Was it really a “shock” on Sunday, as so many media reports had it, when Joe Biden decided to withdraw his candidacy for re-election? It was more the inevitable conclusion to a sad story that’s unfolded not just since his agonizingly awful debate performance, but over almost the entire course of his presidency.
When we still printed the Voice, I delivered bundles of the paper around town every Tuesday morning, and many a time I would lurch back to the car after a clumsy exit from an Avondale or a gas bar to be informed by my co-pilot spouse that I was doing Biden again.
As about 2,500 years of philosophy going back to the ancient Greeks tells us, subjective perception eventually replaces objective reality in the human mind. Biden did an increasingly credible impression of a doddering old man, and that’s not what you want in a leader, no matter how allegedly competent he’s said to be behind the scenes.
(Ronald Reagan suffered similarly, particularly in the last years of his second term. In what would become a classic SNL skit, his forgetful cluelessness was revealed as a charade, concealing the real Ronnie, a decisive mastermind barking orders at flustered underlings in the Oval Office. Little known at the time, of course, beyond a few insiders, was that evidence of his eventual dementia had arguably already been seen.)
So word of Biden’s decision comes as the best news of his catastrophic campaign. Finally, thank god, there is a smidgen of a possibility—or half a smidgen, says a more morose buddy—that the despicable Donald J. Trump will have his lying, wannabe-Fascist, sexually predatory, Grade 4-intellect-level ass shown the door in November.
Now it’s a battle between the young former prosecutor and the geriatric current felon. Female vs. male. Caucasian (not counting the ridiculous fake tan) vs. not. Smart vs. dumber than dirt. It’s a Tarantino film that writes itself. Or maybe a Marx Brothers farce.
Younger votes, non-white voters, female voters—all potentially about to be roused from their resignation at the status quo, just in time to rescue what remains of American federal democracy before the Supreme Court hammers the last few nails in its coffin.
That’s the best-case scenario. The cult-leader con-man sent packing, the GOP jolted out of its decade-long enthrallment with the most depraved political movement since the “America First” Nazi-sympathizers at the start of WWII, whose most infamous mouthpiece was the Hitler-admiring Charles A. Lindbergh.
The more likely scenario is that it’s a nail-biter, a race that won’t be decided on election night because margins will be so close that no news organization will risk calling it prematurely.
Why would margins be so tight? Because it is unwise for anyone with even a moderate grasp of American history to underestimate the contaminating currents of misogyny and racism that continue to flow through the American psyche—less visible, maybe, in recent years, but running deep, generations deep, and reanimated by the Obama presidency, itself the original fuel for Trump’s ugly ascent via the “Birther” movement.
But still, unlike this time last week, there is actual hope that our American cousins may yet avoid staging a real-life production of The Handmaid’s Tale in a border town near you.
In other good news
As some readers have noticed, with occasional and appreciated concern, my wandering thoughts have not appeared in this space for a week or two. It looks like late April was when I last accosted you. Therefore I present the proof-of-life photo above, kindly snapped by Fenwick Lion Mike Manzoni last Saturday at Summerfest. Yes, I remain ambulatory.
Unless it’s a close friend or loved one, no one likes to hear other people’s health stories, so I won’t yammer on too long here. The happy bottom line at the moment seems to be that there’s nothing seriously amiss. Yet for the last two years my ferritin levels—a measure of the body’s iron stores—have been at rock bottom. This seems to have been a consequence of colon surgery I had in 2021, leading to a decreased ability to absorb nutritional iron, no matter how much Popeye spinach or deliciously bloody prime rib I consume.
Cutting very quickly to the chase, after oral iron supplements were intolerable, a couple of weeks back I finally went in for an iron infusion—literally a bag of liquid iron fed by IV—and the resulting improvement has been undeniable. I didn't dance out of the hospital exactly, but there's been a distinct uptick in my physical and mental wellness.
That said, between the need to stay hydrated to keep my guts from blocking up yet again, and the competing need to frequently offload that hydration due to the inevitable anatomical changes visited upon men in late middle age, there had better be a washroom handy every 30 minutes or so, or Ol’ Baldy is hopping up and down like a five-year-old. This makes driving 90 minutes into Toronto, say, annoying for everyone, including me.
Still, everything considered, I can't complain too loudly. Between the invigorating boost of iron and the existential relief at Biden’s departure, plus the welcome reopening of LCBO stores, things are looking up.
And now enjoy this classic routine. RIP Bob Newhart.
