Have a Care for Poor Joe

In common with so many things, it just isn’t fair.

The guy came out of retirement to slay the dragon, succeeded against all expectations – the 2020 popular vote wasn’t even close – then went on to achieve an unreasonable string of foreign and domestic policy successes, despite a profoundly dysfunctional Congress full of GOP bomb-throwers and rebellious Democrats. He leaves his nation not merely better than he found it, but better than anybody’s left it since Eisenhower finished his second term. It truly was remarkable. Think of all he accomplished:

• His administration managed the logistics of a massive vaccination program which, despite the best efforts of anti-vaxx lunatics, brought America out of the worst pandemic since the 1919 Flu
• A massive stimulus in the form of a 1.9 trillion dollar American Rescue Plan staved off the worst economic crisis since 2008, and possibly since 1929, demonstrating the extent to which Biden had learned from the wrong-headed budget austerity following the Great Recession at the end of Bush the Younger’s second term
• The Chips and Science Act enacted a 280 billion dollar plan to move the manufacture of the most sophisticated integrated circuits back to the United States, lessening a strategically perilous dependence on Taiwan
• The Inflation Reduction Act did so much to invest in American infrastructure, spur green energy investment, reduce pharmaceutical costs, extend medical coverage, lower health care premiums, and indeed combat inflation, that it would take a lengthy post of its own to describe it in any detail
• In the result, the inevitable post-pandemic inflation that the Republicans are still whining about was tamed better in America than in any other developed nation, levelling out a manageable +/-3%, a rate exceeded by wage growth, while unemployment has simultaneously dropped to around 3%, a rate not seen since the 1960s, via the creation of just over 15 million new jobs, with total employment now comfortably exceeding pre-pandemic levels
• Likewise in the result, American GDP growth is now best in the industrialized world, and America’s economy, far from suffering the deep recession and slow recovery predicted by most of the experts, has been brought in for a remarkable soft landing, now combining high growth, healthy wage increases, low unemployment, and finally low inflation, into a sort of economic Unicorn that economists had previously discussed as mythical
• America’s manufacturing is surging ahead, as jobs flock back to the country from overseas, so far to the tune of 800,000+ new manufacturing jobs, a lot of them well-paying union gigs. Investment in new plant and equipment has reached by far the highest level in American history
• Though Biden doesn’t like to brag about it, given his launching of so many green initiatives, and contrary to the “drill baby drill” bullshit coming from the GOP, America is now producing not merely more oil and gas than it ever has, but more than anyone ever has. Ever. America is now the globe’s dominant energy superpower
• The deficit, admittedly still too high, now stands at about half of Trump’s 3 trillion dollar peak
• America’s credibility abroad as a security partner and ally, all but destroyed under Trump, has been thoroughly restored, particularly within NATO, which, in the face of Russian aggression, saw dramatic expansion with the addition of formerly neutral Sweden and Finland, making real one of Putin’s worst nightmares
• Speaking of Putin’s nightmares, Biden’s response to his invasion of Ukraine has, overall, been masterful, walking a narrow line between firmness and escalation while rallying allies to supply Ukraine with the tools to resist, resulting, thus far, in a bloody stalemate that has netted Russia about 18% of Ukrainian territory at the cost of over 500,000 casualties, as his army suffers an additional 1,000-1,300 casualties per day, a rate that can’t be sustainable
• Restoration of the dignity of the Office of President was achieved to the fullest possible extent, in part by how Biden has comported himself throughout, and in part by a dramatic re-establishment of Presidential norms and transparency, touching everything from public visitor logs, to press relations, to disclosure of medical and tax records, to sane and measured pronouncements on social media
• With China in deep economic and demographic trouble, and Russia bleeding itself white in Ukraine, America now stands poised to re-assume its position as the world’s dominant, and arguably sole, superpower, ushering in the “new American century” that right wing think tanks used to dream about, but right wing Presidents could never deliver. This is a dramatic turn-around. Less than four years ago I was writing posts on the decline of America as a world power, and I wasn’t out to lunch. The trend was reversed when Trump was booted from office, and the Biden administration deserves the lion’s share of the credit for America’s geopolitical resurgence

There’s more, but you get the picture. It was, in short, the most consequential Presidential term at least since Lyndon Johnson, and probably since Roosevelt, given the mess that Biden, like so many Democratic Presidents inheriting the nation from a Republican regime, was tasked with cleaning up, except this time it was a train wreck even more severe than the dog’s breakfast Bush the Younger handed to Obama. Joe figured that gave him a record he could run on, and trounce the crazed criminal rapist he opposed, despite his age, and who knows, he may yet have been right, I think should have been right, but after a disastrous debate performance everybody that matters within his own party began to doubt it. Keeping, as ever, a keen eye on the polls, party elders and luminaries convinced themselves, and finally Joe, that he was too old and feeble, if not in reality than certainly in the eyes of the American public, and a Trump victory was certain if he stayed on the ticket. The polling data, especially in the crucial swing states, were indeed dire, and the logic of this one question was, finally, unassailable: with all you’ve achieved, and given who we’re opposing, why are we still trailing by mid-single digits?

