Happy 248th Birthday!

I have some notes and wishes.

Hello to all! This week’s Choice Words is a FESTIVAL OF CHOICES with the inimitable Joy-Ann Reid - which - and I should mention this part, happened prior to last week’s…UGH…(horrible, very bad, no good) debate. 

So I guess…Happy July Fourth? I dunno. If the overflowing fireworks display at the Stop & Shop near my New Hampshire rental house is any indication - people don’t much feel like celebrating? 

Like most people I know, I watched the debate last week in a state of horror, sadness, and frankly anger. Literally watched with my hands across my eyes, in full body agony - squirming in discomfort, wriggling between the sofa cushions for comfort like a struggling teen in a makeshift squeezebox. 

In the ensuing week, the story of Joe Biden’s demeanor went from “prominent democrats call for Joe Biden to step down” to If You Are Not With Us You Are Against Us, Your Questions About Joe Biden ARE NOT HELPING, He Is Fine, He’s A Minx-y Flirt Behind The Scenes, He Can And WILL Take You In A Fistfight, You Are Malarkey.

Obviously I am a democratic voter. If that is not obvious to you then I do not even know. But HOO BOY do I LOATHE being made aware of the size and scope of the democratic party machine. I saw what I saw. Do not ask me to wipe my brain clean with a neuralizer and tell me everything is fine.

This is pathetic. It is mean. It is the HEIGHT of arrogance to tell us that what we all saw with our own eyes is false. We aren't stupid. Many of us have grappled with elderly family members, and this is feeling pretty familiar, OK? Anyone who has wrestled a driver’s license out of the hands of an 86 year old somewhere along the way is well aware of where elderly male ego can take us. I’m sorry but it’s true. Please don’t for one second tell us that the man we saw at the debate last week is going to somehow be more effective TWO AND A HALF YEARS FROM TODAY, midway through his second term?? Like are you fucking joking???

Literally, if you cannot bat away DJT’s RIDICULOUS claim that democrats want to give birth to full term babies and murder them and that is what an abortion is - if you cannot JUMP on that, and call it out for being absolute LUNACY, then no. No. That was the lowest hanging fruit that exists. That fruit was lolling about on the ground, along with many other varieties of fruit, ripe and ready, left to slowly decay.

You can hate me, you can say this is ageist, that is fine. It’s not. I adore elderly people, I will indeed be one myself one day, and Joe Biden is a great example of what a vibrant, healthy man of 81 can look like. Wonderful! Live your life! Consider not being president!

How did we end up here. Does it even matter? In the past I would have reluctantly agreed that Joe Biden is probably the only person who could beat Trump. No one wants it to be true but it is…probably, maybe true. Brand awareness is everything in a political race and he is the only person whose name has been kicked around long enough that even someone who never thinks about politics ever might think “oh yah I heard about that guy before, ok, whatever, sure.”

But I am not sure I believe that anymore. Like I *want* to be a person who believes that America would vote for Kamala Harris, but they won’t, as much as I am wishing it into existence. I am sorry. I have seen too much.

Do I think Joe Biden should do his patriotic duty and step aside? Yes. Do I think he will do that? No. Is he right not to? Probably? Maybe? 

I know nothing, except that I’m angry right now. You don’t want to think that you live in a world where age and term limits have to be made into laws. You like to imagine that at a respectable age, people take a stark look at reality and act accordingly. We should actually, across most industries, at some point, step back and let younger people take the helm. Make way for new generations of leadership. Fill the pipeline with talented people who might actually be alive when the future is upon us, and might have skin in the game for when the oceans are burning. And believe me…this applies across ALL branches of government. I am not talking Logan’s Run here, people. I am saying that we can come up with a number that actually makes goddamn sense.

So, OK, we are not really voting for the people on the two elderly men on the ballot, we are voting for the cabinets they will appoint, the people they surround themselves with, the people whose counsel they adopt. CAN WE JUST HAVE A DEBATE BETWEEN THOSE PEOPLE NEXT TIME? Do a matchup with Steven Miller and whoever is running the show behind the scenes in the Biden camp? Truly, I do not know who that is.

You know what actually? We are good. We have alllllll the info we need. On the one hand we have like, one of the world’s actual worst people, who wants to be king, running a campaign of vengeance and violence, and bigotry. My god, the judges he will continue to appoint? Vanquishing him is, of course, top priority. 

And on the other hand we have Joe Biden or a reasonable facsimile, good at some things, bad at other things - but who generally wants to keep the country moving on a steady path forward, in relative harmony, and be beneficial to the big juicy middle of the country.

The party who wants the country to continue existing > The party who truly does not seem to give a fuck about that.

Of COURSE whatever happens I am voting straight Democrat, don’t be ridiculous. I’d literally vote for a greasy pizza plate over Donald Trump. I’d vote for a herpes riddled pigeon. Frankly, I’d vote NOT to have a president for a while over Donald Trump. 

Try something new? A gap year. An Interim President? No problem, I nominate Ina Garten. 

But she, of course, is too smart to accept.

So let's go...while we still can...or this time next year I fear we will be mourning our country with fireworks displays and replacing "God Bless America" with "God Save the King."

Xoxo,

Sam