Senile vs Insane

A plea for America

Once upon a time, there were two men locked in battle for the fate of the world. The names of these men were Senile and Insane. Unfortunately for the world, these names were perfect descriptors of the men they were attached to.

Senile had energetically served his nation for many decades, but the old energy was gone, dissipated in the brain fog that sometimes accompanies old age, to the point that it was a feat of great endurance for him to speak even the shortest of sentences with anything resembling coherence.

Insane was a corrupt businessman and criminal who had ended up in the highest of political offices, an office which he had disgraced in a deliberate, sustained attempt to overturn democracy itself—an attempt which had ended in violence and bloodshed.

Both of these men were, many thought, unfit for the position they sought. Alas, they were the only two candidates for that position, and that position was, essentially, leader of Planet Earth.

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Well, that’s basically the position we’re in, isn’t it? I refer, of course, to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The latter we already knew to be a danger, but the debate between them on 27 June confirmed the former’s incapacity—and no follow-up speech, however energetic, will wipe his drooling performance from anyone’s memory, though he himself might well forget all about it before long.

There are already seditious mutterings among some Democrats, and it is not too late to replace Biden with a non-senile candidate (which is about the best anyone can hope for now). But suppose that the contest remains Biden vs Trump, as I suspect it will. What then? A Trump victory was already too likely for comfort, and now I fear that it might be a certainty. Biden’s performance might just have ensured it.

But some simple points remain.

There is one candidate in this election who is at least a quasi-fascist, whose base is a collection of racists and reactionaries and who uses the language of racial purity, and one who is not.

There is one candidate who is more or less openly devoted to the destruction of American democracy and the American Constitution, and one who is not.

There is one candidate who is willing to use political violence to achieve his ends, and one who is not.

There is one candidate who is the darling of the Christian theocrats, and one who is not.

There is one candidate who is a criminal, and one who is not.

There is one candidate who would abandon Ukraine, NATO, and the global defence of democracy, and one who would not.

And so on and so forth—I could go on. Whatever some might say about Trump Derangement Syndrome and being stuck in a January 6 2021 time loop, this election, like its predecessor, really is an election about democracy. It really is an election about the meaning of America: does it hold true to its secular, democratic roots, or does it abandon them?

A vote for Trump is a vote against America, or at least a certain—and, I would submit, truer—conception of it. To vote for a man who wants to rip up the Constitution and who will (as things stand) be remembered chiefly for loosing a mob of violent freaks upon the Capitol to prevent the democratic process from taking its course—that would be unpatriotic. No, more: it would be anti-American.

And yet, we are hurtling towards that man’s victory. Such an outcome might well be the end of America. It might even be the end of the liberal world. Of course, many of Trump’s supporters explicitly want this. They care nothing for Ukraine, or for their own Constitution and democracy. They want to stick it to the global elites and usher in an era of national conservatism, which is to say, an era of theocracy and bigotry and isolationism. (Their exemplar is the odious little hack Tucker Carlson.)

If this comes to pass, the Democrats will bear much of the blame. They have chosen to rely on a bumbling old man to combat the threat of authoritarianism at home and abroad, and they are now reaping the consequences of that choice. Unfortunately, the rest of us might have to face those consequences, too.

I am no fan of the Democrats, or of Joe Biden. I do think his administration has done some good things (for which, by the way, it receives no credit), not least of which is its staunch support for Ukraine. But Biden is not a great man or a great president, and his senility is a danger to himself and others because, among other things, it might lead to Trump taking the White House again. Even if Biden wins, do even his most fanatical cheerleaders still think he is capable of governing for four more years? And I have not forgiven him for the cruel abandonment of Afghanistan.

Even so, a vote for Biden is the only decent choice in November, assuming he survives (politically or otherwise) that long. In a choice between a relatively benign dementia patient and a man who gives every indication of being psychopathically insane, I’ll choose the former, every time.

Whether you are on the right or the left or anywhere else, so long as you care about your nation’s democratic ideals, you must vote for Biden. If you want a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump is not your man. If you want an end to Critical Social Justice in your institutions, Trump will be unable to do anything about it short of full-blown authoritarianism, so unless that’s what you want, Trump is not your man. (And if that is what you want, go ahead, and destroy the noblest principles of your nation.)

This could be a moment of rare unity between left and right. The left will be protecting America’s radical roots (and they were—are—radical) and the right will be conserving the American political tradition. What more do you need to stand together, just once?

But, you might well ask, what does it have to do with you? Fair question. I’m not an American, and I have no vote. But I (and everyone else in the world) have a stake in the outcome of the US presidential election. A Trump victory, I repeat, is a death knell to the liberal world, not just to its centre. So, no, I won’t be coy in opining on American politics. Besides, the idea of America is, or ought to be, universal. On that basis, if no other, rests my justification for wading in and pleading to Americans to vote for Joe Biden in November, senility and all.¹ (And, in the longer term, I plead, please do better all round.)

In 1776, America’s greatest (and least appreciated) Founding Father, Thomas Paine, wrote that ‘The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.’ It still is. And the defeat of that cause in America is a defeat for humanity.

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Update (added 2 July 2024)

Well, the news that Trump (and all future presidents) has been given partial immunity for actions undertaken in office is another blow—and another betrayal.

Here is Paine in 1776 again (Common Sense, of course): ‘[L]et a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.’

And here is dissenting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, yesterday: ‘The President is now a king above the law.’

For shame. For absolute shame.

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Messrs. Senile and Insane

1. You might also fairly ask, don’t you have your own election to worry about? Yes, indeed, the UK votes on Thursday, but Nigel Farage was right on this, if nothing else: the American election matters far, far more, even to those of us outside of America. On the UK election, though, I look forward to seeing the Conservatives gone.

In other electoral news, it was heartening to see Narendra Modi not doing as well as expected, though his triumph, however diminished, still represents a blow to Indian secular democracy. As I put it a few months ago:

With Modi and his party up for re-election later this year, it is no wonder they are so flagrantly pandering to their Hindu nationalist base. Modi is likely to win a third term, so for how much longer will India be able to retain the title of the world’s largest secular democracy? Meanwhile, with Donald Trump, darling of the Christian nationalists, tying with and sometimes even surpassing Joe Biden in the polls, the world’s oldest secular democracy might also be preparing to self-immolate this year.