I’ve written ad nauseam about how much I hate this election, about how Trump-Biden 2.0 is even more demoralizing than the first season of our never-ending reality show, Electile Dysfunction: America Has Gone Soft. “For me, the prospect of a Trump-Biden rerun makes me so disillusioned about politics that I find myself wanting to sit this election cycle out completely,” I wrote last October.
Those feelings have only intensified since. Trump is now a Convicted Felon™, with more cases pending. He will likely be in court for the rest of his life. Hunter Biden, who has no problem with ED despite the heaps of cocaine he was on, is also a Convicted Felon™. Biden is, well, Biden. We are ruled by criminals and Olds.
Yet like a moth to the flame of a burning dumpster fire, I can’t turn away. Which is how I found myself watching the disastrous first presidential debate in June. My husband, whom I love dearly because he suffers no fools online or off, refused to do so. It makes him too mad: “They’re all liars.” So I was banished upstairs with kettle corn to watch the “event.”
I wondered how bad it would be. Would Trump be Trump? How long would it take before Biden stumbled? The anticipation made me feel dirty, like gearing up to watch a bum fight between geriatric homeless people. Only it’s two men scrapping over control of one of the world’s superpowers.
Thirty seconds in, my guilt quickly turned into anxiety. Biden stumbled immediately — but worse than that, he looked lost and old. He wore the same expression as a neighbor with dementia who wandered out of the house and got lost. Why was this poor man on stage?
Empathy kicked in — which may be why the media and the DNC are still struggling with the fallout from that night. We can’t unsee what we saw. Sure, we’ve all caught the clips of him looking ancient before — but this was different, because we couldn’t lie to ourselves. Until that debate, his team had done a great job hiding Basement Biden. After, it seems clear that the commander-in-chief isn’t in control. That raises the question — who is?
The debate didn’t improve. Biden whiffed on easy slam dunks like abortion and January 6. I was unable to concentrate on a single thing he said because I was so on edge every time he started talking. For the first time in a while, I missed cigarettes. I would have chainsmoked a pack. I stress-ate the entire bag of kettle corn instead.
The highlight, and the most impassioned the candidates got about any topic, was a squabble about their golf handicaps. Although it felt detached from the reality of struggling Americans, it was a moment of levity we all needed.
By now most everyone knows the outcome. Exactly how poorly did Biden perform? Well, he’s running against a guy whose mushroom-penis affair with a porn star has been scrutinized worldwide, who faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the US, racketeering and willful retention of national defense information — yet Biden still lost the debate.
I was about to turn off the TV and go to bed when they cut to the CNN post-debate panel. I figured I would see the same gaslighting that I’ve come to expect in regard to Biden. But the strangest thing happened: they turned on him. Altogether. Van Jones was fighting back tears. The pundits were exposed and they were terrified. They couldn’t spin it. I was riveted.
As if the mainstream-media mouthpieces hadn’t lost enough credibility already through the pandemic, their insistence in the weeks before the debate that Biden was fine and we were all just crazy rubes falling for “cheap fakes” made the instant pivot after it all the more jarring — and satisfying.
As the ash settled, journalists claimed the Biden team “hid his condition,” which would make them horrible reporters! Every average Joe in America has been saying that Biden’s brain is pudding since 2020. You didn’t need exclusive access to the president and a degree from Columbia J-School to see that. By day’s end, calls for Biden to step down were being published.
We’re now in the “see what sticks” phase of the aftermath. “Biden had a cold.” “He had jet lag” — twelve days after he returned from Europe. The most infuriating cope is, “At least Biden isn’t a liar.” His entire administration defrauded the American people about the condition of the president. In a functioning society that would be a scandal. If that’s your sole defense of Biden, you have no case. They’re all liars.
I stand by my view that neither one of these buffoons are in a fit condition to be leader of this great nation and therefore I don’t care who you vote for. This election is wack. Do whatever you feel is best for you, your family, your country.
If Trump or Biden actually cared about America they would step aside for the next generation. But they don’t — and they won’t. We are currently passengers in a car with an old man who shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Buckle up.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s August 2024 World edition.
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