President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (Credit: @JoeBiden on Twitter)
I know I said I would take a few weeks off, however, today’s event felt worthy of some remarks. As with all things on this website, I am offering my perspective and my perspective alone. I try to be fair and balanced with many of my arguments, but this is first and foremost a place for myself to put what I believe into the world in an organized way so I can chronicle what is unfolding for myself. I share it with others because I believe that some might be comforted or inspired by what I have to say, but ultimately, I am speaking to an audience of one: myself. I speak for no organization, no affiliation, nothing other than myself.
Today, President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking reelection. This comes after weeks of the national debate, including other Democratic Party officials, saying that he should step aside based on his performance at the first Presidential Debate against the forty-fifth president.
Joe Biden may have been one of the best Presidents for the American people in decades. He took office in the middle of the worst pandemic in a hundred years, and managed to steer America out of it, avoided economic recession when it seemed inevitable, ended America’s longest war, pushed us more towards clean energy, strengthened labor unions, fought junk fees and extraneous charges against ordinary Americans, supported Ukraine in its fight against its Russian invaders, and restored a sense of grace, dignity, and competence to the White House.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about all of this. I think Joe Biden was the most impactful president of my lifetime in a positive way. I wanted to see him make it the full eight, but I’m proud of voting for him, proud of my country under his leadership, and proud of him for stepping aside when he needed to for the betterment of the nation.
I’m also saddened. He was a good man and a good president, and it’s been often said one cannot be both. The end of his reelection campaign was spent with everyone talking about all the bad things he did, and senior members of his own party hitting him in the press. Part of me is also saddened to see age catch up with him. We’ve seen Joe Biden at his best, and that was a pretty good bar for a President to reach. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see that he’s just not at his best anymore. That makes it all the more admirable he’s doing what’s best for the country, and that’s what I hope we all remember Joe Biden for doing: having the grace and humility to say, “I cannot give the American people my all anymore, and they deserve to be led by someone who can.”
I see a man who believes in America and has genuinely done better for the country than any other president of my lifetime. Joe Biden built a coalition and showed us that the people who think similarly to me can not only reach high office but do good for the people of a nation that I think we haven’t seen in decades. I see an administration built with competence and a desire to serve. A cabinet of people who I think genuinely want to do the best for the nation, and who are willing to work hard to achieve it.
As for the debate which set this chain of events into motion, I have nothing but empathy for the President.
Most politicians have their talking points. You know roughly what they’re going to say before they say it because they maintain consistent messaging. You have someone play the other politician in debate prep who has practiced their expected answers to develop your rebuttal. You can’t plan for Trump. You don’t know when you hear a question that he’s going to stay within the subject area of the question, which means you have to be thinking about anything and everything at any given moment. You can’t hear an economy question and go, “Okay, I gotta think about the economic stats now” because Trump will fire off about Russia and China and his golf course and abortion and the border and say nothing about the economy. Now you’re trying to tie all of those factors into the economy, recall the stats, and respond to incoherent rambling in the span of a few seconds.
Going up against Donald Trump can’t be easy. You hear an economic question and still have to keep everything in mind because Trump will go so far out into the weeds that you’ve got no clue what’s going on. Furthermore, this debate was hyped up as supremely important, so much so that Joe Biden took a week for debate prep. Then, he got sick. The President had a cold, there were lots of talking points he had to keep track of at all times, under a massive amount of pressure, and he went up against the single most difficult man to speak to in the entire nation, all on prime time television.
Biden would have looked better if he had gone, “I don’t know what that was” in response to Trump’s answers to any question and then just spoke to what the moderators asked instead of responding to Trump. Biden tried to play It’s Academic in a boxing match, and he got punched in the face. He prepped for the debate as if he was going up against someone who wasn’t Donald Trump when he should have known better.
However, I can’t say I wouldn’t have the same reaction going up against Trump myself.
It looked like Biden got himself utterly tongue tied when he tried to use all the information he had to refute Trump’s multi-point nonsensical ramblings. It’s very difficult to construct a detailed, multi-pronged argument on the fly and respond to something with no structure. You hit a stumbling block, and everything comes out jumbled or borderline incoherent. That gets you off your game and you keep making errors to compensate, which only makes you look worse. It’s what happens when the mind runs too fast for the mouth.
The President sounded just like I do when I try to quickly refute a crazy statement with a multi-pronged argument based on facts and logic. My mouth can’t keep up with my brain. Joe Biden stuttering on the debate stage, and obviously getting flustered was so relatable that it hurt. I’m not even thirty. None of my doctors or my therapist seem to think I’m mentally degraded. I didn’t think the debate performance was that much of an indicator of Biden’s mental fitness, but it wasn’t a good night. Maybe it was the push he needed to kick off this national conversation.
At the end of the day, it’s about beating Donald Trump in November.
I have a very negative opinion of Donald Trump. I make no secret of the fact that I love my country, and I see Donald Trump as the representation of its worst qualities: greed, ego, self-centrism, chasing power above all else, vanity, and an eagerness to throw out the rules whenever it suits them. I see him as stoking division and sowing hatred. He has taken stated positions against women, minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, the disabled. I have many close friends within these groups, and I cannot in good conscience support a man who targets them so callously.
More importantly, I think Donald Trump is the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. I have seen on news throughout my life the footage of tinpot dictators executing their will on others. I have seen in other places the house of government being stormed by an angry violent mob. And I was told for my entire life that it would never happen here. Then I watched it live on CNN when it did on January 6th, 2021. He has maintained a close relationship with the Heritage Foundation and implemented most of their policy suggestions during his tenure in office. His followers are on board with Project 2025, a comprehensive set of objectives, policy goals, and steps which would erode American democracy and move us towards an authoritarian theocracy antithetical to the ideals this nation was founded upon. The ideals which we are still striving to achieve.
In my opinion, Donald Trump cannot be allowed to take back the White House. I think that every honest conservative would agree with me. He does not represent their standpoints on anything and holds no love or loyalty for America. He only looks out for himself. The Presidency is a position of sacrifice, of compromise, and of service. Donald Trump knows none of these concepts. I don’t think that conservatism is a bad thing by itself, but this is not conservatism, its cultism. It has no place in American government.
Neither does the violence. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was horrific. Political violence does not belong in this country. We have always practiced the peaceful transition of power, since George Washington left office in 1797. We fought campaigns with words and ideas, not violence and bloodshed. And we strayed farthest from the goals we should work towards as a nation when we let violence and hatred into the political process. America has a great many sins, and they’re fair to talk about. However, this is the nation we have, and we must do our best to ensure it meets those lofty ideals espoused in our founding documents. We have never met them, but that doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t try.
I supported Joe Biden because I feel like he has genuinely tried to do the best he can for the average American. He has policies, and ideas, and empathy. That’s the kind of President I want my nation to have. I wanted to believe that Joe Biden had a few more rounds in him. However, he’s throwing in the towel because he believes it’s best for the nation. I can say nothing negative about that.
Furthermore, Biden has endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris. I believe in her. She will continue the work started under President Biden. I do not believe that she wouldn’t have been chosen for the ticket in 2020 had she not modeled the same values which Joe Biden wished for his administration to exemplify for the nation and the world. I firmly believe that we can win this election and continue the good work of the last four years.
Let’s go win this election for Joe.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
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