by am_Unition

We wrote a lot of this article ourselves in chat the other day.

There is, ultimately, a self-serving dimension to these “Biden too old” takes coming from the center to conservative non-MAGA Right. They are preemptively assigning blame – for a possible, maybe even expected Trump return to power – to those who have annoyed them and with whom they have disagreed for some time: the Democratic Party and its liberal enablers and cheerleaders in the media and elsewhere. As the whole center-Left and all the Liberals are supposedly losing their minds, they tell us that they are the only rational actors in the game who are still willing to acknowledge what is so evidently true. And when Trump wins in November, they can tell us “We told you so.” I can’t help but think of this as a form of resigning oneself to an outcome they claim they are trying to prevent. A particular kind of accommodation even.

Leftists are doing it too. Soooooo many leftists even go so far as to say that there's not really much of a difference between Biden and Trump. I'm all for ditching most of our hypercapitalist bullshit, but if people don't understand that the only possible way that happens without utter calamity is through voting Joe and doing their part to instigate the collapse of the GOP, I dunno what else to tell them. Yeah, our democracy sucks, I know. Yeah, Joe's old, and the democrats are overwhelmingly corporatist, I know. But get real. Unless you don't mind taxpayer-funded mass deportations of migrants and internment camps, you have one choice this November.

The most common alt-candidate I see proposed by leftists is Marianne Williamson. Truly, I get the frustration with establishment Washington, but it's hard to take these folks seriously. I doubt Williamson would be able to form a broad enough coalition, especially the fundraising infrastructure, to defeat Trump, even if Biden had long-since dropped out and she was still around in the primaries. But do I feel like the dems have misstepped by not having planned for Biden to step aside? Yeah, very much. And still, if he had, I don't know if there's anyone I think is capable of stepping up to take on Trump. I'm also willing to bet that none of those same leftists found Bernie's age to be a potential issue in 2016 or 2020. Neither did I. I'd have voted Bernie in the primaries if I'd had the opportunity.

But I agree that the emergency press conference Biden hastily scheduled to rebut Hur's report was embarrassing. He revealed how much discussions of his age bothers him, which guarantees that the GOP will bludgeon him with it. Yes, Hur was way out of line, and Merrick Garland managed to embarrass himself yet again, but I wouldn't have addressed it like that, I would have waited to inevitably be asked about it by a reporter in the very near future and claimed to not give a fuck.