So now, regardless of all he’s done, he’s out.

I’m not saying he shouldn’t be. But it’s a Greek tragedy, and my heart breaks for him.

As I write this, it remains up in the air who will now be the Democratic nominee. Biden, to his credit, has endorsed Kamala Harris, a woman whose unwavering loyalty was never in question; hers was not among the chorus of voices pleading with Joe to step aside. It’s a tough call. I have no qualms whatever about her wit, competence, and qualifications for the job, and part of me relishes the prospect of the wily former prosecutor having a go at the moronic criminal in debate (remember how she dismantled Bill Barr during Senate questioning?), but another, perhaps bigger part of me worries that America will never elect a female President, and certainly not a female of colour. According to Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who runs dozens of focus groups monthly, this is also a huge concern to America’s most strategic and pragmatic voting bloc, black women, and if they’re worried, I’m worried. On the positive side, Kamala’s been on fire on the campaign trail, making a vigorous and eloquent case for never letting Donald and his rabid Project 2025 hate goblins near the White House again, and if I had even the slightest regard for the intelligence and sanity of white American voters, I’d be expecting her to romp it in, giving Trump the worst drubbing since Reagan slaughtered Mondale. The stakes are that obvious, and she’s that much the better choice (though of course at this point, a goddam can of creamed corn would be a better choice).

The thing is, as by now you will know only too well, dear reader, I have far less than no regard for the intelligence and sanity of white American voters. I hold out some hope that this time around, unlike in the prior two elections, white women at least, galvanized by the GOP’s war on reproductive autonomy, will finally turn on him. Their men-folk never will, but how could any woman vote for Donald now? I don’t know, though. I asked the same question in 2016 and again in 2020. They voted for him the first time around, and even in 2020, with the various disasters of Donald’s first term still fresh in their minds, the pandemic raging, the economy on the brink, and Donald telling them to inject bleach and swallow horse-deworming pills, white women still broke for Trump, 55%-45%. There certainly remains no shortage of slack-jawed females at Donald’s rallies, and I’m not sure anything can get them to abandon him; after all, the orange monster’s well-known proclivity for rape and adultery never put them off, and tough as it is to swallow there are a lot of pro-life white women out there, so I guess that I just don’t know. They sure won’t vote for Kamala just because she’s a woman, any more than they voted for Hillary.

It’s bound to be a bumpy, anxious ride from here on out. Kamala or not, actually, it’s bound to be. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to worry about that presently, no doubt.

For now, though, let’s take a couple of minutes to have a care for poor Joe. It’s plain that he truly believed he could win, and do the job when he got it, and it’s also plain that while his stamina may be compromised, there’s nothing wrong with his intellect or his judgment. He obviously wanted it so very badly. Yet he listened to reason. He trusted in the wisdom of friends and political savants like Obama and Pelosi, and, against what had been his own better judgment, finally decided that he couldn’t be right if they were telling him he was wrong. That’s a rare and noble thing. A man like him doesn’t get to where he is by failing to believe in himself, by imagining that he actually might not be the only one in the room who knows the score, or by thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t be ignoring all the others hollering what he doesn’t want to hear. Besides, guys like him just don’t want to quit. They hang on, and fight like Hell to stay in the game, just like the ace pitcher with the tiring arm who’s trying to convince the manager not to pull him, because he knows he can get three more outs. Yet this time, that’s not what he did. He nodded, handed the ball to the manager, and exited with grace, dignity, and the interests of the American people closest to his heart.

Perhaps he’s bitter. If so, he’s not letting on, just as he shouldn’t, and just as we’ve come to expect that he wouldn’t. The open letter he sent out today (attached below), announcing his departure from the fray, is a model of its kind, and here’s something new: every word of it is true. He really did achieve those things. It’s good and proper that he now takes a decent pride in what’s been accomplished. And whatever happens, posterity will remember what he did today as an act of humility and stalwart patriotism that put country above himself, and capped what’s sure to be rated as the most successful one-term Presidency in history, one which, God willing, may one day be described as the time Biden rescued the American Experiment.

Now the Republicans, rattled by the change in the electoral terrain, but sensing Joe’s blood in the water, are exclaiming that if Biden’s too frail to run he’s too frail to govern and should resign immediately, led by that oily bastard of a Speaker Mike Johnson. Those miserable, low-down, cynical bastards. They haven’t a shred of the decency Biden displays today, and has, for that matter, always displayed.

Have a look at Joe’s open letter. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do that. Godspeed, Mr. President, and stand tall. You have done your whole duty.