Joe Biden is Done

I don’t care how many millions of jobs the current administration has created in the last three and a half years – Joe Biden himself just became unemployed. There’s no use in pretending otherwise. That was the worst debate performance by a sitting United States president in history. In a debate about competence and capability, Joe Biden appeared disoriented and defeated. Biden didn’t just lose the debate; he lost his job.

Dazed, if not confused.

From the moment he first appeared, shuffling awkwardly onto the stage, apparently expecting applause from an empty studio, Biden seemed lost. His answers were as halting as his stride. During his first response, he actually froze Mitch McConnell style for a couple excruciating moments before muttering something about “beating Medicare.”

Trump pounced, saying Biden did beat Medicare “to death.” In contrast to Biden, Trump appeared vigorous and in command of the facts. Never mind that he got so many of those facts wrong. It doesn’t matter. This was not a debate a policy. It was referendum on which of these two men appeared more presidential and the answer to that question was unequivocal – Donald fucking Trump.

At that moment, the debate was over.

The format, designed by minimize interruptions from candidates and audience ended up favoring a disciplined Trump, who waited patiently for his turn to speak, nodding along to Biden’s words as if he were listening to YMCA at one of his rallies. When it came time to speak, he opened his mouth and let the bullshit flow in great, beautiful torrents of falsehoods.

It wasn’t until about an hour in that Donald the Demented showed up, but by that point it was too late. And by the time the two old men were arguing about their golf handicaps (yes, that happened), the debate had long been decided and with it, the candidacy of Joe Biden.

Afterwards, for the first - and presumably last - time in my life, I agreed with nearly everything the Trump cronies at the CNN roundtable said. They made the point that if Donald Trump truly is the threat to democracy that the Democrats have been claiming, then their only option is to ditch Biden for the sake of the country. They were being disingenuous in their concern over Biden’s health, but their analysis was correct. They can’t run this guy. Even the Dems at the table offered no defense for the performance; at one point, a teary Van Johnson practically delivered a Biden eulogy.

Finally, the White House sent out a combative Kamala Harris to defend her boss via Zoom. Harris claimed, absurdly, that Biden was “extraordinarily strong,” before rattling off the Biden administration’s accomplishments. It doesn’t matter, Madam Vice President. You can duck and weave all you want, you can trot out all the babies he’s fed and puppies he’s saved from fires. It doesn’t matter.

The image I was left with last night is that the empty suit I’ve often said encases Trump is holding Biden together, as well.

Let’s be clear: the White House did this to themselves. They never have press conferences. Biden never spends extended periods in front of audiences taking questions. This was the first uninterrupted ninety minutes Americans have seen of Biden since the last election, and the change between then and now is obvious. Four years ago, he seemed old, yes, but in full command of his faculties. Now he appears ancient and stumbling. All of his speech tics have become magnified, his meandering more meandering, his stuttering more pronounced. His voice was whisper-soft, the air barely finding enough strength to travel from his mouth to the microphone right in front of his face.

When he managed to gets his point across, he was (sort of) effective, hammering Trump for his morals, his character, his role in picking the justices that overturned Roe. But it wasn’t enough, not by a long shot. The optics were just too terrible.

During the times when Trump was speaking, Biden looked, at times, like an emaciated Uncle Fester. Could anybody watch that performance and think this guy is up for another four years of this job?

Later, candidate-in-waiting Gavin Newsome responded to the question “Do you think the panic is unfounded?”

“Well, I think it’s unhelpful.”

Unhelpful, dude? Unhelpful to whom? To Biden or to the country? I get it. Newsome’s job was to put the best possible face on the corpse of Joe Biden. The problem is, you can only dress up the dead up so much before it’s just another Weekend at Bernie’s film.

You ever not want to be proven right?

Don’t get me wrong. I will vote for Joe Biden in the fall if he remains the candidate. I will do anything I can to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House. But I’m not the person that debate was targeting. Here are the words that spring to mind when I think about the Trump performance last night: “strong, commanding, economy, immigration.” Here are the words that spring to mind when I think about Biden’s: “old.” That’s it. I mean I could add the qualifier “too”, as in “way too fucking old,” but the point remains.

This isn’t me being defeatist. This is me acknowledging reality. The narrative that Joe Biden isn’t up to the job just got firmly baked into the national consciousness. That point is no longer up for discussion. The best the campaign can do at this point is hold a series of very public, flawless Biden campaign events in the next month to demonstrate their guy is fit as a fiddle. Before my considerable doubts are put to bed, I need him doing jumping jacks and jumping over school buses on a motorycle. But they can’t do that, because the Biden we saw last night, I fear, is the Biden we haven’t been seeing for the past couple years.

So what do the Democrats do now? Last night, I imagine at least a few them texted Michelle Obama the following message: “U up?”