He ran again in 2008, stunk again, eventually dropping out again. But as that 2008 campaign progressed, he was selected as the running mate of the uber-popular Barack Obama as the latter steamed inexorably toward the White House. Joe served admirably as Obama’s sometimes more “liberal” “wingman.”
Which should have positioned Joe as the leader of the pack going into the 2016 election. But it did not. There are stories that Obama (perhaps mindful of Joe’s charisma deficit) suggested Biden not run because it was “Hillary’s turn.” The Biden family tells a story about still grieving the death of son Beau Biden and not yet ready to launch into another grueling campaign. The complete story may be a combination of both, though Joe’s outsized ambition suggests a bit of skepticism is in order.
In retrospect, as I posit in my essay, Biden’s Selfishness Showcases What Has Continually Plagued the Democratic Party, that strategy may have been a grave mistake for the Democratic Party. Despite being “Mr. Unexciting,” Biden would have gone into the 2016 election with far less horrible negative polling than Hillary. It was a close election anyway, Mrs. Clinton winning the popular vote, but it seems very likely Biden would have defeated Trump. As a proven loser, would Trump have returned again in 2020? Maybe not. Either way, coming out of the pandemic which the Democrats would have handled infinitely smoother than the chaotic, hysterical Republican administration, Joe would have been a strong incumbent with an excellent chance to be re-elected. That would bring us to this presidential cycle with Joe gracefully bowing out to a grateful nation, and some, presumably, much younger Democrat scrapping with whomever the Republicans came up with, possibly Trump, or something similar like maybe the reincarnation of Benedict Arnold.
But none of that happened. Hillary ran. Lost. Trump took power. Gave the rich a huge tax cut (natch), fumbled a hurricane response, bungled a pandemic, inflamed bigotry, encouraged hate, praised neo-Nazis, showed zero empathy for anyone or anything, rolled back regulations, managed to lose net jobs during his term (first guy since Herbert Hoover to do that), nearly destroyed American democracy. And then, three years later, Joe Biden, the guy who, by gum, was “going to be President of the United States,” showed up to run again, thinking he was the one guy who could stop Trump in his tracks.
But AGAIN he flopped. Obama’s old “wingman” did poorly in debates, surprise-surprise, lagged in the polls, did terribly in the first caucuses and primaries. But then was miraculously rescued in South Carolina, through no actual talent of his own, and a folding Democratic Party rallied around him to keep Bernie Sanders, that “socialist,” from getting the nomination. And he did. Setting up Trump v Biden Round One.
Biden won a solid electoral victory, but which was actually based upon a shockingly small margin in key swing states. Some claim if less than 200,000 votes across five states had swapped, Trump would have won. How many of those and other Biden voters were voting for the (non-existent) savvy and coolness of Joe Biden as opposed to simply voting against the reprehensible Trump? Could generic Joe Schmo from Ohio have beaten Trump? Probably.
At any rate, it was Joe Biden who won. And he did a bang-up job as president. He deserves more credit than he gets. At this moment in time, our democracy is intact (if still wobbly and being actively undermined and sabotaged). But now a bruising, brawling, all-important battle is engaged against a true villain and his ever-growing, zombie mob. Joe Biden is right. It is a battle for the soul of America. And it is no place for Joe Biden. Any version of Joe Biden. Certainly, absolutely, critically not the 81-year old Joe.
Jill Biden and the extended Biden family know all of this about Joe. They knew it last summer. They know of his past struggles as a candidate. They know of his tradition of gaffes and stumbling speech. They know of his aging and his memory loss and his accelerating frailty. They know what a toll being president and enduring a presidential campaign can take. They see the polls. They don’t believe them. They’ve heard the rising chorus of doubt within the party. Ignored. Swatted away. They see a Joe few others see. And it has torpedoed their good sense.
