Say it ain't so, Joe
I cannot remember the last time I cried. It was undoubtably over something stupid like stubbing my toe because I didn’t lift my foot high enough when coming inside the apartment from the terrace. Or perhaps reading something to my writing group that unexpectedly went deeper than I’d realized.
Sunday night I cried in shock. Joe Biden has stepped down from running for President 2024.
Yesterday, I cried again while reading the hundreds of accolades that important people are saying about him. Someone sent me a parody of Kamala (Camelot) and I cried and laughed at the same time.
Where is the cynical Sara who thinks every move a politician makes is selfish, self-aggrandizing, and narcissistic? I’m in shock at myself as much as in shock at this turn of events. Since I’ve paid attention to these things, I have said that Joe Biden was a decent human being. In 2008, when he was campaigning for President (stepping aside for Obama), I remember watching him at a fireplace during a fundraiser, speaking, making his usual gaffs, and loving him. I also liked Obama and had no trouble switching my allegiance. Obama holds his cards very close to his chest. We really don’t know much about him except what he has shared in his two memoirs. Joe? We know Joe because he is an open book. We watched him suffer with tragedy after tragedy. We’ve watched him pull himself together and work for the US because that was his job as an elected official. We’ve watched him work with his stutter which tends to come back when he’s stressed. We’ve watched him outsmart many of the MAGA Republicans during his SOTU addresses.
Joe Biden is not only a decent man, he is also a great man.
Yesterday, Hunter Biden wrote that there wasn’t much distance between the public Joe Biden and the private Joe Biden. I believe him.
When I learn too much about a famous person, for example JFK who I idolized as a teenager, I want to stuff it all back in Pandora’s box. I want to hang on to my fantasies that these ambitious people who have to stoop to many compromises to raise money for their campaigns, who tend to misuse power the minute they have it, really are as good as they seem. Then we have Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. They say that Jimmy Carter is the greatest ex-President the US has known. I met him once at a conference on Aging. My mother was getting an award, one I had nominated her for. Carter was the keynote speaker. He was very accessible, shaking everyone’s hand. He didn’t need to. He wasn’t running for anything.
Joe Biden made gaffs. TV and media made fun of him. What you saw was what you got. During these last three weeks, we’ve watched a defiant President try to tell the world that he still had what it takes. I was convinced. Heather Cox Richardson was convinced. Defiance wasn’t a good look on him. He was angry, he was defensive, and he let us see it all. That’s who he is.
It will take me a couple of days to make the switch to Harris. I have an innate fear that the US will never elect a woman, much less a Black woman, or an Asian woman, to be President. White Supremacists, who have an inordinate amount of power, believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen and there she should shut up.
Much of the news says Biden stepping aside has changed the whole geography of the election. Now, Trump is the old man, the crazy man, who can’t finish a sentence, who rambles on and on not making any sense. They are implying that Trump will receive the same treatment that Biden has been receiving. But there aren’t any Republicans willing to stand up to Trump. They are terrified of his retribution.
There isn’t a Joe Biden amongst them. A man willing to make one of the most difficult decisions ever. A decision that serves his country and not his personal ambition.
I subscribe to Good News from The Guardian. Every Sunday, I get four or five articles of good things that have happened in the past week. After a week of bad news, horrifying news, deadly news that fills up every page for seven days.
Maybe this is why I’ve been crying. When I was in my early 20s and studying for my licensing exam (Psychology), I used to watch an episode of Bonanza (which I hadn’t seen it’s first time around) every day. Every day I’d cry at the end of the episode. I quickly figured out that I cried because it was about family, love in the family being a priority, and justice always won in the end.
I think I cried about Joe because I like him. And this man that I like did a courageous and selfless act that if unheard of in this day and political climate. In the end, he showed us his integrity.
I have a vision now that with nothing left to lose, our President will achieve more great things in his last six months.
And then? Please stay alive, Joe. Don’t let this be one tragedy too many. Please muster that working class Delaware boy who has a real spine and served the country well for over fifty years. Be a great ex-President.
A bientôt,
Sara
Beautifully expressed tho I was never a big Biden fan, I had been tremendously impressed with the amount of legislation he was able to get passed and I felt momentarily shocked when he finally announced.
Sometime in the future it may be admitted that he had lost a good portion of young people and BIPOC folks over his refusal to see Palestinian children as full human beings. He lost many of us as we watched children suffer and die in real time.
I hope Kamala can turn the page on that but for now her laugh, her vigor, her energy has infected most of us with hope and scared the bejesus out of Trump.
Wonderful post, Sara. I, too, hope that Biden can have further successes in his last 6 months as president. We will watch closely, how a good man handles that kind of incumbency. I suspect with tremendous grace.
Am feeling thrilled at how democrats have come together quickly behind Harris, even though it's been orchestrated behind the scenes. Just to have hope rekindled, that flame relit, is invigorating.