To ask for Biden to step down is to remember him as he was and conserve his past victories against the havoc wreaked by time. You would think that very thought must have crossed his own mind more than once. Only losers want a re-match. Tell him that, Jill. Tell him to sit in his chair, put his old feet in a bucket of Radox therapy soak, smoke a cigar, sip an Irish whisky and drop off, savouring the glory that was. Tell him not to give Trump even a sniff of getting the last laugh. Unless, of course, there is some jealousy of Kamala Harris in play and this time Jill wants to be the one who says āWe did it, Joe.ā
But there is another way of looking at this. The reasons Biden should not go on are, if we choose to take the world ironically, the very reasons he should stick it out. Even slurring his words at 81 he makes more sense than Trump ever did at 40. Despite his lapses and confusions, with Biden you feel his words had meaning once upon a time. They reach back to a world of intelligibility he once moved in. They are whatās left after a catastrophe. They are the noble ruins of an edifice that once stood proudly. With Trump, on the other hand, nothing is forgotten because nothing was ever there. He is not the trace or ruin of anything grander. He is the ruin of a ruin.
“Donald Trump is not the trace or ruin of anything grander. He is the ruin of a ruin.”
So how about staying with Biden for the sake of keeping faith with what he no longer is? I hold this to be a principle that should guide us with the old generally. Yes, their slowness of gait is exasperating if you happen to be behind them on a crowded street; and yes, waiting for them to form a coherent answer to a question you havenāt asked can make you feel your own life blood is ebbing away. I know. I am one of the slow myself. But if the alternative is the young pushing you aside as they run marathons in the park, whizzing past on e-bikes which they discard when theyāve run out of places to speed through, like children throwing toys out of the window and, when it comes to serious matters, jumping to conclusions which are invariably erroneous, then give me the old any time.
Where is the virtue of youth if itās wasted on acceleration and where is the virtue of acceleration if thereās nowhere we want to go tomorrow let alone today? When the young know nothing, we have a duty to revere the old who at least took the time to know something once.
But itās not only for lacking youth and urgency that the 81-year-old Biden matters. We value him, no less, for the absence in him of a single oratorical gift. In a world of shysters and liars, Biden can proudly boast he is neither mountebank nor rabblerouser. Ask yourself what heart Biden ever quickened into rash action. Thatās right ā you canāt recall one. Neither can he.
Consider the times we live in. On marches and in protests all over the world the gullible gather, mouths open, eager to be told what extremist position to take up next. Did any good ever come of a political rally? The public speaker who canāt be heard, who freezes and forgets his lines, is a Godsend in an inflammable world.Ā āSo I ask you, comrades, to join me in condemning . . . something or other, I canāt remember what. Good night, go home, love one another, and donāt forget to feed the cat ā or do I mean the dog.ā
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