Time to Retire, Mr. President

December 2023

Abstract:
An 86-year old president is not a good idea. President Biden will be one if he stays on. Not a good idea!

Mr. Trump, the previous president, has been convicted of finger-raping a woman in a department store – which is consistent with both his own recorded remarks on the pleasures of that practice and with a long line of accusations of sexual abuse against him – and of fraud in his business practices, and is currently on trial to determine the fine for those practices. He further has trials scheduled for inciting to riot and insurrection (one judge has already found that he did so) – and he may be found unqualified for office on that basis, as well as for conspiring to falsify election results, separately in federal court and in the State of Georgia. Not to mention the trial for absconding with masses of classified material, which he then refused to return. He is facing by last count 91 felony charges. I have no fear of being contradicted when I say that we have never had a serious candidate for the presidency with Mr. Trump's kind of record.

Quite apart from the court cases, we watched President Trump in action in the fall of 2020. Well before the election, he declared to his followers and the world that if he did not win, that would be proof that the election was rigged, and that he would not put up with. When he lost the election, he made good on that promise and tried to enlist his staff in an attempt to falsify the election. To their credit, most of them refused. He kept that up during the last two months of his presidency, and now, running for election again, he continues to foist his lie of a stolen election (and many other lies) on the American people. And the Republicans are eating it up. They really don't care what he has done – this crass, near-illiterate hawker of content-less political pap is their golden boy. Now don't mistake me for a Democratic shill; I've voted for many Republicans and I agree with conservatives on a number of issues, but one thing that apparently distinguishes me from the majority of current US Republicans is that I recognize a charlatan when I hear one. And Mr. Trump is the very model of a political charlatan.

Let me insert here a few words about election security in the US. Who's responsible for it, actually? Locally, 50 state election authorities are responsible for local management of elections. But above that, responsibility for nationwide election security is held by the US Dept. of Homeland Security, through their "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" (CISA). As they advertise on their website, "CISA works to secure both the physical security and cybersecurity of the systems and assets that support the nation's elections." And who is in charge of this operation? The president, naturally. In the fall of 2020, that was Donald J. Trump, responsible for the security of the national election he continues to excoriate. It would be no surprise to learn that Mr. Trump was ignorant of the fact that he was in charge, as he was ignorant of many of the duties of the presidency.

On Oct. 22, 2020, twelve days before the election, President Trump's "Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council" (EIGCC) issued a statement that concluded with: "We are committed to making sure that American voters determine the outcome of the election. Be prepared for attempts to confuse or misinform; be prepared before casting your ballot; and be prepared for foreign efforts aimed at sowing division and undermining the legitimacy of the election." The Council, as well as the American people, were not prepared at that point for the eventuality that the president himself, the man responsible for election security, would be the one who would attempt to confuse and misinform, to sow division and undermine the legitimacy of the election. But that – unfathomably – is what happened.

On Nov. 12, 2020, nine days after the election, President Trump's EIGCC issued a statement, largely in response to Mr. Trump's baseless complaints about election fraud, that included these findings: "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history." And further, "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." And responding directly to the president's false claims: "While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too." How an incompetent and vulgar confidence man has managed to captivate more than half of the Republican voters in the country we'll leave to later analysts to try to grasp. From my perspective of looking for the best qualified, knowledgeable, talented and experienced person to be president, that kind of trivializing of our presidency is a travesty.

But the Democrats also have a problem. When we voted for Joe Biden in 2020, we expected him to be a one-term president. If he wanted two terms he could have run in 2016, as a younger man. So now the problem – the only serious problem – is his age. Unfortunately, that's the one thing he can't do anything about. Biden is 81, and in 5 years when he would still be president, assuming he wins next November, he will be 86! We've never had an 81-year old president before, much less an 86-year old.

The president and his campaign team are eager to tell us that he is in good health. That may be, but frankly, he already looks somewhat unsteady on his feet and sounds a bit unsteady in his speech – most observers seem to sense some deterioration there over just the past three years – but the point isn't whether he is in good health, it's whether he will be in good health five years down the road. I happen to be older than Joe Biden – I'm where he hasn't been on the road of life, and believe me – your health and your mind do not improve as you progress through your 80's. Quite the contrary, steadiness of gait, of mind and of speech will continue to degrade, eventually quickly. Joe Biden deserves to age in honored retirement, and we, the American people, deserve a president at the height of his or her powers. I will say that if Joe Biden is our nominee next year against Mr. Trump, I will vote for him – but only because of the horrors of the alternative and because his vice president should be able to hold the fort if things go wrong.

To be fair, let's raise a glass to Joe Biden for ridding us of the foppish would-be despot we had in the White House in 2020. It's questionable whether any of Mr. Biden's competitors for the 2020 nomination could have achieved that. Joe Biden was the man of the moment in 2020-21. He had the contacts and influence in Washington to get vital things done, in spite of eventually dealing with an unfriendly Congress. He put climate action back at the top of the agenda (where it belongs) and managed to obtain funding for it, while getting our post-covid economy back on track with full employment while bringing inflation under control. He repaired our international relations, which had been badly damaged by you-know-who, and he led the world in meaningful opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was decisive in saving that country from being swallowed up once again into Putin's expanding Russia. And that job is far from finished.