They failed in their stewardship responsibilities, as primary family caretakers of the President of the United States, to gently, lovingly demand he not run again. Instead, they signed off on, even possibly encouraged, this very bad choice. Forget America, how could they do that to Joe? Sure, 80-year old PawPaw wants to run with the bulls in Palermo. Somebody with a lick of sense is going to pull the plug on that idea. What loving family is going to push forward their octogenarian family member to mud wrestle to the death with a 300-pound pig and then, if he survives, be rewarded with the most stressful job this side of those soon-to-be Martian colonists? Is it because they hate him and want their inheritance? At least that has some logic to it. Or, is it because they don’t want to believe what they know? Do they have “faith” in what they want to believe (see my article on that phenomenon)? Are they afraid of something? Joe’s ire? Tempestuous geriatrics can be a clash you’d like to avoid. Missing out on another four years of hoopla, applause, pomp and ceremony and White House kitchen delights? Or are they, themselves, so deluded they will risk the nation itself to simply “stand with Joe?” Which translates to “do whatever good, old Joe wants.”
No amount of platitudes are gonna fly. Like, “Shucks, when you get knocked down, you get back up and fight!” If this were Gary Cooper in his prime, we might fall for that. Not a chance with Joe. Or, “Gawldurnit, I’ve beaten Trump; I’ll beat him again!” A rising chorus of Democrats doesn’t share that optimism. Or, “I ain’t a quitter! I’m gonna finish the job!” Or, worst of all, “All I can do is do my best. I’ll be happy with the result if I just did the best I could!” Yeah, that’s exactly what we are worried about. Joe’s “best” is not what it used to be, and it was never that great. And just stop, Joe, with the claim that you, “Won the primary. Fourteen million people voted for me.” That is so lame. You pre-empted a real primary, President Biden. No one ran against you.
What is Joe Schmo from Ohio doing these days, anyway?
Perhaps Biden should consider the wisdom of a couple of other pithy sayings like, “Don’t push your luck.” And, “Sometimes retreat is the better part of valor.”
Obviously, Joe Biden, the guy who has wanted to be President of the United States since his age started with a 1, isn’t going to cotton to bailing out so soon after he finally, at loooong last, made it to the Oval Office. But now that his age starts with an 8, there can be no doubt whatsoever that he… must.
So, yes, with Joe, himself being in over-the-top ambition, LaLaLand, most of the responsibility falls on Dr. Jill Biden. Who else? Hunter Biden? The grandkids? The people whose jobs depend on Joe being in charge? Her perennial reputation, her legacy, is also at stake here. Otherwise accomplished, graceful, well-spoken, good-hearted, Dr. Jill is casting all of that to the wind in failing us now.
She must act, and act now. So here’s the plea:
Dear Jill Biden, we’ve seen enough of your husband as a presidential candidate to not at all like the odds of his winning this essential election. It is a tragedy that his and your decision curtailed a real Democratic primary this cycle. This election is about defeating the true evil of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. It’s not about Joe Biden. Your husband now has Hillary-like negative poll numbers. Your husband is truly inspiring and exciting no one. Donors are dubiously withholding. Your political party is going apoplectic. Wake up. Make the call. You still have a very narrow sliver of time to semi-gracefully prepare to close out your husband’s long political career. You are a year removed from doing this properly, rightfully, lovingly, but you can still salvage some grace, and keep this terrible choice you and your family made from becoming a personal debacle and national disaster.
Tell your husband, in no uncertain terms, he must withdraw from this race and give the Democrats a better chance against Trump. Joe is the epitome of the lifelong politician. It’s been a lifetime. He done good. But now, it’s time for a change. Start thinking and planning now how great it is going to be to have Joe, still publicly regarded affectionately, at home for good, to enjoy what are surely some of the last years of his life.
The alternate fate he, and you, are staring down is that both of you will forever be linked with unreasonable ambition, and utter… selfishness.
With love,
The True Believers.
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No Hate.
No Violence.
All Life is Sacred.
The Universe is Magnificent & Beautiful.
Love is the Way.
Copyright 2024, Rusty Reid