Only the president's inappropriate cheerleading for Mr. Netanyahu's pitiless, genocidal retribution against Gaza will cloud his repute. In the last weeks, the US has lost much of the international respect that Mr. Biden had amassed earlier in his term. We may say in mitigation that Biden's unqualified support for Israel was first expressed immediately after the Hamas atrocities against Israel on November 7, and before Israel's plan for blood revenge times ten had been demonstrated, but once Israel's own atrocities were plain to the world, the president should have put his foot down to stop it, not just uttered mild chidings under his breath. What Israel has done to Gaza is, after all, the same outrages that Mr. Biden and the whole world berated as war crimes when they were done by Russia against Ukraine. Those actions were and are war crimes. Many international leaders have reminded the US that we ought not have double standards. The nations of the world determined in 1945 that razing cities on top of their inhabitants must never be done again. But now it's being done, by both Putin and Netanyahu – in the latter case with US arms in a gross violation of the aid agreement. They both deserve the strongest censure, and the billions in US aid scheduled for Israel's armed forces should now be rerouted for Gaza relief and rebuilding. Mr. Biden has indicated that he does not intend any changes in the US's Israel aid policy as a result of Israel's evident war crimes. That will be a blot on his record as president, and another reason to pass the torch.

Recently, President Biden surprised us with the statement that he might have served just one term, but changed his mind because he felt that "we cannot let him win", referring to Mr. Trump. But many voters, myself included, feel that the effective way to ensure that goal would be to either retire or invite other Democratic challengers to join him in the primary contests, so as to allow the voters to decide who would be the most effective Democratic candidate in 2024. I personally would bet that Mr. Biden would not come out on top in that contest, and that the result would be a candidate more clearly able to negate and defeat Trump's typical offensive barbs and insults. Although Mr. Trump is incapable of conducting a meaningful conversation or debate on any serious subject, his incessant lies and false implications must be rejected with knowledgeable and forceful facts in order to show the man's total vacuousness. President Biden is not at present at his best at that skill, and therefore is not our best candidate in 2024.

In the end, the cold political truth is that a year before the election Mr. Trump is gathering a following such as would have been thought impossible three years ago, when he was shamed for his behavior at the end of his term. At this point he is in full campaign mode, telling his followers that when elected he will rid the government of all who have opposed him and all who do not subscribe to his cockamamie views. The reason he is able to gain followers with his Mussolini-like bluster is that the American people see Mr. Biden as a weak candidate; he has not effectively defended himself against Trump's ravings nor been able to convince the people that he will be a strong and effective president when he is 86 years of age. And he will not be able to convince them of that. And that is why, even if we think he has been a good president, he is not the person who comes to mind when we are looking for a president for the year 2028.

So it is time to move on with "new blood". We can hope that the Democratic party leaders will understand the need to offer Americans a new candidate for president. There are capable people in the statehouses and in Congress ready to take the helm. I will not make any recommendations at this time, but will take note of some individuals who could make a case to be considered for the role of president. Most presidents have come from state governors' seats or from the Senate. Only one has come to the office directly from the House of Representatives: James Garfield in the 1880 election, and he had in fact already been elected by the Ohio legislature to the US Senate when he was elected president. So a viable candidate directly from the House of Representatives would be unexpected.

Naturally, Vice President Kamala Harris can be expected to be a candidate. She has not had the chance to make much of an impression on the American people during the past three years, but the impression she left as a presidential candidate four years ago was less than memorable. Potential candidates from the Senate could include Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar – both productive senators, while from the Cabinet Pete Buttigieg has also shown an interest in the position. (One may suspect that Mr. Biden's invitation to Mr. Buttigieg to take the relatively anonymous position of Transportation Secretary may have been a defense against his competition in the current election cycle.) So far the list is looking like that in 2020. Governors who should be considered include Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, and Jared Polis of Colorado.

Of this group I would personally lean toward Whitmer, Booker or Klobuchar for their positive involvement in the issues I see as pre-eminent in the coming election. These include the Earth's climate, world peace and arms reduction, US poverty, border control, and gun-related crime.

We can hope that enough pressure will be applied to Mr. Biden that he will see the wisdom of retiring, and that this decision comes quickly. He has done enough to be honored as a good president, and needs to restore for us the currently tarnished image of "past president". Unquestionably, the most persuasive pressure would come from the home front. Jill, in the end it may be up to you. Your husband is making a consequential mistake. Now is the time to tell him, "Joe, I need you at home."

Unfortunately, the horror of Israel's Armageddon visited on the civilian population of Gaza has been such that it has nearly removed Putin's war on Ukraine from the news media. After these weeks of terror over Gaza, President Biden has by his near-silence become complicit in Israel's genocide. His evident political calculations are losing him support by the day, another reason why he should not attempt to run again.

At the same time, however, it's not clear that Mr. Trump will be running again. Two states have now ruled that the US Constitution renders him ineligible to run for president because of his incitement of and involvement in the attempt to violently overturn the last presidential election. However, this question will soon end up in the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority will be asked to support this dismissal of the darling of the country's conservative voters. Either way, there will be fireworks.